Finally got my new(er) Mac, so now joining the Bike ride. Let me be the first to have you welcome me aboard! And the umpteenth, Jesse, to congratulate you on a fine piece of work. I’m loving it and I’m still peddling in the lower gears. Where has this been all my life?
My wish list item:
I’ve gotten used to Obsidian’s action with the END and HOME keys, missing it in Bike. Often (i.e. happens a LOT), I’m in the middle of a line, doing a spot of editing, and I want to go the end of the line. Like, right now.
In Obsidian, END takes you to the end of the current (wrapped) line, and hitting it again it takes you to the end of the 'real’ line. For me that’s perfect. Your mileage may vary.
Likewise in Obsidian HOME takes you to the beginning of the line. Hitting it again takes you to edge of page, out past any indentation formatting.
Other useful meanings for END and HOME (end of this outline branch, end of file, …), (HOME to top of this outline branch, top of file,…) might be found with modifying keys, but these simple ones would help me a LOT.
In Bike of course, END and HOME would have to take hidden formatting characters into account. Like, first tap takes you to (either) end of text, second tap takes you outside hidden formatting, third tap takes you to (either) end of the next larger structure, or something like that. Whatever, I ain’t no programmer.
I see also that Command-Left/Command-Right work in the same way in Obsidian. In fact in a default macOS keybindings setup it looks like all these commands are mapped to the same underlying moveToBeginningOfLine and moveToEndOfLine actions.
So I think the question is should Bike change the behavior of these underlying line movement actions. I think generally it isn’t a good idea, but maybe OK as a preference that’s off by default.
One note, macOS already has similar behavior if you use Option-Up/Down. That will move first to the start of current paragraph. And then once their up to the start of the next paragraph.
I’m looking for more input. Would any other users want this change? Do any other Mac apps besides Obsidian customize this behavior in similar ways?
What does the END key do currently in Bike? For me it scoots all the text up and brings the end of the file to the middle of the screen, but does not move the cursor.
Not sure when I would want or need to do that. But I have constant need to move cursor to end of line.
Just my take on it.
Ahh, I see the issue. At some point I customized my macOS keybindings to give the behavior that I’m seeing. I’m pretty certain that I didn’t do it specifically for home/end keys, since I never use them. But I was testing custom keybindings at some point and must have copied in this set.
Maybe custom keybindings can get you most of the behavior that you want.
Here’s one tutorial that shows how to customize keybindings on macOS:
I don’t think you’ll be able to get the HOME once to beginning of line, HOME again for paragraph behavior. But you will be able to get HOME to beginning of line behavior. The nice thing about doing it this way is that you’ll then have the same behavior in all (well most) macOS text fields, so not just in Bike. Generally I think this is the better solution.
Please, no change in behavior to default macOS text navigation (unless it’s optional, of course). I move between text editing apps frequently and it’s bad enough to remember the different shortcuts for the same formatting, at least this stays fairly consistent
