I should have left well enough alone as I’m now fixing my own stupidity.

• add: Pull down from top of editor to reveal search bar
• add: Extra keyboard shortcuts for Focus In/Out (arrow keys, Home/End)
• change: Date/time pickers now use proper sheet presentation instead of alert controllers
• change: Style settings apply live while the sheet is open
• change: Sidebar project tree always shows disclosure column for consistent alignment
• change: Search bar buttons reordered (Help before Save)
• change: Search help Display section uses icon rows layout
• change: Toolbar buttons use centralised ToolItem metadata for icons and labels
• fix: Edge swipe gestures moved to native screen-edge recognizers for better reliability
• fix: Fold indicator dots no longer trigger toggle-done when tapped
• fix: Duplicate project names at different indent levels now resolve to correct subtree
• fix: Toolbar reorder no longer allows dragging the Style button out of position
• remove: Cold launch reopens last opened document, will rework soon

• tapping the and then swiping that sheet down is essentially a “cancel”; I expected it to commit the changes I had made.

Good point. I’ll look make those changes live soon.

• Swiping L→R on the outline focuses into that node; how do I undo that?

Swipe left from near the edge to the edge, ie. the opposite way. Let me know how it works for you, I can control the widths of the edges swipe areas. I only added this today so it’s quite fresh and not seriously tested.

• I can’t seem to swipe to dismiss the keyboard

Will look into it.

• I wish I could “swipe down to open a filter typeahead”, like how Bear or Things allow you to do.

Will need more info, as I don’t use either. Please open an issue on the github. See top of thread.

• I only have a single taskpaper file… any way to permanently bypass the file picker?

You can use a widget to jump back into the most recent file. There are also some long press actions on the icon but tbh I think the need redoing. I’ll see if I can make this better.

time picker

Odd! One of the first things I added so definitely not very well implemented

Please add as many of these as you can as github issues @connor I’ll get to them tomorrow or at the weekend

A few small things -

• tapping the and then swiping that sheet down is essentially a “cancel”; I expected it to commit the changes I had made.
• Swiping L→R on the outline focuses into that node; how do I undo that?
• I can’t seem to swipe to dismiss the keyboard
• I wish I could “swipe down to open a filter typeahead”, like how Bear or Things allow you to do.
• I only have a single taskpaper file… any way to permanently bypass the file picker?

Is there anything I could do to make the experience better?

• add: OPML import converts outlines into TaskPaper structure
• add: Focus In/Out tool to drill deeper or step back through the outline
• add: Focus In/Out keyboard shortcuts to Option+Command+Arrows
• add: Left edge swipe to focus in/out
• add: Right edge swipe to reveal/hide the filter panel
• add: Search toggle to include descendants of matching items
• add: Collapsible sections and nested project tree in the filter panel
• change: Priority toolbar icons changed to chevron style
• change: Find button now visible in toolbar by default
• change: Search help sheet updated
• fix: Auto-capitalisation no longer eagerly capitalises every word on bullet lines
• fix: Selection preserved correctly across rapid focus transitions
• fix: Fold indicators no longer cause crash with some large files

avi-cenna:

Unfortunately it was a little unstable for me. I think there were a couple time where it seemed it wasn’t saving my changes to the document

If you really thing this is happening please pay special attention to the exact behavior. I haven’t notice this happening to me.

Please make sure to check Setting > General > Prompt to send crash reports

With that checked it should be that:

1. After a crash
2. Next time you launch, Bike will start an email for you with crash report
3. You just need to send that email please.

Generally it’s been very stable for me lately, and I haven’t been getting many crash reports. So it would be good to find the problem you ran into.

Unfortunately it was a little unstable for me. I think there were a couple time where it seemed it wasn’t saving my changes to the document, and just a minute ago the app completely crashed after I simply pressed the “tab” key to indent several blocks of content.

PaperTrail (260319.0031)

• add: style settings to customise font, text size, and various colours
• add: @progress tag to track task completion percentage across children
• add: @cost tag with aggregation methods (sum, count, ave, min, max) and filters
• add: @start(auto) and @due(auto) tags that compute dates from children
• add: fold-to-level menu for collapsing to a specific depth
• add: find button in the toolbar
• change: tapping a tag now triggers search even while editing
• change: tag search now matches by name only, ignoring value
• change: auto-capitalise first letter typed on empty bullet lines
• change: improved scroll performance with reduced restyle buffer
• change: fold indicator drawing uses cached markers for smoother scrolling
• fix: corruption bug during text editing of calculated tags
• fix: fold indicators properly refresh after scroll ends

OPML import is done and will be in the next build

• fixes for some issues I introduced yesterday

Erlend:

By “Delete”, you mean the same as my “Backspace”, right? (Which is what it’s called on my Norwegian Mac.)

Yeah, I think. My keyboards show “Delete”, but probably same thing. The get the keybinding that I want I need to type “Delete”.

No, in settings you can set the keybinding for Text Mode/Block Mode, or both. I am saying you should just set this keybinding for Block mode, so it wouldn’t be active in text mode. And it would also override the default Cocoa keybinding for Delete.

I think so… The current behavior is in there now as “Edit: Delete”. That represents the default delete action. And it is invoked using your default “Cocoa” keybinding system. In most all setups action is bound to “Delete” key… ideally I would have that shown in the Keybinding column, but I don’t have code that reads the Cocoa keybindings at the moment.

Bike’s internal keybinding system will run first, so if you map Delete to some other command, that default Cocoa command will be ignored.

A bit confusing I know. Ask more questions if still doesn’t make sense.

But remember, that single key shortcut can be the Delete key.

By “Delete”, you mean the same as my “Backspace”, right? (Which is what it’s called on my Norwegian Mac.)

Couldn’t that mess with the regular use of backspace in text mode? Or would it be two different things as the use we’re discussing now is in the outline mode? (I know that things are more hybrid in Bike 2…)

As you now have the keybinding settings, I guess one solution would be to have both “Outcomes” as items there. Something like this (if we keep the default like how it is now):

• Delete rows: Delete/Backspace
• Delete content: r

In other words, not only add the action I’m missing to the keybinding screen — but also the current behaviour of the delete key. And then user can swap around if they want to. (And, as you said, the default can be decided later.)

Erlend:

Outcome A be the default behaviour for backspace, and have the dedicated hotkey do Outcome B.

This is interesting point/idea. I’m not sure, but in my mind now at least.

I do think I’ll start by providing a “deleteText” command. That will implement the behavior that you want. You can experiment with various keybindings and see how it feels. We’ll worry about standardizing behavior later. (reminders welcome, I forget things!)

Erlend:

Outcome A) Delete all content, but leave the first line intact.
Outcome B) Delete everything, including the first line.

But remember, that single key shortcut can be the Delete key. I’m pretty sure that with commands+keybindings you can get the exact behavior that you want. Alternatively, I think this is less good idea, but possible, you could bind each keyboard key to outcome A and then insert the keyboard key. Thus getting the behavior where starting to type performs the replace.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t see the appeal for others! Especially people that are more used to proper outliners. It’s just that what Kallovsky said so perfectly covers the way I think. (“I want an editor as nice as Bike and I want folding and structure, but I could live without the outlining behavior.”)

Another point about the current situation… Let’s say there are two possible outcomes when selecting multiple blocks and hitting backspace:

Outcome A) Delete all content, but leave the first line intact.
Outcome B) Delete everything, including the first line.

If the behaviour was A, you could easily get to Outcome B by just hitting backspace again. However, now it’s annoying to get from Outcome B (which is the behaviour in Bike 2) to Outcome A — especially if you have a list or something. After hitting backspace, you need to hit Return, maybe Tab to indent, and then turn it into a list. =/

That said, I don’t mind your proposed solution to the problem! Having a dedicated command/hotkey to get Outcome A.

However, due to personal preference, and the argument above (it’s easier to go from A to B than B to A), I would have Outcome A be the default behaviour for backspace, and have the dedicated hotkey do Outcome B. Or a toggle to swap between them? But I understand prioritising users who think more like proper outliners!

Erlend:

I think it makes sense that hitting backspace deletes everything, so I don’t really have a block to write into. But just starting to write should just add text to the top selected block, IMO.

I agree, this is a rough case, but I don’t think I like idea of typing in block mode always performing a replace. One cool think about block mode is that typing isn’t expected to insert, and so that means you can have single key shortcuts to commands in block mode. A simple example is now in block mode if you hit Space it will toggle done. I think there are many other interesting behaviors/modes to explore.

Back to the problem, I think my proposed solution would work like this:

1. Create a command that deletes selection and places caret in first row. (So you wouldn’t actually delete first row), but you would delete all content.
2. Create a keybinding for this command. (Now possible in settings panel). You can choose a traditional style keybinding Shift/Command/etc Delete. Or you could just choose a single key such as “r”, to replace the selection. I think a single key binding would work well for this case.

What do you think?

kallovsky:

I think I would like that. I’m using “Select All” at the moment mainly to expand all branches and I just want to continue typing where I started after expanding.

Recently we just discussed this related:

I think I will be adding Expand/Collapse All commands soon. So that will take away that particular select all need. I expect I will also change the select all behavior as described above.

I think that is my main problem: I want an editor as nice as Bike and I want folding and structure, but I could live without the outlining behavior.

Yeah, this is me as well. But I’m trying to learn the new behaviour.

One related issue I’ve had is the following:

Let’s say I have a list of items, and I want to start over fresh on that list:

The way to do that, that’s intuitive for me, is to select the items and just start writing:

(The editor style is a work in progress — don’t mind the selection not hitting just right. )

However, doing that doesn’t do anything now. And hitting backspace and then starting to write doesn’t work either… I have to delete, and then move the cursor to where I want it again.

I think it makes sense that hitting backspace deletes everything, so I don’t really have a block to write into. But just starting to write should just add text to the top selected block, IMO.

I think that is my main problem: I want an editor as nice as Bike and I want folding and structure, but I could live without the outlining behavior. Maybe an extension really is the solution.

I think I would like that. I’m using “Select All” at the moment mainly to expand all branches and I just want to continue typing where I started after expanding.

I will definitely try that! Thanks!

kallovsky:

I’m having a hard time with the selection behavior in Bike 2:

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.

One more update here… extensions. I don’t necessary mean “you” need to write these yourself. If you think these specialized command would be useful make a request and I might add an extension for them. But with the new LLMs I think it’s quite possible that even if you are not a developer you could just describe what you want and 10 minutes later you might have the feature implemented for you.

With .opml and .bike, perhaps they could be loaded and converted, but what happens for saving? Would they import only and save as .taskpaper? If it’s one way then why not just export as .md? Would they need to be converted back? If so how would metadata be lost or kept?

I don’t think there are any easy answers.

• 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.

To test Moby Dick I used the .md file

So, yes, it will open files with any of these extensions (I’m going from memory!):

• md
• markdown
• todo
• txt
• taskpaper

New files will be created as .taskpaper

Let me know if there are any other file extensions or types that make sense and I’ll look into it. All files are considered as plain text. There’s a reformat/reindent tool (hidden by default) if you need to get files into proper shape.

After launch we can think about whether it makes sense to work with .bike files and, if so, in what way. I’m not sure.

• fix: collapsed sections no longer lose their fold state after edits, line moves, tag toggles, or undo/redo
• fix: cursor no longer jumps to the next line when toggling @done off in some situations
• fix: fold indicators now update correctly after line moves

Thanks for the detailed bug report with video, Mike!

jessegrosjean:

And also it would be nice if this was all updated (that fork is quite out of date), but not in scope for me at moment

Bummer…would like to see this implemented at some point, but I can live with the Linter plugin in Obsidian for now. Here’s the regex pattern I use:

• \[(.*?)\]\((.*?)\)\{mark\} to find links containing highlighted text (Bike outputs this as [link](url){mark})
• \[(.*?)\]\{mark\} for everything else (should cover examples like [content with [nested brackets] or {curly braces} or **bold syntax** or *italic* or any other markdown syntax including [links](likethese.com)]{mark}

While figuring this out, I noticed some hiccups with links:

1. Type link title into row
2. Select link title
3. Invoke formatting palette (cmd+E)
4. insert link URL
5. Try to dismiss with cmd+Return

Link entry popup will stay open, but cursor will jump into next line. You can then dismiss popup by clicking Save but that will put link into current line. Dismissing with Return instead of cmd+Return seems to work OK.

LeftHandSolution:

@jessegrosjean correct me if I’m wrong. ==highlight without bold text== could be rendered without any issues; the problem arises if we have ==highlight **WITH** bold text== ?

Yes, I think that’s it. I investigated a few months ago when I first added markdown. I’m using this package to parse markdown. And then that uses this fork of cmark. I think that’s where the == is being parsed. And also it would be nice if this was all updated (that fork is quite out of date), but not in scope for me at moment.

import { Font, Image, SymbolConfiguration, defineEditorStyleModifier } from 'bike/style'

let modifier = defineEditorStyleModifier('metasyntax', 'Metasyntax');

modifier.layer('row-formatting', (row) => {
  row(`.unordered`, (context, row) => {
    const font = new Font('SF Symbol', 6);
    const bullet = new SymbolConfiguration('circle.fill')
      .withHierarchicalColor(row.text.color)
      .withFont(font);

    row.text.decoration('mark', (mark) => {
      mark.contents.image = Image.fromSymbol(bullet);
    });
  });
});

I went off and learned what SF Symbols are, realized the quickest way to get what I wanted was to just use a small font. Don’t know if that’s the Right Way but it works.

The only thing that tripped me up was at one point when I was messing around, I used a function I hadn’t imported, but there weren’t any errors showing up in the terminal or in the Logs Explorer. So there were a few back-and-forth “it works when I do this, but when I add this nothing changes” before I realized. But I gotta say being able to just npm run watch, edit the code, and immediately see the result is really good.

• add: Tool Belt customisation — show, hide, reorder via the guide/config sheet
• add: descriptions for each tool in the guide sheet
• add: quick filter tool to focus on current project
• change: Tool Belt guide button icon from ? to config slider symbol
• change: reformat and quick filter tools repositioned with editing tools
• change: power-user tools hidden by default (alarm, fix, todo, call, priority, clear, reformat)
• change: consistent naming to ‘Tool Belt’ throughout
• change: folder markers slightly more opaque
• change: code optimisations

The far right tool used to be ? help but now is something that looks more like “config”. Not sure about that TBH. Might go back to the ? even though it’s less accurate it is perhaps more discoverable.

Gorgonzola:

Can I convince you to change [highlight]{mark} to ==highlight==?

I don’t think that’s easy. The swift markdown lib that I’m using for parsing recognizes ==highlight== syntax, but unfortunately it does not recurse on the content. So it will not recognize bold text that is inside that highlight. This means formatting can be lost when you reload your document.

complexpoint:

I may have missed scope for making the sheet draggable (in the manner of a floating window or panel).

I don’t think the underlying macOS sheet created by this API can be dragged like that. I think a new API is needed to show a window.

What I am not yet managing to do is to arrange the DOM and app views next to each other, so that I can see them both at the same time. (The DOM sheet appears to be centered over the app window, and not immediately draggable to one side).

I may have missed scope for making the sheet draggable (in the manner of a floating window or panel).

EDIT: I found the issue or it is an expected behavior, IDK. Any theme file stored in Library/Application Support/Bike/Themes/Extension Themes folder is deleted automatically every time Bike 2 is restarted. Any file stored in Library/Application Support/Bike/Themes remains untouched.

Erlend:

When I collapse them, the numbering is correct — but not when expanded.

Oop. Will fix.

When I collapse them, the numbering is correct — but not when expanded.

metasyntax:

I’m a web developer and it was super easy to get started with the extension kit. I’ll have to play with it some more now. Thanks!

Oh, that’s great to hear! Do let me know if you see areas that could be improved. Except for this project I haven’t used standard web tooling that much. And for styling willing to share what you came up with?

doug:

Will you be adding these to Bike 2?

I’ve been avoiding adding because there are so many expand/collapse variants, it starts to make the menu long and confusing. But there probably should be a way to expand/collapse everything without having to select it all first.

Bike 2 does already have:

• Expand Row (expand selected row)
• Expand Row By Level (expand selected branch by level)
• Collapse Row (collapse selected row)
• Collapse Row By Level (collapse selected branch by level)

What if I also added:

• Expand All (expand all rows)
• Expand All By Level (expand all branches by level)
• Collapse All (collapse all rows)
• Collapse All By Level (collapse all branches by level)

In these examples the “By Level” variants would be alternate menu items, not shown in menu until you hold down Option key. And for the “All” cases, I mean in the focused view, not in the entire outline.

What do you think?