FL!P Weblog

SnapBack 2.7.1

Philippe Martin — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 18:18:51 GMT

SnapBack 2.7.1 was released yesterday evening. The only new feature in this version is the ability to define and use a hot key to snap back, but there are also several bug fixes and reliability improvements.

And if you wonder what happened to the 2.7, well, it's been stuck for some time waiting for Apple's approval, during which I fixed one more bug. So when I got the green light from Apple, I immediately submitted the 2.7.1, which was approved almost immediately, and here it is.

Download and everything, here.

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SnapBack Mentions

Philippe Martin — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 04:00:39 GMT

SnapBack was recently mentioned in MacWorld's Get 25 great Safari extensions article, and in one of TUAW's Safari extension highlights. And it's on Apple's Extensions Gallery, too.

As a result, SnapBack's page is getting hundreds of hits a day and at this point it counts more than 17000 visits (which probably exceeds all my other softwares put together).

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SnapBack 2.6

Philippe Martin — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 22:59:41 GMT

SnapBack went 2.6, with a bunch of bug fixes.

Read all about it here.

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SnapBack 2.5

Philippe Martin — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 05:35:55 GMT

SnapBack was updated to 2.5.

This version works around the Safari bug that broke the 2.0 with many sites, and brings a couple of extra new features.

Details and download here

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SnapBack 2.0

Philippe Martin — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 20:08:49 GMT

My SnapBack Safari extension went 2.0.

Snapback brings back a feature that Safari once had: it lets you jump back to the first page in the history of the current window or tab, or (new in 2.0) to the page you marked from the contextual menu. This new version also brings support for Top Sites and reliability improvements.

More info and download from here.

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SnapBack

Philippe Martin — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 09:13:40 GMT

I released SnapBack, a simple Safari Extension that takes you back to the first page in the history of the current window or tab.

Linky

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Tips and Tricks for Keyboard Maestro

Philippe Martin — Mon, 31 May 2010 19:26:43 GMT

Keyboard Maestro is a fantastic macro program that I've been happily using (and beta testing) for years and for tons of different things.

I'm so used to using it that it has become almost completely intuitive to me, but reading and answering questions on KM's mailing list, I realized that some things which are obvious to me aren't so to everybody.

So I decided to share some of my experience with KM and compiled this list of tips and tricks.

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Display system version and build number in GeekTool

Philippe Martin — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:16:37 GMT

If you're a developer or a tester who uses to switch between various versions of Mac OS for testing purposes, you might find handy to get GeekTool to display the system version and build number. Here's how I do it:

echo `/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Print :ProductUserVisibleVersion" /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist`  \(`/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Print :ProductBuildVersion" /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist`\)

The result is something like this:

10.5.7 (9J61)

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AppleScript Tips for GeekTool 3

Philippe Martin — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 23:38:18 GMT

I love GeekTool and I love even more GeekTool 3 that's currently in development.

However it's not feature complete yet and some things you could do with GeekTool 2 (like switching between groups from a menu) aren't implemented in 3 yet. But GeekTool 3 is now scriptable, which allows to do things from the outside that you cannot do yet with GeekTool 3 alone, like displaying/hiding a given geeklet.

The following script shows how I do that:

property geekletId : "E25ED489-C623-481E-91F1-96A2A614A6BF"
property cmd : "uptime"
property theHeight : 20.0
property theWidth :500.0
tell application "GeekTool"
    tell geeklet id geekletId
        if command is "" then
            set command to cmd
            set refresh time to 10
            set height to theHeight
            set width to theWidth
        else
            set command to ""
            set refresh time to 0
            set height to 0.0
            set width to 0.0
        end if
        refresh
    end tell
end tell

Note that changing the height and width of the geeklet is useful only if you gave it a background colour. Also, the command can be set to anything you can enter in GeekTool's command field itself, but if that command contains any double quotes you'll have to escape each of them with a backslash.

The only tricky bit here (unless you're using the fantastic Script Debugger) is to get the geeklet's Id. But here's a way to get a list of every geeklet's id in relation with its command:

tell application "GeekTool"
    set s to ""
    set lsGeeklets to every geeklet
    repeat with aGeeklet in lsGeeklets
        tell aGeeklet as specifier
            set s to s & id & tab & (command as string) & return
        end tell
    end repeat
end tell
tell application "BBEdit"
    activate
    make new text document in front
    set text of window 1 to s
end tell

And finally you can refresh all the geeklets at once with this simple oneliner:

tell application "GeekTools" to refresh all

These scripts can be called from Apple's AppleScript Menu, Keyboard Maestro, and so on.

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DesktopSweeper 1.4b1

Philippe Martin — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 22:27:50 GMT

Now that Unsanity has released the first beta of their Leopard-compatible version of Application Enhancer, I could at last put together the first Leopard-compatible version of my DesktopSweeper (an APE Module that allows to hide—and show again—the Finder's Desktop icons). The first beta of it has been released privately a couple of days ago to testers, and I'm happy to report that so far everything has been working perfectly. So I'm now releasing the same beta to the public.

Here's what's new in this version:

- Compatible with Leopard and Tiger (Panther is no longer supported).
- Installs Application Enhancer 2.5b1.
- Installs (optionally) SmartCrashReports 1.5b2.

Download: DesktopSweeper 1.4b1 (1.7MB)

Installation:

1. Expand the archive;
2. launch the Installer;
3. follow the instructions;
4. log out and back in, or quit (not force-quit) and re-launch the Finder (easy from Activity Monitor):
5. Launch System Preferences, click on Application Enhancer, then on DesktopSweeper to set your preferences.

See the tooltips for quick help, or click on the Information tab for the readme.

Note that if Unsanity's Application Enhancer isn't present, the installer will offer you to install it (it's required). In this case you'll need to enter an admin password (because Application Enhancer goes to /Library/Frameworks and /Library/PreferencesPanes).

Similarly, if SmartCrashReports isn't installed, you'll have the choice to install it or not. It is not required, but in case of a crash caused by DesktopSweeper, it would allow you to send me the crash log from Apple's Crash Reporter. SmartCrashReports must be installed at /Library/InputManagers, so an admin password may be requested from you.

Please let me know if you encounter any problem, difficulty, typo, whatever... or if you don't.

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Application Enhancer 2.5b1 brings Leopard Compatibility

Philippe Martin — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 22:24:15 GMT

If you've been waiting impatiently (as I have) for a Leopard-compatible version of Unsanity's Application Enhancer, then you can rejoice: the wait is over!

A couple of days ago, Unsanity has released the first public beta of Application Enhancer 2.5, along with a beta of most of their Haxies (FontCard, MenuMaster, Silk, FruitMenu, and WindowShadeX). These all are accessible from this article.

Congrats, Unsanity, and thank you!

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