Remap Your Mac with BetterTouchTool (Sponsor)

This week MacSparky is sponsored by BetterTouchTool, the Mac App that gives your input devices superpowers. While Apple makes some excellent trackpads and mice, the built-in gestures are just a taste of what you could do with those devices. With BetterTouchTool, you can completely re-design your Touch Bar, configure various Magic Mouse and Trackpad gestures, define keyboard shortcuts, bind standard mouse buttons, use the Siri Remote with your Mac and do tons more.

You may know BetterTouchTool for its ability to hotwire your trackpad, but there are so many other uses. For example, you can reconfigure the Mac’s green window button. Apple sets that button to take the current window to full-screen mode, but I don’t want that. I used BetterTouchTool to make it maximize the current window without full-screen mode. (I also set a right-click on the green button to make it full screen with BetterTouchTool in the odd case I actually want that behavior.)

BetterTouchTool offers many actions to automate various tasks on your Mac. These can be assigned to any input-device trigger you choose. Additionally, it contains some handy features like window snapping, a clipboard manager, a screenshot editor, and much more. This app is an absolute game-changer. Also, you can now join the BetterTouchTool Community at community.folivora.ai to learn how to get even more from BetterTouchTool. Users have shared some amazing presets there, including some very advanced custom Touch Bar setups that you should check out.

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

BetterTouchTool has been around for ten years, and I’ve been using it the entire time. With BetterTouchTool, I can make my Mac dance. You should too. MacSparky readers can purchase BetterTouchTool for 15% off at checkout by using the coupon code MACSPARKYBTT for a limited time. So don’t delay. Go to folivora.ai to learn more and take advantage of the special limited-time, 15% discount on BetterTouchTool.

The 24” iMac Reviews

We’ve now received several reviews of the new iMacs. They all agree the new M1 24” iMac is about as speedy as the rest of the M1 Macs, which is no surprise. I’ve been working on and rendering a lot more 4K video lately, and the M1 makes that look easy.

The reviews instead focus on the design elements of the blade-thin iMac. They’re mixed on that point. John Gruber concludes it’s an iconic design that will stand the test of time. Jason Snell calls it charismatic and fun. Marques Brownlee isn’t sold on it.

I think perhaps they’re all right. It is charismatic, iconic, and fun. It’s also not for everyone. I think they look pretty great, given the port and RAM limitations that come with the M1. I’d have probably made the iMac a bit thicker so you could get the computer-y parts behind the screen rather than in the chin, but then again, I’m not in the market for the low-end iMac. So they wouldn’t have got my money regardless.

Also, these things will look beautiful in people’s homes and workplaces and all of the non-geeks in my life think they are perfect without any consideration of things like RAM and ports. I expect Apple will be selling a lot of the colorful new iMacs.

A few points that stand out to me now that these iMacs are shipping:

It seems like the colors in person are different than the colors on Apple’s website. If you’re thinking about buying one but unsure about the color, I’d recommend a trip to the Apple Store starting May 21.
I’m relieved to hear from all reviewers that the internal speakers sound good. I didn’t think that was possible with a computer that is literally thinner than an Apple Watch.
Is it just me or is there an upside to an external power supply? So often, the power supply is the first point of failure in a computer. It would be nice to be able to replace it without opening up the computer.

Additional Mac Symbols

You may be aware that you can see a list of available symbols on your Mac with the Control-Command-Space key combination. By default, you get a nice collection of special characters and emoji. The recent addition of a search bar also helps.

But did you know there are even more symbols? Just click on the circle ellipses in the upper-left portion of the toolbar and then “Customize List…”.

That opens up a ton of additional options ranging from dingbats and geometric shapes to international character sets. If you want the African N’Ko character set, you can add it. I have not installed all sets, but I find the technical symbols handy for my MacSparky work. The below screenshots show just a few of to additional character sets I’ve added. My thanks to reader Jason Cramer for reminding me of this feature.

PDFpen and PDFpenPro 13

There’s a new update to PDF editing app PDFpen and PDFpenPro. The new version has a new interface and toolbar. You can still add text, images, signatures, highlights, and comments to your PDFs, and make changes, fix typos, fill out forms, and redact sensitive information, but Smile has put out an intuitive new interface, which improves navigating and editing PDFs, with convenient access to essential tools directly from the Toolbar. They’ve also redesigned and improved highlighting, so now you can select and edit custom highlight colors directly from the Toolbar.

One thing that I like about this update is the new MRC compression settings. We get more flexibility in controlling file sizes because we can choose between compression or quality settings and what file size is right for us.

If you have PDFpenPro, Smile has improved the ability to replace Table of Contents entries. With this update, you can re-assign existing entries that have changed, which saves you time and makes documents more professional and navigable. When wearing my lawyer hat, I add table of contents entries for anything that lands in front of a guy wearing a black robe, and that process is easier with this update.

Mac Power Users #588: macOS Services, with Sal Soghoian

Stephen and I talk with Sal Soghoian on the history of Automator and Services on the Mac, both of which are cornerstones of automation on macOS today. On this episode of Mac Power Users, we’ll discuss how these tools came to be, and how Apple has evolved them over the years, in addition to what can be done with them.

This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:

1Password: Have you ever forgotten a password? You don’t have to worry about that anymore.
The Intrazone, by Microsoft SharePoint: Your bi-weekly conversation and interview podcast about SharePoint, OneDrive and related tech within Microsoft 365.
Indeed: Get a free $75 credit to upgrade your job post.

DEVONthink for Superior File Management (Sponsor)

A lot of folks know that DEVONthink, this week’s MacSparky sponsor, excels at bringing artificial intelligence (A. I.) to your documents and research, but did you also know DEVONthink has a killer set of automation tools? Over the last few years, DEVONthink has added some powerful features that make automating your DEVONthink library a snap.

The app can install scripts in Apple Mail to save email messages to your DEVONthink library which link backs to Apple Mail. You can then store those emails along with key documents to keep project files and email together.

You can build smart folders that automatically collect documents around parameters you (or the DEVONthink A. I.) set.

There is now built-in document automation called Smart Rules that lets you move, sort, rename, tag, index, and perform just about any other action in the DEVONthink arsenal automatically. The screenshot below shows a list of available triggers to give you an idea. This is a relatively new feature that a lot of experienced DEVONthink users don’t even realize exists.

You can build template documents and generate them right out of DEVONthink.

The mobile version, DEVONthink To Go, supports Shortcuts and mobile automation.

I always appreciate it when developers spend time trying to take the tedium out of their apps, and the DEVONthink developers have delivered on this over the past few years in a big way. If you haven’t checked out DEVONthink yet (or looked at it lately), you should.

You can think of DEVONthink as your paperless office. You can automate your workflow from capture to filing, editing to publishing. It stores all your documents, helps you keep them organized, and presents you with what you need to get the job done.

Interested? MacSparky readers can get a 20% discount on DEVONthink. Use the code MACSPARKY2021 at checkout. This offer has been extended and now ends on December 31, 2021.

Obsidian vs. Roam

When I was first exploring notes apps, I spent quite a bit of time in the wild with Roam Research and Obsidian. I wrote about why I’m leaning Obsidian a few months ago. The thing is there isn’t one best answer to which tool is best. Mike Schmitz got me started on this journey with Roam Research and I’d like to think I played a role in getting him to switch to Obsidian. Regardless, Mike has written an opus on the differences between these apps and who should use what.

Focused 125: Professional Nerd, with Rosemary Orchard

Rosemary Orchard joins Mike and me on this episode of Focused to talk about juggling projects, automation, kanban boards, and keeping the jobby job.

This episode of Focused is sponsored by:

Indeed: Get a free $75 credit to upgrade your job post.
Squarespace: Make your next move. Enter offer code FOCUSED at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase.
ExpressVPN: High-speed, secure and anonymous VPN service. Get an extra three months free.

OmniFocus 4.0 for iPad and iPhone Now in Beta

Yesterday the OmniGroup announced the open beta of OmniFocus 4.0 for iPhone and iPad. This new version will represent the most significant change in the OmniFocus user interface ever. I’ve been on the private beta, and I dig it. This new version will give you much more control over the way the application looks and quality-of-life improvements across the board. There are new inspectors, easier navigation, and a much-improved outline view. All of this while maintaining the full set of OmniFocus tools.

This new version is written entirely in Swift UI, which will give OmniFocus some real flexibility going forward. Also, this is the most complex app I’m aware of being developed in Swift UI. The Omni Group is very much at the pointy end of the spear with this project.

The beta is still early, and there are still features and even UI elements missing. Nevertheless, I’m excited to see the OmniFocus team willing to take risks to keep their software on the cutting edge. At this point, the beta is only for iPad and iPhone, but I expect the Mac will be getting similar treatment in the future.

The usual warnings go here about running beta software. Be careful. Back up. Don’t use it if you’re worried about data loss. I’ve been running the version 3 public release alongside the version 4 beta with no troubles thus far.

These changes to OmniFocus mean I’ll be making a new OmniFocus Field Guide. It will be a new version and built from scratch with the new version 4. Expect it once the OmniGroup releases version 4 for Mac, iPhone, and iPad.

Mac Power Users 587: Catching Up with Casey Liss

Casey Liss drops by to chat with Stephen and me about waiting on the next Apple silicon announcement, his iPhone development work, home automation, and how not to deal with digital photos. Listen now on the latest episode of Mac Power Users.

This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:

TextExpander, from Smile: Get 20% off with this link and type more with less effort! Expand short abbreviations into longer bits of text, even fill-ins, with TextExpander from Smile.
Loopback, from Rogue Amoeba: Cable-free audio routing for Mac. Get 21% off with the code MPU21.
Squarespace: Make your next move. Enter offer code MPU at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase.