How to make Best Alternative View the default view

DEVONthink
1

Hi all, I enjoy using Bike files in Devonthink, but the default Text Alternative view shows what I assume is a view of the html that it uses, while the Best Alternative view is correctly rendered as an outline. I’d like it to default to the Best Alternative view.

You can use a shortcut to switch views, but if you have 10 files in a list and want to browse through them, its a chore to switch views every single time you press up or down.

I can’t spot an option in Settings (other than one for emails only). Is there any way of achieving this?

2

The default view can be only chosen in case of Markdown documents, emails and sheets. There are no Bike specific settings. What’s the extension of these files?

3

.bike files

5

Sorry for flogging a dead horse here, but I just noticed this morning that this isnt actually the case. Omnioutliner (.ooutliner) files for example will default to best alternative view. Html, powerpoints, word docs files also seem to.

I know this doesn’t seem like a big thing but I’ve stopped using DT at the mo because I use bike extensively and it won’t render the files in Text Alternative view. So if I have a list of files I want to browse I have to select best alternative view every single time I click on a file. Its frustrating because it seems such a tiny problem but I can’t fathom out a solution. Any input welcome.

6

Bike files with the extension bike seem to be HTML. Which, probably, no other app knows. So, they have little to no chance of doing “the right thing”. If the used html as extension, it might work better with other apps.

Or Bike’s text format might work better in DT.

7

Yeah I’m sure its bike’s odd format that’s at fault, i know no-ones going to bend over backwards to accommodate such a niche bit of software. But it does preview fine in Finder, as well as Alfred, Keep It and Eagle Filer, I’ve only found this issue in DT. And ironically html files will default to best alternative view, so id be very happy if it treated bike files the same way!

Anyway, such is life, thanks anyway.

8

When I put a .bike file into DEVONthink, it views as a rendered document.

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9

Does it do that by default or did you manually choose Best Alternative View?

10

It did it by default. I did nothing more than grab the default Bike document and put it in a group in DT.

11

Hmm. Well that’s promising, but mine certainly doesn’t do that right now. It defaults to Text Alternative. Any insight into why?

CleanShot 2024-08-22 at 16.20.11

12

bike-import

13

Thank you. I can see it works on yours as desired. I was just wondering if there was a reason yours was functioning differently. Is there a setting I can change?

14

I’m sure there’s a reason (as things don’t happen without a reason :wink: ) and no there’s no specific setting I can point you to. In DEVONthink, hold the Option key, and choose Help > Report Bug to start a support ticket.

1 Like
15

Did you import these files before or after installing the Bike.app on this computer? Is it installed in /Applications?

16

Bike was installed before adding the files to Devonthink. Its installed via SetApp, so its at Applications/SetApp/Bike.