Author: Matthew Cassinelli

What’s New in Shortcuts – Issue #094

Post author By Matthew Cassinelli
Post date February 2

Welcome to Issue 94 of What’s New in Shortcuts – it’s hard to believe January is over and we’re already starting in on February.

The new M2 Macs have already been reviewed and shipped, plus the 2nd generation HomePod reviews are out before going on sale in-stores on Friday.

Since last issue, we also saw three major apps integrate with Shortcuts (Ivory, Things, and Pythonista), plus quick app updates, blog posts to read, shortcuts to add, and automation ideas to get inspired by.

Plus, I shared some feedback from folks in the community, highlighted some interesting details in the Shortcuts Spotlight section, and had a little too much fun with the subtitles in this one – enjoy:

View the full issue or sign up for future issues.

Tags HomePod, Ivory, M2, Macs, newsletter, Pythonista, Things, What’s New in Shortcuts

News

What’s New in Shortcuts in iOS 16.3 and iPadOS 16.3, macOS 13.2, and watchOS 9.3 »

Post author By Matthew Cassinelli
Post date January 23

From the Apple Support website:

This update includes the ability to disable a shortcut from being run while the device is locked, enhancements to existing actions, and reliability improvements to editing and running shortcuts.

Updated Actions

For those building custom shortcuts, some actions have been updated:

Find Reminders can now filter reminders due in the next or previous week

Log Workout now supports Ask Each Time for workout duration

Log Health Sample now supports Ask Each Time for values on watchOS

Find Health Samples now supports searching for health types in the editor

Get Contents of URL can now use variables for the file parameter for POST or PUT requests

Configure Focus Filter actions now correctly set the Focus Filter on iPhone when run from watchOS

Show Notes Folder action now correctly appears in the editor

View the release notes on Apple.com.

Tags News, Release notes, What’s New in Shortcuts

Apps Shortcuts

Making a simple Menu Bar applet to replace Shortcuts’ progress meter

Post author By Matthew Cassinelli
Post date January 6
1 Comment on Making a simple Menu Bar applet to replace Shortcuts’ progress meter

Yesterday on Six Colors, Jason Snell wrote a post called Create visual feedback for running Shortcuts about a method he’s using to check his progress in a long-running shortcut using a Menu Bar utility.

His post was born out of frustration with the Shortcuts menu bar applet, which we discussed on Mastodon as being somewhat unobvious as a signal for progression:

Earlier today, I was complaining to Shortcuts expert Matthew Cassinelli about how there’s no really good way to view progress of a running Shortcut on macOS. Yes, the Shortcuts menu item in the menu bar sort of tries to display progress, but… it doesn’t provide any information I find particularly valuable.

I’m frustrated because I do have some Shortcuts that take time to run, yet unless I have them beep or display a notification when they reach a certain point in the process, I have no idea what they’re doing or if they’re even working.

If you didn’t know, the Shortcuts menu bar icon changes while a shortcut is running to indicate progression.

Tags apps, mac, Menu Bar, One Thing, Shortcuts, Sindre Sorhus

Shortcuts

New in the Shortcuts Library: One Thing Menu Bar shortcuts

Post author By Matthew Cassinelli
Post date January 6

I’ve just added a new folder to the Shortcuts Library — my set of One Thing Menu Bar shortcuts:

Open One Thing:

Activates the One Thing menu bar app to display any text.

Use this shortcut to activate One Thing on your Mac and have its applet display in the menu bar.

Tapping on One Thing will display its edit window, which lets you change the text and have that show up in the Menu Bar instead.

Tags apps, mac, Menu Bar, One Thing, Shortcuts, Shortcuts Catalog, Shortcuts Library, Sindre Sorhus

How To Shortcuts Siri Shortcuts Tips & Tricks

How to copy meeting availability across multiple calendars using Shortcuts

Post author By Matthew Cassinelli
Post date January 6

Yesterday over on Six Colors, Jason Snell wrote about his difficulty helping a friend use the Calendar actions in Shortcuts to pull data from two separate calendars:

Lex wanted to use this shortcut to quickly generate a list of times where he’s available for meetings. This is a great use of automation—I wish I’d thought of it. Unfortunately, the shortcut only checks a single calendar, and Lex wanted his availability judged based on entries in two different calendars.

This thread caught my eye: both because I haven’t personally run into that issue, but also because I had actually thought of the automation.

Here’s my Copy my availability shortcut that I built all the way back when Shortcuts was Workflow, which has managed to live on in the Shortcuts Gallery today as the “Share Availability” shortcut.¹

In the piece, Jason came up with a solution after Shortcuts couldn’t get all the data in one action:

Tags Calendar, meetings, Shortcuts

Membership Shortcuts

New beta shortcuts for members: Ivory for Mastodon

Post author By Matthew Cassinelli
Post date January 5

Hey members!

This morning I got access to the TestFlight for Ivory, a Mastodon client from the makers of Tweetbot, and immediately spent the whole morning putting together a set of shortcuts based on the Open Ivory action and all its possible parameters.

I’ve just added my folder of Ivory shortcuts—including the Ivorycuts bundle—in beta and will be releasing these in the free section of the Shortcuts Library (along with a review) when Ivory gets released!

Check out the shortcuts below – I wrote about 1,000 words across all the descriptions explaining how to use the shortcuts, why the features from Ivory in particular are interesting, plus how I’m using Mastodon compared to Twitter:

Tags Ivory, Mastodon, Shortcuts

How To Video

How to transfer camera settings on a Panasonic LUMIX GH5

Post author By Matthew Cassinelli
Post date January 4

I recently got a second Panasonic LUMIX GH5 for my video setup and will now be sharing settings across two cameras regularly — thanks to a Reddit post I found the official Panasonic video explaining how to do just that:

Tags Camera, Checklist, GH5, How to, LUMIX, Panasonic, Settings, Things, video

Shortcuts

New in the Shortcuts Library: Christmas shortcuts

Post author By Matthew Cassinelli
Post date December 19
1 Comment on New in the Shortcuts Library: Christmas shortcuts

I’ve just added a new folder to the Shortcuts Library — my set of Christmas shortcuts:

Open Apple Music Holiday

Opens the deep link to the Holiday section of Apple Music.

Use the shortcut to find Albums, playlists, and radio stations related to the Holidays on Apple Music.

This shortcut works great on iPad for finding your favorite playlists and saving them for later.

Tags Apple Music, Apple TV, Christmas, Countdown, Day One, HomeKit, Maps, Messages, Notes, Shortcuts, Shortcuts Catalog, Shortcuts Library, smart home, Weather

News

Apple posts Shortcuts release notes for iOS 16, 16.1, and 16.2

Post author By Matthew Cassinelli
Post date December 15
3 Comments on Apple posts Shortcuts release notes for iOS 16, 16.1, and 16.2

Following the release of iOS 16.2 on Tuesday, Apple published an update in their Support knowledge base detailing new features and issues fixed in Shortcuts in the last few releases since iOS 16, iPadOS 16, watchOS 9, and macOS Ventura launched.

The main headline features for iOS 16.2 are new actions for Books and changes to the Wallpaper actions:

Tags News, Release notes, Shortcuts

Guest appearances Offsite Podcasts

Clockwise 481: A Series of Shortcuts

Post author By Matthew Cassinelli
Post date December 14
1 Comment on Clockwise 481: A Series of Shortcuts

I had the pleasure of being a guest on this week’s Clockwise podcast on Relay.FM alongside guest Kelly Guimont and hosts Mikah Sargent & Dan Moren. We talked about:

Whether we’d install a third-party app store on our phones, our most anticipated Matter devices, the tasks we’d pawn off onto an AI chatbot, and our non-holiday holiday traditions.

Always a pleasure to be a guest on Clockwise — and no I swear I’m not just a series of Shortcuts…

Tags Clockwise, Guest, Relay FM

Membership Siri Shortcuts

New for members: Things beta shortcuts

Post author By Matthew Cassinelli
Post date December 8

Hey members, I’ve just published 11 new shortcuts from today’s stream featuring the new actions from the Things beta!

I am super excited about this initial set of shortcuts and the updated actions that Things is bringing to their app soon — I’ve been looking forward to this level of support for many years.