That’s a wrap for 2024. As we embark together into 2025 I’ll wrap up with my usual check in on what I’ve been up to in the past month. Its been a bit crazy wrapping up pieces of work in the day job, but that has also nicely been surrounded with some annual leave I had remaining to be used up, so I’ve also had a bit of time to recharge even if that did mean I had to get so much more done in the time I had remaining.
However, the extra time off did give me chance to make up some ground in a few places on my personal projects, so there’s plenty to cover this month that I hope people will find of interest.
ThoughtAsylum
On my blog this month there were a couple of new blog posts. The first post is probably the one that has the largest potential audience and was about how I am using Keyboard Maestro to help me save web page links and snapshots. Specifically how I can be working in any of my file manager apps (I use Finder, Forklift by Binary Nights, and Path Finder for different reasons across projects), and I can trigger a keyboard shortcut to generate one of two files in the current folder. Each grabs information about the current web page in Safari and will either save a .url file that opens the page in the default browser, or as a Safari Web Archive file. The post walks through the setup and explores each of the different ways we work with the file managers to get the current folder as well as how to build each file. I think the technical aspects are quite interesting, but if you just want to macros, they are included in the post too.
The second post is something that relates to my day job where I spend a lot of my time working with an enterprise learning management system (SAP SuccessFactors Learning). It has a big chunk of configuration that dates back to its origins, and these are structured in a way that is reminiscent of Initialisation and Properties files, but with some differences. To help me work with these settings externally to the system I decided to try my hand at creating an extension for Visual Studio Code to allow me to get some basic highlighting. Using similar syntax options was okay, but they would break and I wanted something a little more tailored. In the post you can follow along on how I built it - which may be a useful starting point for your own syntax/grammar extension. And if you work with SuccessFactors Learning, then you can grab the extension at the end of the post. If it continues to work well as I use it over the next few months I will likely add it to the Visual Studio Code Marketplace to make it easier to download, but I just haven’t tested it enough just yet to be happy doing that.
If you frequent the home page, you may also have spotted that a couple of new entries have appeared on my “Featured Content and Projects” listing at the top of the page. One is for the ‘Automators Podcast Vault’, and the other is for ‘Forge’, both of which I’ll talk more about below.
Forums
Once again, I found the forums I frequent relatively quiet this month. There was at least one post I debated over replying to and decided not to (if you frequent these fora you may be able to deduce that veiled reference), but in general I picked up and hopefully added to the conversation everywhere I felt I had something worthwhile to contribute.
Drafts
A topic on copying Drafts content as rich text to other apps came back tot he fore this last month with a user having issues. I did some testing of my own and found a massive inconsistency across apps. I’d noted it would be good to get some feedback from others on what they see, but so far there’s been no additional data points. Maybe you could post something to help narrow down what’s going on?
One user had an interesting question about the availability of monospace fonts in Drafts. Do you know how to determine if a font is monospaced on macOS (apart from just eyeing it of course)? Maybe check this post out for more info, or to understand why your favourite monospaced font might not be recognised as a monospaced font by Apple.
One of the foremost Drafts users on the forum posted about a performance issue with the tag filter panel. I wasn’t having any issues, but the reason is interesting, and one to be aware of if you are a big user of tags.
If you use tables in Markdown and the tables are not previewing correctly in Drafts, there’s a pretty high chance you need to change your syntax.
MacAutomationTip’s Bakari posted asking how to deselect text and add a return key press to an action for use on iOS. I posted an outline for how to do this, or rather how to address the underlying requirement without thinking of it like a macro, and since I had a few minutes to spare a bit later I posted a full action as a solution. Hopefully, it does what he asked for.
A thread I started a few years ago about my Alfred workflow for Drafts got a new entry; it was from me, and I’ll discuss that more below.
Automators
I gave one Apple Shortcuts user a little help with a shortcut.
A Pushcut user had a problem with request expiring before they can be executed that I think I was able to explain the cause of and solution for.
I gave some feedback to a user who was looking for a shortcut to export and import Reminders to or from a CSV file on macOS. While some element of that is certainly possible, I pointed out some details that could complicate matters if you wanted to do it properly.
A typical Scriptable issue was noted by one user who was getting random ‘no file to import’ errors when nothing has changed. I was able to identify the cause and with the latest iOS release offer an actual reliable solution rather than the usual “it’ll work until it breaks again” option.
Finally I had a recommendation for backing up Shortcuts on macOS - after all, it isn’t that different from iOS when it comes to the shortcut container; but as ever the actions and general stability remain a matter open for debate.
Other
Automators Podcast Vault
I haven’t made huge progress on the Automators Podcast Vault this month (as you’ll see I’d been busy with many things), but I managed to squeeze in a bit of any update on New Year’s Eve. This is the first one using the new non-episode based update numbering and includes an updated episode page, some new technology pages, and various Obsidian plugin updates of course.
Do make sure you check in on the repo from time to time to keep up to date with the updates.
Drafts - Tot-ality
I noticed a while back some of my Drafts actions for Tot were not working, and it was on my to do list to figure out what was going on. After bumping into it again towards the end of the month I dug in and spent some time tracking down the issue, fixing it, testing it, and then published an update to the Drafts Directory.
You can download my updated Tot-ality action group and seamlessly transfer Drafts drafts and Tot notes.
If you haven’t looked at Tot, or have looked at it and wonder why I would use both Tot and Drafts, well the answer is that I use Drafts as my notepad and inbox. It’s where things go to be captured, triaged, and processed. Tot on the other hand is my scratch pad. It’s like a virtual version of the whiteboard book I use to explain homework concepts and the like with my children. I use it to do things like hold bits of code or strings I’ll want to refer to later when I’m coding, or random config settings. Everything in Tot is ephemeral and I can float it around my screen, but should it develop into something I want to keep or process, then its off to Drafts to pull it in.
Alfred - Pennyworth
While working on the project I’m going to talk about next, I ran into a challenge with Pennyworth, my Alfred workflow for … Alfred. I wanted to use it to help speed up some changes to do with variables but found that my list of variables was not filterable in Alfred, and the number of variables I was working with was far too long to wade through each time. As a result I made a small tweak to the variable related script filter actions to allow Alfred to automatically filter results. This made things a lot easier.
To make things easier still, I wanted to trigger one of the flows from my Elgato Stream Deck. I had a large volume of variable-related updates to make, so making access quick and easy was definitely something I wanted to look into. I first looked at inbound configurations on the script filter actions, but while these could be triggered by AppleScript, which would be fine, I try and use URLs over AppleScript where I can. I figure there’s more life to them and less to go wrong. As a result I added external triggers for each flow and enabled the URL option on each of them. Then using BetterTouchTool, I added a Stream Deck button entry to my Alfred profile and set it to open the URL.
It was a ten minute update and test for the workflow, and the result saved me easily two or three times that if I had carried out the work I used it for manually. And of course, after I was done, a quick update on the website and a few details along with the new version download and everyone else could reap the benefits too.
Doctor Drafts
In the last few months all of my main Alfred workflows I’ve shared apart from one have had a couple of updates where necessary. One to standardise on a revised shell call, and one to allow users to customise keyword triggers from the workflow configuration page. As the biggest and most complex workflow I have created, Doctor Drafts needed a good deal of time for me to sit down, make the changes, do the testing, and update the documentation. This was something I struggled to find the time to do until my end of year break.
It took me a couple of days to work through and sort everything out in the end, but this also included revamping some of the technical elements behind the scenes for the website - you likely won’t see any change, but there was quite a bit of effort to update the foundations that underpin how it is built. For good measure it also includes an update to my Drafts Links GitHub repo that holds a set of JSON files used by Doctor Drafts to provide details of external links; it was definitely overdue as the Drafts documentation and scripting sites had received quite a few updates (and maybe the odd removal) since I last updated them.
You can, of course, get the latest version of Doctor Drafts for free from its website doctordrafts.thoughtasylum.com.
Forge
Last month I mentioned that I had a new 3D printer (a Bambu Lab P1S with AMS combo), replacing a super cheap 3D printer, and I was now investing lots of time into exploring what I could now do with a fast and reliable printer. Having printed a few fun things for my children, some more useful things for myself and my wife, I even printed some Christmas presents for family and friends - which have gone down very well and I’m now getting requests from others for custom jobs - for which I’m going to have to improve my design and remixing skills for.
As part of this foray I decided to start keeping an Obsidian vault. I was quickly beginning to lose track of all the models I’d used, how they had faired (I tried various reusable spool and filament clip prints - all far from equal), what filament I had bought and which I’d had problems with, etc. I decided that it would probably be useful to share this with others, but in a more “raw” way than with my blog posts or a curated site. I really just wanted to offer up my notes in more of a digital garden approach.
I’ve seen lots of people offering up their Obsidian vaults in this sort of way, and I figured I could probably do it too. I knew I didn’t want to go down the Obsidian publish route - I didn’t want the additional cost, and I already pay the annual commercial license because I use it to support me in my day job. I had also seen various options for publishing vaults using Quartz and some other options too. I went pretty far down the rabbit hole on some of the options and each time I bumped into a dead end on something I wanted to do. After several weeks I honestly became a little frustrated and decided I would just go with a more familiar Jekyll-based solution. I ended up tweaking a Jekyll plugin to customise it for how I wanted things to work and learning a bit more about GitHub deploy and build actions the I had before - you can read that as pouring over logs and making revisions for at least a day for me to get it all working.
In the end, I got things working well enough for me to be content with the results, the results being a new little website - forge.thoughtasylum.com.
I definitely consider myself a beginner when it comes to 3D printing as it is only with this latest printer I can really get into it more. I’ve been learning more about slicers, filaments, printing profiles, and I’ve been acquiring additional hardware and tools left right and centre this last couple of months. If you have any interest in 3D printing and want to see what sorts of things I am using, what I have been printing, and how I have found particular equipment, filament, and prints, then take a look at the forge.
Upcoming
I don’t feel I’m beholden to anything in particular this next month. I expect I will add some content to the Automators Podcast Vault and the forge at the very least. I have an idea for a Chrome extension I’d like to try my hand at creating to use in my day job with some colleagues. I would also like to get back to doing some more things with Drafts (actions) and Obsidian (something with Marked2 and conductor are top of mind right now, but I haven’t forgotten my Alfred workflow which I still tweak things on occasionally). But we’ll see what comes to the fore this coming month as while I always have a backlog of ideasI can choose from, I find the best results come when something particularly sparks my interest in the moment.
All that remains is to thank you all for reading and to once again thank everyone who has donated a coffee. Thank you sincerely for your time, your attention, and your caffeine.