Macintosh

After a couple of weeks using Yojimbo from Bare Bones Software, I’m really liking the application. I’m finding it useful and helpful to have an “anything bucket” into which I can toss bits and tidbits of information on an as-needed basis. It’s become incredibly useful for quickly throwing in a URL from Camino or NetNewsWire that I can come back and review later.

However, I do have one major complaint with Yojimbo: it doesn’t honor default applications. I don’t use Preview for PDF files; I use Skim. I don’t use TextEdit for text files; I use TextMate. When I double-click a PDF file in the Finder, Skim opens. When I double-click a text file in the Finder, TextMate opens. Yet, I can’t open PDFs or text notes in Yojimbo in those applications. Instead, Yojimbo forces me to use Preview and TextEdit. C’mon, Bare Bones! Can’t you just add a feature that tells Yojimbo to honor the default apps?

I’ve been on a bit of an AppleScript kick recently. I’m not 100% sure exactly why, but I have. I’ve always been a bit of a fan of Apple’s “natural language” scripting engine, but I’ve also always been frustrated that more applications don’t support it. Even Apple’s own applications don’t support AppleScript as well as some other applications do.

In the event that you like using AppleScript, too, I thought I’d post my scripts here, along with a brief description of each one. You may need to modify them to suit your needs, and I’ll open deny any liability for anything that happens if you decide to use them. If you suddenly become more productive, it’s not my fault.

These scripts were written for use by/with the following applications, and all scripts (where applicable) offer support for notifications via Growl:

• OmniFocus
• NetNewsWire
• Twitterrific
• Camino 2.0 Beta 3
• Safari 4.0.2

I wrote a couple of AppleScripts for Viscosity as well, but those are so ridiculously simple that I won’t even bother posting them. Just look at this link and you’ll see the extent of Viscosity’s AppleScript support.

Without any further delay, then, here are the scripts!

Send Headline to OmniFocus

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I think I got the basis for this script somewhere else, but honestly I can’t remember where. The idea behind this script is that when you see a headline in NetNewsWire that looks interesting, you invoke this script and it creates an action in OmniFocus for you. That way, you can quickly scan all the headlines in NetNewsWire, create OmniFocus actions for those that warrant further attention, and then get back to whatever it was you were doing previously. Like most—if not all—of the scripts here, I generally invoke this script using Quicksilver.

Send Tweet to OmniFocus

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This script was directly based on this blog entry, so I’m not due any of the credit. Once again, the idea is to support quick information aggregation. You see a tweet in Twitterrific that looks interesting, or perhaps it has a link in it that you want to investigate further. Invoke the script and it will add an action to OmniFocus with the contents of the tweet. Later, when it fits into your workflow, you can perform a more in-depth review of the information and process it appropriately.

Retweet Unmodified Post

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The current version of Twitterrific (version 3.2) lacks quite a bit of functionality, like retweeting, view the whole conversation, etc. So, to work around the lack of built-in retweet functionality, I wrote this script. It’s not the greatest in the world, but it helps a little bit. Select the tweet you want to retweet, invoke the script, and your Mac takes care of the rest.

Send URL to OmniFocus (Camino)

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You can probably guess the purpose behind this script: to take the information from the frontmost Camino window and create a task in OmniFocus. Yes, that’s right, I have very little imagination. I figure if you limit the amount of browsing you do to defined times (something I’m still working to perfect) then you can instead focus on more important things—you know, like getting your work done. Bosses like that. You only need to invoke the script and it will automatically pull the URL and the page title and push them into OmniFocus.

I also have a Safari version.

Send URL to Pukka (Camino)

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After mourning the loss of Cocoalicious for quite some time, I switched to Pukka. Pukka offers a built-in service accessible via the Services menu, but it wasn’t picking up enough inforamtion from the browser. So I wrote this script to retrieve the URL, page title, and selected text (if any) from the frontmost Camino window and feed them to Pukka. The user then adds any tags and posts the URL to Delicious.com.

Open Source in TextMate (Camino)

Download Link

This one was more challenging than I had anticipated. I suspected TextMate’s AppleScript support would be more than it was, which was—quite frankly—rather disappointing. In any case, invoke this script and the HTML source from the frontmost Camino browser window will be opened in TextMate.

Well, that’s it. If you have any useful AppleScript scripts, tips, tricks, or other trivia to share, please speak up in the comments.

Prompted by this Twitter status update, I started looking around for a way to create a new folder using Quicksilver. For those of you that aren’t familiar with Quicksilver, it’s a bit hard to describe. I think someone once described it as an “extensible interface for manipulating objects” or some such. In any case, it is an extremely powerful tool for streamlining many, many operations on your Mac.

So, in case you’re interested, there are two ways to do this. Here’s the first method:

1. Invoke Quicksilver. On my Mac, I use Opt+Space to invoke Quicksilver.
2. In the first pane, start typing to have Quicksilver try to find the object you’re seeking. In this case, we’re trying to select the parent folder for the new folder we are going to create. So, if we wanted to create a new folder in our personal Documents folder, we’d start by typing ~ (tilde). That would select our Home folder. Then start typing Documents until it matches that. Continue until you’ve found the parent folder of the new folder you are going to create.
3. Press Tab to move the action pane and select New Folder. (Just start typing New Folder until it matches.)
4. Press Tab to move to the object pane. You should be in a text entry field. Type in the name of the new folder you’d like to create. Press Enter when you’re done.
5. Quicksilver creates the folder, and then places the new folder in the subject pane with a default action of Open. Press Enter and it will open the new folder you just created.

Pretty handy, eh?

Here’s the second method. This method assumes you have a Finder window open and can select the parent folder of the new folder you want to create. For example, let’s say that I have a folder in my personal Documents folder named Customers, and within that I want to create a folder named XYZCorp.

1. Use Finder to navigate to the parent folder of the new folder that you want to create. Click once to select it.
2. Invoke Quicksilver and press Cmd+G to take the object selected in Finder and put it in the subject pane.
3. Press Tab to move the action pane and select New Folder. (Just start typing New Folder until it matches.)
4. Press Tab to move to the object pane. You should be in a text entry field. Type in the name of the new folder you’d like to create. Press Enter when you’re done.
5. Quicksilver creates the folder, and then places the new folder in the subject pane with a default action of Open. Press Enter and it will open the new folder you just created.

I think I like the first method better, but both approaches are pretty good.

Feel free to share other Quicksilver tips you may have in the comments. Thanks!

Hyperspaces, the application designed to extend and build upon the built-in functionality of Spaces, has been updated again. My first coverage of Hyperspaces was back in October 2008, and at that time the application still had a few rough edges. I’m happy to report that Hyperspaces seems much more polished this time around—it’s clear that Tony Arnold, the developer, has been paying attention to the details.

For example, the latest build of Hyperspaces provides an animation transition for desktop backgrounds, a feature that was lacking previously. In earlier builds, there was a jarring delay between switching desktops and the background switching as well; now, there is a nice transition from one background to the next. Much better!

Based on Tony’s comments from the first article I know that he has a number of features still in the works. I’d like to cast my vote for a pager that isn’t attached to the menu bar as the next major feature to be implemented. (I’d really love to see desktop transitions, aka the “Cube effect,” return, but something tells me that will be a lot harder than detaching the pager from the menu bar. I could be wrong, though.)

Either way, Tony, keep up the great work. Hyperspaces is looking good!