Tech Tips – Page 2 – AgileAdam.com

Clipboard Manipulation using Keyboard Maestro

/ June 15, 2022

Keyboard Maestro has many triggers; these are responsible for executing macros. One such trigger is “The System Clipboard Changes“. I don’t use it often, despite how incredibly useful it is. It does exactly what it says: if a macro uses this trigger, Keyboard Maestro will execute the macro any time the clipboard content changes (when you “copy” something).

Here’s a quick example showing the usefulness.

There is a specific issue I have with Microsoft Outlook webmail within Google Chrome. Our email system leverages urldefense.com to alter all external links in the interface (see below). If I’m clicking a link, that’s fine, but if I want to copy a link’s URL it’s annoying to have to clean up the URL to remove the urldefense cruft.

BEFORE: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://someurl.com__;!!LQXXzXo!wt7t_lSnY
AFTER:  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx                   xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1 2	BEFORE: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://someurl.com__;!!LQXXzXo!wt7t_lSnY AFTER: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Everything I’ve marked with an “x” is added by urldefense.

The macro is simple. I leverage The System Clipboard Changes trigger to trigger the macro. The macro is inside of a macro group that is only activated for Google Chrome. I use an If Then Else action to determine if the URL is a target for manipulation. Finally, I use a Search and Replace action with some regular expressions to strip off the urldefense cruft.

Tech Tips

Using Keyboard Maestro to Set a Window Size for Recording

/ April 12, 2022
This is a quick one, folks. This simple KM macro sets the front (active) window to a specific size. I use it to prepare a window for screen recording.

Image of Macro:

Text of Macro:

Resize window to 1280×720

Triggered by any of the following:
- The Status Menu is selected
Will execute the following actions:
- Resize Front Window to Pixels
- To: 1280 horizontally, 720 vertically.
- Notify on failure.
read more

Tech Tips

Correcting Date Tags using sed in an Entire Obsidian Vault

/ March 17, 2022

I’ve been using Obsidian for about 8 months. It wasn’t until today that I realized I’ve been using hierarchical tags incorrectly since day one!

The Problem

In my templater templates I was using the following:

#<% tp.date.now("YYYY-MM-DD") %>/<% tp.date.now("YYYY-MM") %>/<% tp.date.now("YYYY") %> #<% tp.date.now("YYYY-MM-DD") %>

1	#<% tp.date.now("YYYY-MM-DD") %>/<% tp.date.now("YYYY-MM") %>/<% tp.date.now("YYYY") %> #<% tp.date.now("YYYY-MM-DD") %>

The result of this is:

#2022-03-17/2022-03/2022 #2022-03-17

1	#2022-03-17/2022-03/2022 #2022-03-17

Unfortunately there are two problems with this. First, there is no need for that extra tag at the end; it’s already covered by the first combo tag.

Second, the hierarchy is backwards! This leads to:

├── 2022-03-16
│   └── 2022-03
│       └── 2022
└── 2022-03-17
    └── 2022-03
        └── 2022

├── 2022-03-16

│ └── 2022-03

│ └── 2022

└── 2022-03-17

└── 2022-03

└── 2022

Houston, we have a problem! What I really was after was a tag structure like this:

└── 2022
    └── 2022-03
        ├── 2022-03-16
        └── 2022-03-17

└── 2022

└── 2022-03

├── 2022-03-16

└── 2022-03-17

The Fix

Thankfully, Obsidian stores all of the files on the filesystem natively, which means you can manipulate them using whatever tools you’d like.

Enter sed, a stream editor. Using sed and find, I was able to quickly resolve both of the issues above.

If I’d taken a little more time I would have handled both problems in one shot, but I did not. I fixed problem 2, then problem 1.

First, I cd’d into the root directory of my vault. Then…

# Find markdown files, feed them to sed,
# edit the file "in place" (modify them directly)

# We use capture groups (the parentheses) to
# essentially reverse the order of the tags
find . -type f -name '*.md' -print0 | xargs -0 sed -E -i "" "s/#([0-9]{4}-[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{2})\/([0-9]{4}-[0-9]{2})\/([0-9]{4})/#\3\/\2\/\1/g"

# Find #YYYY/YYYY-MM/YYYY-MM-DD #YYYY-MM-DD,
# capturing the first tag to "\1"
# Replace with the capture group (thereby dropping the second tag)
find . -type f -name '*.md' -print0 | xargs -0 sed -E -i "" "s/(#[0-9]{4}\/[0-9]{4}-[0-9]{2}\/[0-9]{4}-[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{2}) #[0-9]{4}-[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{2}/\1/g"

# Find markdown files, feed them to sed,

# edit the file "in place" (modify them directly)

# We use capture groups (the parentheses) to

# essentially reverse the order of the tags

find . -type f -name '*.md' -print0 | xargs -0 sed -E -i "" "s/#([0-9]{4}-[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{2})\/([0-9]{4}-[0-9]{2})\/([0-9]{4})/#\3\/\2\/\1/g"

# Find #YYYY/YYYY-MM/YYYY-MM-DD #YYYY-MM-DD,

# capturing the first tag to "\1"

# Replace with the capture group (thereby dropping the second tag)

find . -type f -name '*.md' -print0 | xargs -0 sed -E -i "" "s/(#[0-9]{4}\/[0-9]{4}-[0-9]{2}\/[0-9]{4}-[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{2}) #[0-9]{4}-[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{2}/\1/g"

Finally, I updated all of my templater templates to drop the second tag and fix the first to be in the right order.

Obsidian picked up all of the changes immediately, which were reflected in the tag pane. Much cleaner!

Tech Tips

Editing a DEVONThink Markdown File in VS Code

/ March 16, 2022

This is a sister post to Editing Web Content in VS Code.

This simple macro opens the current file (if Markdown) in VS Code, with the Markdown Preview Enhanced pane open on the right automatically.

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Tech Tips

Editing Web Content in VS Code

/ March 11, 2022

Okay, so it’s not quite as amazing as the title suggests, but this solution is worth sharing.

I work a lot in Bookstack. It’s a fantastic documentation system built with Laravel. I edit all pages in markdown. There is a markdown pane on the left and a preview on the right. I love the UI (shown below) but unfortunately I cannot move around in the editor like I can in PHPStorm or VS Code, where I have Vim support.

I have a Chrome extension called Wasavi, which is incredible for editing text areas in an inline virtual Vim window. Unfortunately, though, it doesn’t show realtime feedback in the preview pane until I save and close out of the virtual editor.

It occurred to me it’d be useful to just pop into VS Code quickly to edit the doc, then bring those edits back into the Bookstack editor in Chrome. At first I dismissed the idea as being “too much work.” After thinking about it for a moment, though, I realized I could MacGyver this relatively quickly with my favorite Mac application, Keyboard Maestro.

Here’s what I came up with. As with most things, I am sure I’ll tweak this over time to make it better, faster, less “error”-prone, etc. I have added a README comment and renamed most actions so it’s (hopefully) easy to understand the approach.

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Tech Tips

One-handed Gmail Inbox Culling with Keyboard Maestro

/ February 27, 2022
Keyboard Maestro proves, once again, why it’s at the top spot on my most recommended Mac applications list.

My normal procedure for culling (deleting unwanted) emails in Gmail is (with list on left and email preview on right):
1. Open the first email (opens in right pane)
2. If deleting, press “#” (⇧3)
3. Else, if skipping, press “j” to move down to the next email (standard Gmail behavior, I think; and it’s intuitive if you’re used to Vim)
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3.
I realized today how much I dislike hitting “#” with my left hand while browsing with my right.
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Development, Tech Tips

PERT Estimates – Using Three-Point Estimation to Improve Accuracy

/ July 29, 2021
Background & Method

I’ve long been a promoter of using three-point estimates for improved accuracy when estimating tasks.

When I estimate how long a task will take to execute, I imagine three separate circumstances in an effort to improve the accuracy of my estimate:
1. Optimistic: How quickly could I get this task done if everything went perfectly. What if I realize some unexpected “wins” that get me to the finish line faster?
2. Realistic: When I think about my performance executing similar tasks in the past, what’s my best guess at an average amount of time needed?
3. Pessimistic: Sometimes nothing seems to go well. If things do not come together as expected, what’s the longest (within reason) you can imagine this task taking?
If I’ve truly thought about each of these, I can use them as variables in a simple formula, and can get a more accurate time estimate as a result.

This formula, (Best+(Real*2)+(Worst*3))/6 , puts more emphasis on the worst-case scenario (#3 above) as things seem to always take longer than expected to execute. Sometimes I use two versions of the formula (one that puts even more emphasis on pessimistic).

One more thing worth noting: You’ll see I used “I” and “my” a lot above; I do not recommend estimating tasks you are not executing, personally. I recommend having the responsible party estimate the task whenever possible. Explain the PERT process to them.

Usage

While this formula is simple, and adjustable (alter the weights as you see fit), it would take some time to manually calculate the result for each task.

I utilize a few tools to generate PERT estimates at the speed of thought.

First, I’ve written an Alfred plugin to make the process simple. This is my most used method of generating PERT estimates. Here’s a screenshot to give you a taste:

I’ve also created many spreadsheets over the years. These often look similar to this:

Here are a few templates you can use: XLSX | ODS
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Tech Tips

Monitoring APFS Drive Decryption Progress

/ June 30, 2021

I recently decided to [permanently] decrypt an APFS volume via Finder (Right click the drive, choose Decrypt).

There wasn’t any indication that it was actually working. After some web searches, I pieced together a one-liner to monitor the progress of the decryption operation. This will refresh every 60 seconds. If your setup is anything like mine this will be an exceptionally slow operation.

PHP

watch -n 60 "diskutil apfs list | grep 'Decryption Progress'"

1

watch -n 60 "diskutil apfs list | grep 'Decryption Progress'"

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Development, Tech Tips

Switch Audio Input/Output Device using Alfred

/ May 10, 2020

My top two must-have Mac apps are Keyboard Maestro and Alfred. If you know me, you’ve likely heard me say this, ad nauseum. I use these two apps countless times each day. Often I use them to run command line scripts via hotkey. This is one such implementation.

Recently I picked up a Jabra Evolve 65 headset. I keep it connected to my Mac via USB. Also, I have some speakers hooked up via the external speaker jack. You can only send output to one of these devices at a time (speakers OR headset). I desired a way to quick-switch between the two. I chose to use Alfred for this.

The steps below show how to create some quick switchers like this:

Requirements and Initial Setup

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Development, Tech Tips

Automatically Put Files Into a YYYY/MM Directory Structure

/ June 6, 2018

#!/usr/bin/env bash

## This script will find .sql and .gz files in the current
## directory and move them into YYYY/MM directories (created
## automatically).

BASE_DIR=$(pwd)

## Find all .sql and .gz files in the current directory
find "$BASE_DIR" -maxdepth 1 -type f -name "*.sql" -o -name "*.gz" |
 while IFS= read -r file; do

    ## Get the file's modification year
    year=$(date -d "$(stat -c %y $file)" +%Y)

    ## Get the file's modification month
    month=$(date -d "$(stat -c %y $file)" +%m)

    ## Create the YYYY/MM directories if they don't exist. The -p flag
    ## makes 'mkdir' create the parent directories as needed so
    ## you don't need to create $year explicitly.
    [[ ! -d "$BASE_DIR/$year/$month" ]] && mkdir -p "$BASE_DIR/$year/$month";

    ## Move the file
    mv "$file" "$BASE_DIR/$year/$month"
    echo "$file" "$BASE_DIR/$year/$month"
done

#!/usr/bin/env bash

## This script will find .sql and .gz files in the current

## directory and move them into YYYY/MM directories (created

## automatically).

BASE_DIR=$(pwd)

## Find all .sql and .gz files in the current directory

find "$BASE_DIR" -maxdepth 1 -type f -name "*.sql" -o -name "*.gz" |

while IFS= read -r file; do

## Get the file's modification year

year=$(date -d "$(stat -c %y $file)" +%Y)

## Get the file's modification month

month=$(date -d "$(stat -c %y $file)" +%m)

## Create the YYYY/MM directories if they don't exist. The -p flag

## makes 'mkdir' create the parent directories as needed so

## you don't need to create $year explicitly.

[[ ! -d "$BASE_DIR/$year/$month" ]] && mkdir -p "$BASE_DIR/$year/$month";

## Move the file

mv "$file" "$BASE_DIR/$year/$month"

echo "$file" "$BASE_DIR/$year/$month"

done

The Problem

The Fix

Background & Method

Usage

Requirements and Initial Setup