Welcome to the lab.

Web Excursions for July 15, 2020

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Web excursions brought to you in partnership with MightyDeals.com, featuring great deals on software, training, and design resources.

Clicker for Prime Video
I’ve mentioned these “Clicker” apps as DBK Labs has been releasing them. They just put out this one for Amazon Prime, and I like it. It adds Picture-in-Picture, Touch Bar control, Quick Resume, disable auto-play trailers, skip pre-roll ads and intros, and a few other features… If you use Prime Video, this is useful enough to easily justify the $8 price tag.
Lora fonts — serif family for text

Lora is a well-balanced contemporary serif with roots in calligraphy. It is a text typeface with moderate contrast well suited for body text. (Open Source!)

The details of UI typography - WWDC 2020
Speaking of typography, from Apple’s WWDC Videos:

Learn how to achieve exceptional typography in your app’s user interface that enhances legibility, accessibility, and consistency…

Andrew Canion - Replicating Hey.com Features in Regular Email Systems
This is very, very close to the system I’ve been using for a couple years with Sanebox, MailMate (on Mac) and Spark (on iOS). So close that now I don’t feel the need to get around to writing mine up any further… 😉1
Welcome to AltStore
A cool idea for sideloading iOS apps without a jailbreak or enterprise certificates. Still wrestling to get it working, but my desire to run the newly-available Clip (iOS clipboard manager) makes me willing to continue trying.

  1. I’ve always made a point never to use emoticons or emoji in my writing here, preferring to express emotion through language. But I’m making exceptions from here on out for Web Excursions.↩

A CLI for Hook.app

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I’ve been meaning to create a command line utility for Hook.app for a while now. I’ve mentioned Hook before, but if you haven’t heard of it, it’s a powerful Mac productivity tool which creates and navigates links between documents, urls, and even things like OmniFocus tasks. I wanted to have some of its power in my terminal.

I created the hook command to scratch this itch. It’s currently experimental, but I’d love it if any Hook users who happen to be command line lovers wanted to take it for a spin and let me know how it goes. You can find basic documentation and installation instructions on the project page. (Spoiler, it’s a Ruby gem you can install with gem install hookapp).

It has a project page now, but if you’ll listen, I’ll tell you a little bit about it here…

The next big thing for Marked 2

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I know you need an nvUltra update, so I’ll attempt that in less than 50 words: 99% finished, beta testing going well, couple bugs left, need to finalize our pricing model. Our personal lives are dictating release timing, and it may be out another month or so. I promise a more thoughtful update soon.

But I do have this other thing you might like today.

I have a new update for Marked 2 almost ready for release. It incorporates a change to its very core, though, that there’s a nontrivial chance I’ve broken some part(s) of its extensive feature set and haven’t noticed yet. That’s why I’m asking anyone who uses Marked to download the beta below and give it a whirl. You can always switch back to the stable release, and I promise it won’t destroy any data or harm your machine (not liable, of course, standard disclaimer). It would just be very helpful to have people use it the way they always do and see if anything in their routine no longer works as expected.

If you’re into testing and don’t want to read all the stuff I’m about to say, and it might be a lot, just download the beta build below and get going. The beta is free to use and time-limited. You can run it alongside your current version. If you use the MAS or Setapp versions, your current preferences won’t show up in the beta, but it will work all the same.

Please use the Beta Testing category of the Marked support site for feedback and bug reports. (Note: please start a new conversation for every report, Tender is not great for multi-user, multi-threaded conversations.)

Download the beta here. Ok, antsy pants, just take it and go.

Generic NPR sign-off plays softly.

Did you stick around to learn more? Thanks! The suspense was killing me.

A quick SearchLink update

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If you’ve noticed SearchLink suddenly started returning raw DuckDuckGo links, you’re not alone. I’m not sure exactly what changed, but I had to make some changes in the processing of the results to get it back on track. There’s a new version (2.2.15) available for download, below or on the project page.

SearchLink v2.2.15

Download SearchLink v2.2.15

Generate Markdown links from web searches without leaving your editor.

Published 11/10/14.

Updated 07/08/20. Changelog

Donate • More info…

Get some great deals on software

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Just a couple of pointers to current software sales…

It’s time again for the SummerFest Artisinal Software sale. Featuring 13 first-in-class Mac apps including Tinderbox, DEVONthink, and TextExpander, every app defines their own discount and is purchased separately. No bundles full of software you don’t need, and developers get to keep their profits instead of losing them to organizers. I highly recommend checking it out and seeing if there’s any software you need on the docket.

There’s also the Back on Track sale being run by the Unclutter developers. A good selection of Mac apps including Capto and Unclutter, most at 50% off. Purchase individually, or the whole bundle for $72 (value $344).

Web Excursions for June 19, 2020

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Web excursions brought to you in partnership with MightyDeals.com, featuring great deals on software, training, and design resources.

extrawurst/gitui
I am, as you may know, a huge fan of Tower for my Git GUI needs on my Mac, but there are times you have to stick with your terminal (e.g. over SSH). If you’d still like some GUI ease for staging and commits on the command line, this little tool is pretty slick.
CustomShortcuts — Customize menu keyboard shortcuts
An excellent utility from the maker of HoudahSpot. Seriously, it’s really good. It makes the process of assigning custom shortcuts to macOS application menu items a cinch, with autocompletion to help navigate menu hierarchies and get menu titles exactly right. It will even check for overlaps with ambiguous menu titles, and allow you to copy/paste shortcuts between applications, all things that System Preferences won’t do for you. It’s free, get it.
Airshare
A sweet little CLI for local network file and text transfers. Kind of like Airdrop for the command line. It even has the ability to send files based on lists you copied from Finder to the clipboard, and the ability to send and receive text directly from and to the clipboards on the sending and receiving machines.
jakedeichert/mask: 🎭 A CLI task runner defined by a simple markdown file
This is a different take on what I did with my howzit project. I really like the approach, basically making Markdown-formatted Makefiles.
The unofficial WWDC app for macOS
If you’re not loving Apple’s official Developer (Catalyst) app on your Mac, here’s a good alternative. The download link is broken as of this writing, but you can get the latest release on GitHub.

Markdown Service Tools v3.0

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It’s been a few years since I made any significant updates to the Markdown Service Tools, so I guess it’s time. I’m releasing version 3.0.0 today with a refresh of many of the existing Services, as well as some brand new ones.

If you’re unfamiliar, Markdown Service Tools is a collection of macOS Services (a.k.a. Quick Actions) designed to make writing Markdown easier, no matter what application you’re working in. By assigning keyboard shortcuts to your favorites, it’s possible to turn any editor into a Markdown editor.

Marked 2 as an even better teleprompter

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When I posted about it, I honestly didn’t think anyone other than myself would actually want to use Marked as a teleprompter, so I let a few quirks slide. Turns out a bunch of people were interested in the idea, so I spent a few hours revamping the autoscroll and adding a nifty visual countdown for the pause tags.

It was a sprint that also included minor updates to howzit1 and mdless2, but a complete rewrite of the way Marked performs autoscroll was my primary focus in this orgy of code. As of this writing, the changes are live for Paddle customers, and awaiting review for MAS and Setapp users.