I’m having a hard time with the selection behavior in Bike 2:
Do I really have to press CMD-A three times to get a “Select All”? Or did I mess-up my setup? It looks like I have to go through “Select Paragraph” and “Select Branch” before – although there are explicit shortcuts for those!?
After “Select All” (3 times CMD-A): How am I supposed to get back to normal editing mode (text mode?) at the position where I was before pressing CMD-A? Pressing Escape, I end up at the end of my document.
Why can’t I select half of one branch and half of the next? Bike switches to outline mode (block mode?) and selects both branches completely.
I think I’m having general problems with the changes to the “Edit Mode” behavior and I’m missing the old “Text Mode” where I could use Bike like a text editor, move branches around freely – and switch to outline-mode when I need it.
It is quite different and comes with different tradeoffs.
Bike 1’s selection model was unique and had some great features. In particular pure text editor in text mode, full outliner in outliner mode.
It was also complex and unfamiliar to most users. In particular Bike’s primary feature is being an outliner, and many outline users were confused by Bike’s text mode and wondered why outline commands didn’t work on structure.
In Bike 2 I’ve decided to lean more on the outliner side of the fence. Now outline commands (move, etc) always work on outline structure. There isn’t different behavior in text and outline mode. The selection model is also intended to work like a standard outliner.
At the moment yes, though not sure that design is quite right.
Many outliners do have a two phase Select All. Three phase is probably a bit much. Maybe even two phase is too much. I’m open to suggestion on this. At the moment I’m inclined to change Select All to just select everything.
Shortcuts for “Select Paragraph” and “Select Branch”. Probably those can be removed too. Mostly hold overs from Bike 1, where it was more important to be able to Select a branch quickly.
I don’t think reversing a Select All operation is standard in many editors, and Bike 2 doesn’t currently implement it. But I think it can without too much trouble. In next release you can reverse a Select All with Edit > Selection > Contract Selection. Maybe Escape in that mode should also contract selection. Will have to think on that one.
You can I think select half of one branch and half of the text, and if you apply a formatting operation it will apply only on your selection. But for outline level operations in Bike 2 you are always working on outline structure. Even when you just have a text caret showing. So when you select half of one branch and half of the other, if you do a delete, or move, ext… you’ll be acting on the common outline structure.
That’s understandable, but I don’t expect that I’ll add it back. I made this change a long time ago in the 2.0 schedule and it’s pretty baked in now.
With that said, a big feature of Bike is extension system. It’s possible to add your own outline editing commands that work like Bike 1 text mode commands. You wouldn’t be able to get the old full text selection mode back, but you could implement move/delete/etc commands that act only on directly selected rows.