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Automation April: The Loupedeck Live S Is a More Portable and Affordable Automation Control Panel for the Mac

In 2021, I reviewed the Loupedeck Live, a programmable control panel for the Mac and Windows PCs for Club MacStories members as part of my Macintosh Desktop Experience column. It’s an excellent device, but its price put it at a disadvantage to a similarly-sized Elgato Stream Deck despite several other advantages that I explained in the review.

Last year, Loupedeck released the Loupedeck Live S, a smaller, more affordable Loupedeck that retains the core experience of the Loupedeck Live, but dispenses with a handful of physical buttons and dials. The new device retails for $189 compared to the Loupedeck Live, which is $269. That’s still $40 more than the 15-button Stream Deck MK.2, but a significantly narrower difference for a device that offers a wider range of functionality, making it worth another look if you were put off by the Loupedeck Live’s price.

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AppStories, Episode 324 – Automation April: A Link Management Workflow and S-GPT

This week on AppStories, I explain my new link management workflow, combining a series of apps and shortcuts, and Federico shares more about his S-GPT shortcut that integrates ChatGPT with Apple’s OSes.

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On AppStories+, a behind-the-scenes look at the first week of Automation April.

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Last Week, on Club MacStories: Shortcuts Tips, S-GPT Personalities, Email Utilities, Interviews, Giveaways, and An Upcoming Shortcuts Workshop

Because Club MacStories now encompasses more than just newsletters, we’ve created a guide to the past week’s happenings:

MacStories Weekly: Issue 363

Evil-GPT

Evil-GPT

Up Next

On Wednesday, April 12th at 11:30 AM Eastern US time, we’ll be holding a special Automation April workshop for Club MacStories+ and Premier members where we’ll cover a range of Shortcuts topics, including how to come up with new automation ideas for Shortcuts on Apple’s latest platforms, some of the new actions you should consider in the Shortcuts app, and some of the shortcuts we’re working on. We’ll also be taking member questions about Shortcuts from members.

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.

S-GPT 1.0.1→

I just released a small bug fix update for S-GPT, my shortcut to integrate OpenAI’s ChatGPT large language model with the Shortcuts app on all Apple platforms.

Version 1.0.1 of S-GPT is a relatively minor update that comes with an initial round of improvements based on early feedback I’ve received for the shortcut, including:

  • A proper error-checking alert that tells what went wrong with a request to the ChatGPT API;
  • A better summarization of Safari webpages passed from the share sheet that no longer “hallucinates” results but actually summarizes text extracted via Safari’s Reader technology from any web article;
  • A new behavior for text input on watchOS, which now defaults to dictation rather than keyboard input. I’ve covered this more in detail in today’s issue of MacStories Weekly for Club members.

Additionally, I also realized that the usage tips that S-GPT was displaying every time it asked you to enter some text may have been nice the first three times you used the shortcut, but became annoying very quickly. That was especially true when using S-GPT with Siri in a voice context since they would be read aloud every time. For these reasons, I removed tips and simplified the shortcut’s questions to “What do you want to ask?” and “Want to follow up?”.

In case you missed my introduction of S-GPT earlier this week, you can read the original story here and find out more about how the shortcut works and what it does. I updated the links to the S-GPT and S-GPT Encoder shortcuts in the story to the latest version; you can also find the updated shortcuts in MacStories Shortcuts Archive.

I just released a small bug fix update for S-GPT, my shortcut to integrate OpenAI’s ChatGPT large language model with the Shortcuts app on all Apple platforms.

Version 1.0.1 of S-GPT is a relatively minor update that comes with an initial round of improvements based on early feedback I’ve received for the shortcut, including:

  • A proper error-checking alert that tells what went wrong with a request to the ChatGPT API;
  • A better summarization of Safari webpages passed from the share sheet that no longer “hallucinates” results but actually summarizes text extracted via Safari’s Reader technology from any web article;
  • A new behavior for text input on watchOS, which now defaults to dictation rather than keyboard input. I’ve covered this more in detail in today’s issue of MacStories Weekly for Club members.

Additionally, I also realized that the usage tips that S-GPT was displaying every time it asked you to enter some text may have been nice the first three times you used the shortcut, but became annoying very quickly. That was especially true when using S-GPT with Siri in a voice context since they would be read aloud every time. For these reasons, I removed tips and simplified the shortcut’s questions to “What do you want to ask?” and “Want to follow up?”.

In case you missed my introduction of S-GPT earlier this week, you can read the original story here and find out more about how the shortcut works and what it does. I updated the links to the S-GPT and S-GPT Encoder shortcuts in the story to the latest version; you can also find the updated shortcuts in MacStories Shortcuts Archive.

S-GPT

S-GPT is a shortcut to have conversations with OpenAI’s ChatGPT assistant on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. The shortcut supports both text conversations as well as voice interactions when used inside Siri. S-GPT comes with native system integrations on Apple platforms including the ability to process text from your clipboard, summarize text found in photos, export conversations to Files and Finder, and even create playlists in the Music app. The shortcut requires an OpenAI API token and a helper shortcut called S-GPT Encoder that needs to be downloaded separately.

Get the shortcut here.

S-GPT Encoder

This is a helper shortcut for S-GPT that needs to be downloaded and installed separately. Without this shortcut, S-GPT won’t work.

Get the shortcut here.

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Introducing S-GPT, A Shortcut to Connect OpenAI’s ChatGPT with Native Features of your iPhone, iPad, and Mac

S-GPT for Shortcuts.

S-GPT for Shortcuts.

It’s the inaugural week of the second annual edition of Automation April, and to celebrate the occasion, I’ve been working on something special: today, I’m introducing S-GPT, an advanced conversational shortcut for ChatGPT that bridges OpenAI’s assistant to native system features of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and watchOS.

S-GPT (which stands for Shortcuts-GPT) is free to use for everyone, but it requires an OpenAI account with an associated pay-as-you-go billing plan since it takes advantage of OpenAI’s developer API, which has a cost. S-GPT was built with the latest ChatGPT API, and it can be used both with the existing ChatGPT 3.5 model or – if you have access to it – the ChatGPT 4 API.

While the shortcut is free for MacStories readers, I will be publishing a detailed, in-depth Automation Academy class soon for Club MacStories Plus or Premier members to explain the techniques and strategies I used to build this shortcut. I genuinely think that S-GPT is, from a technical perspective, my best and most advanced work to date; I hope my Academy class will help others learn some useful tips for Shortcuts and, in return, make even better automations for our contest.

With that said, let’s look at what S-GPT is and what you can do with it.

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Jack Wellborn on Making Computers Personal with Automation→

Jack Wellborn, one of our Automation April Shortcuts Contest judges, has a great post on his website that’s perfect for Automation April.

As Jack explains, apps built for a general audience require some features to make way for the ones that most people use. While the approach is understandable from a design standpoint, it can be frustrating if any of those semi-hidden features are ones you rely on. However, as Jack explains, there’s a solution:

This is where personal automation comes in. Personal automation gives individuals the ability to choose which of their features should be most easily accessed. I used Shortcuts and AppleScript to elevate star ratings using dedicated keys on my Stream Deck. Now I can rate songs regardless of what app I am currently using, and in one step instead of five. Using personal automation, I have also changed how Time Machine works, streamlined pasting links from Safari, and made joining Zoom meetings practically effortless.

Personal automation doesn’t need to involve expensive third party hardware, or require scripting. It can be something as simple as customizing keyboard shortcuts or defining text replacement macros. Apple’s Shortcuts app is completely drag-and-drop, and makes building personal automation easy enough for even basic users. On top of the many automation apps and features included with Apple’s platforms, there are also a slew of great third party apps that unlock even more possibilities.

I love Jack’s perspective on automation. He was the winner of our Best Overall Shortcut in last year’s Automation April Shortcut Contest. It wasn’t the most complex shortcut we received, but it had the perfect combination of originality, thoughtful design, and everyday utility that our judges look for. As Jack points out, personal automation is about making your devices work for you and not the other way around, which is what Automation April is all about.

To learn more about how to submit a shortcut to the Automation April Shortcuts Contest, be sure to check out my story with all the details that was published on MacStories yesterday.

You can also follow MacStories’ Automation April coverage through our dedicated hub, or subscribe to its RSS feed.

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Automation April: Thinking About Linking

Links are the currency of information overload and distraction. There’s more media available than we could ever get to in a lifetime, and more things we might want to buy, places may want to visit, and other things to explore online than can be fit into a day.

The same problem exists in our work lives. That’s especially true for the kind of work I do. Links are part of everything. Whether I’m researching, writing, or preparing to record a podcast, I’m collecting, managing, and sharing links. I could follow all those trails as they cross my path, but I’d never get anything done.

Instead of flitting from one online discovery to the next with no plan, wasting precious time, I save links for later, putting them aside until I have time for them. I’ve been doing this forever, but I’ve also never been happy with my system. So, it was inevitable that I’d begin tinkering with my setup again, both with the apps I use and the shortcuts that support them.

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