How do others handle document management with Bike?

Sorry if this sounds like a stupid question (please don’t laugh at me XD). I really like Bike’s editor, but it feels like a throwback to the Office 365 days in terms of document management and content viewing. You can’t visually view text content and create folders to manage documents like you can in Obsidian. Curious how people are incorporating Bike into their daily use!

Your original title spoke of documentation (Bike’s documentation – i.e. its user guide – is, of course at https://bikeguide.hogbaysoftware.com), but I think you were really asking about document management, so I’ve adjusted the thread title.


FWIW I personally keep one folder for Bike files, and I point The Archive at that folder, for quick string searches across files.

( For more specialised multi-file filtering and reporting I happen to use XQuery searches over my .bike files folder )

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Thank you for your reply, it was very helpful! :heart:

Curious about The Archive. I was introduced to Markdown way back with Gruber’s first post but started using it heavily last winter, mostly with Ulysses (not pure MD, I know). I’m learning to take notes with Obsidian—not for academic research but more for capturing and developing my own thoughts in a memoir style.

I’ve looked at other Zettelkasten tools, like Zettler and MD editors, like Typora and Zettlr, and I’ve heard of The Archive, but I’ve never used it. How does it compare with others? I work across Mac, iOS, Windows (for work), and a little Android, so cross platform is a plus. I want somewhere to jot notes easily and keep them in a Zettelkasten. FWIW, I also use several mind mapping apps—I may have settled on iThoughts.

For me, that Bike doesn’t have its own “library” or filing apparatus is one of its best features, not something lacking. I use my Mac’s Finder to organize my files, and my files are just that—files, that I can access from anywhere, move anywhere, open with anything; in other words, they are in my full, visual, mentally-graspable control. I’ve tried using apps like Ulysses and others that seem to introduce a new (opaque) file system of their own within the perfectly good file system my computer already has, and they have never worked for me long-term. Different systems work for different people, obvs! :grinning: I may be completely misunderstanding what you meant by “visually view text content and create folders to manage documents” but yeah, that’s what I use Finder + Spotlight + Quicklook + Alfred for.

The Obsidian model is perfect. Provide a file pane rooted with a single folder. The files are still in the file system, but can be easily previewed and browsed. I am craving this myself in Bike, it’s the most important missing feature to me.

See also:

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Ditto on just using Finder. I have a folder containing just journal files (one Bike file per day), but everything else just gets a date in the filename (“2023-12-27 Meeting with Sam.bike”) and dumped onto the Desktop.

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