MacStories Team

3376 posts on MacStories since July 2011

Articles by the MacStories team. Founded by Federico Viticci in April 2009, MacStories attracts millions of readers every month thanks to in-depth, personal, and informed coverage that offers a balanced mix of Apple news, app reviews, and opinion.

Automation April 2023: Shortcuts Workshop, Part 2


Club MacStories Town Halls are part of the monthly and other special live audio events we hold in the Club MacStories+ Discord community. The show is a recorded and lightly edited version of the Town Halls that we produce, so Club MacStories+ and Club Premier members who can’t attend the event live can listen later. To learn more about Club MacStories+ and Club Premier, visit our Club plans page.

Ep. - Automation April 2023: Shortcuts Workshop, Part 2

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Today, Federico and John are joined by Rosemary Orchard, co-host of Automators and iOS Today, to their approaches to building new shortcuts, when to build utility functions called from other shortcuts, their recent shortcuts experiments and projects, and more.

Read more


MenuBar Stats: Advanced System Monitoring [Sponsor]

MenuBar Stats is a suite of 9 menu bar modules for monitoring your Mac developed over the course of 10 years of listening carefully to customer feedback. The app tracks your Mac’s:

  • Battery
  • Bluetooth
  • CPU
  • Disk
  • GPU
  • Memory
  • Network
  • And, with a helper app, your Mac’s temperature and fan speed

The app, which is highly customizable, provides essential details, with even more extensive information just a click away. Modules can be combined into a single window, displayed as individual windows, and anchored to always be visible. The stats monitored are available as a collection of more than 10 widgets and accessible through MenuBar Stats’ Shortcuts actions. The app has been extensively tested on and tuned for Apple’s latest M1 and M2-based Macs and includes a tool to clean your Mac’s memory too.

MenuBar Stats goes beyond monitoring and reporting with the ability to set up notifications to alert you of the details that matter most to you and even run shortcuts from them. Whether that’s when your battery reaches a certain level or when there’s a process that is monopolizing your CPU, MenBar Stats can alert you, so you’ll know the moment your Mac needs your attention.

Acting on those notifications couldn’t be simpler. MenuBar Stats can take you to a long list of Mac system utilities from your menu bar or using global keyboard shortcuts that you define. There’s also backup and restore functionality, so you can recreate your carefully-crafted setup anywhere.

It’s easy to see why MenuBar Stats has an average rating of 4.5 stars worldwide. Download MenuBar Stats today to see for yourself why so many people rely on it to monitor their Macs.

Our thanks to MenuBar Stats for sponsoring MacStories this week.


A New Club Deal and Automation April Update

As we approach the mid-point of Automation April, we have some news to share and a recap of this week’s activities. First, we have a new Club-wide discount to announce from our friends at Alerty, a push notification service. Alerty’s incredibly easy-to-use web API allows you to generate rich push notifications to any of your...



Perk

GoodLinks To celebrate Automation April this week, we have a giveaway of GoodLinks. GoodLinks, which is available on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac, is perfect for saving and organizing links and includes excellent Shortcuts support. For today’s giveaway, we’ve got 20 codes for a free copy of GoodLinks. To sign up for a chance to...


In This Issue

A new Club-wide discount, the Automation April Shortcuts Contest has been extended, John recommends Button Creator and shares a collection of Mac apps to expand your Shortcuts use, Federico has a tip on reading Markdown files with Shortcuts, plus the usual Links, App Debuts, the latest happenings in the Club MacStories+ Discord community, a recap...


Previously, On MacStories

Stories Unlock Big App Savings with Club MacStories+ and Premier Memberships Drawing a Blank S-GPT 1.0.2 Brings Date and Time Awareness, Integration with macOS Services Menu, Passthrough Mode, Better HomePod Support, and More Automation April: The Loupedeck Live S Is a More Portable and Affordable Automation Control Panel for the Mac Last Week, on Club...


Automation April 2023: Shortcuts Workshop, Part 1


Club MacStories Town Halls are part of the monthly and other special live audio events we hold in the Club MacStories+ Discord community. The show is a recorded and lightly edited version of the Town Halls that we produce, so Club MacStories+ and Club Premier members who can’t attend the event live can listen later. To learn more about Club MacStories+ and Club Premier, visit our Club plans page.

Ep. - Automation April 2023: Shortcuts Workshop, Part 1

0:00
0:00

Today, Federico and John are joined by Jack Wellborn, who won Best Overall Shortcut in last year’s Automation April Shortcuts Contest, to talk about tips for coming up with shortcuts ideas, their recent shortcuts experiments and projects, incorporating AppleScript and other techniques into Mac-based Shortcuts, and more.

Read more


BetterTouchTool: The Essential App to Customize Your Mac Experience [Sponsor]

BetterTouchTool is an essential Mac application that has stood the test of time since it was one of the first to be covered by MacStories back in November 2009. In its early days, BetterTouchTool was a simple application primarily designed for adding customizable gestures to MacBook trackpads and Magic Mouse.

Today, BetterTouchTool has evolved to become a powerful tool that enables users to configure customizable gestures for Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad (1-3), customize the Touch Bar and map keyboard shortcuts, bind mouse buttons, create custom mouse gestures, and customize the Siri Remote. Additionally, BetterTouchTool can connect and configure MIDI devices, works great with the Shortcuts app on macOS Monterey & Ventura, and comes with a plethora of predefined actions that can be combined to perform virtually any command on your Mac.

Recently, “Generic Devices” support has been added, enabling advanced users to add support for many devices on their own using simple JavaScript. For example, users have already created scripts even for exotic devices like the Griffin Power Mate, a Philips Foot Control, or the Microsoft Adaptive Controller.

Moreover, a fantastic feature that is currently being finalized and set to release by the end of April is the “Floating Widget Menus.” These menus are scriptable and customizable and can be placed anywhere on the screen, attached to particular windows, or shown upon demand. With a unique plugin system in place, these menus can integrate custom SwiftUI-based widgets and will even work seamlessly with BTT Remote on iPhone and iPad in the future.

Also, check out the new “Transform & Replace Selection With ChatGPT” predefined action that lets you use ChatGPT directly in any of your apps.

BetterTouchTool comes with a 45-day trial, after which you can choose between a license that includes all updates for 2 years and a lifetime license.

For a limited time, MacStories readers can purchase BetterTouchTool for 20% off by using the coupon code MACSTORIESBTT_2023 at checkout. So, don’t delay. Go to folivora.ai to learn more about this fantastic Mac app and take advantage of the special limited-time, 20% discount on BetterTouchTool.

Our thanks to BetterTouchTool for sponsoring MacStories this week.