I just added a pull request for my latest Dropzone (review) Destination. It’s called “Open URLs,” and with it you can open text urls from any number of text files, drag text straight from any application, or just click it to scan your clipboard. The files, text or clipboard contents are scanned for any http(s) links and they’re sent to your default browser using the system command.
dropzone, ruby, scripting
Dropzone recently showed up on the Mac App Store. I’ve been using the previous incarnation daily for years now, and I was ecstatic to see it hit the App Store and still be under active development. As with any pre-App Store app that makes a 100% conversion to the App Store environment, plenty of users are bitching and moaning about having to pay again (as well as changes that were necessary to comply with Apple’s guidelines), but I’m not among them1. It’s worth every…
appreview, dropzone
I received my Nest (advanced learning thermostat) on Friday. I was on my way out the door to see WITS in St. Paul1, Minnesota. I opened the package and read the 8-page setup manual on the way. I got home late, so I tackled the installation the next day.
hardware, review
If you’re still looking for a slick Markdown editor for iOS, there’s a new candidate up for your vote. WriteUp is a polished editor that covers the basics well. With Dropbox support and available as a universal app for both iPad and iPhone, it makes a nice addition to your all-around writing workflow.
appreview, editor, ios, ipad, iphone, markdown, writing
As the next part in the keybindings series I’m demonstrating some improvements I’ve made to the original “surround” commands since my first time around. This set of commands is designed to wrap selected text in a variety of paired characters. The keys are the same, but the commands now work inside of single-line text fields (like you often find in Safari), prevent auto-pairing in apps like nvALT, MultiMarkdown Composer and Byword, and a few refinements to cursor positioning.
keybindings, keyboard, macos
Thus far, Marked has had a great reception and has, overall, worked superbly with a wide range of text editors. I frequently get requests for integration with more complex editors, but have been unable to fulfill them because Marked requires an actual text file to watch. To try and fix this situation, I’ve been scripting “watchers” for various applications which embed their files inside of bundles or otherwise obscure the actual content files from Spotlight.
marked, ruby, scripting
If you’ve poked around this blog at all, you know I dig System Services and TextExpander snippets more than is probably healthy. I have a new obsession, though, and it’s been taking up a lot of my playtime. Welcome to part two of (what is now) an ongoing series about Mac OS X Key Bindings. Originally inspired by Lauri Ranta, I’ve come to believe that system-wide keybindings for the Cocoa Text System are one of the most powerful tools available to any text nerd.
keybindings, markdown
This next geeklet is quite similar to the Top CPU Processes geeklet I last shared. It finds the apps and processes with the biggest memory footprint on your system and lists the top 10. The output looks like:
geeklet, geektool, nerdtool, scripting
I’d like to welcome Donald Curtis as a guest blogger today, here to talk about a very cool script we worked on to add some Markdown love to MindMeister. It started with a DM from Donald on Twitter with a link to a GitHub gist, and after some back and forth it became a very cool (and useful) tool. Cool enough that I really wanted to share it here. Since the script is his brainchild and almost entirely his handiwork, I thought it would be cool if Donald did the honors.
guestblogger, markdown, mindmapping, ruby, scripting
