Creating 3rd party file formats from inside DevonThink

With DevonThink as the hub of my document management, I want to create files from inside the app itself. This works great for text related documents .txt, .rtf, .md, but what about .docx, .xlsx, .pptx and the like. Or even a document format to be named later? The answer is very simple and I’m surprised and perhaps a little disappointed it took me this long to get around to sorting it out. The process involves making a document of the type you plan to use in the future then making that available to DevonThink as a template. First, within DevonThink, select Data->New From Template->Open Templates Folder. This will open the Templates.noindex folder. Next, make a blank document from each application you want to work with in the future. For example, open Writer from within LibreOffice and save a blank document as .docx, then another for .odt. Do the same for Calc as .xlsx and .ods, Presentation and all your other […]

Speculation: Could the new Apple Silicon bring back the Mac Pro 2013?

This is pure speculation. A total hypothesis. A complete, "What if". But, what if the new Apple Silicon could bring back the Mac Pro 2013, or at least the form factor, as a bridge between the Mac mini and the Mac Pro 2019? Currently, there is no "Mac." There is an iMac, iMac Pro, Mac mini, and Mac Pro, but not a desktop machine called "Mac." Something that is more powerful than the Mac mini, but not the set your hair on fire specs of the Mac Pro. For example, a desktop machine that allows both memory and video card upgrades. The Mac Pro form factor would a good choice for it's design and use of space. So, what if Apple made some tweaks, revamped the video cards, offered a higher ceiling for the ram, upped the internal SSD and re-offered the 2013 model as a "Mac"? It could easily be an 8-12 core machine, like the final high end […]

Creating and Restoring Syntax Highlighting in Katalon Studio

While Katalon Studio comes with some formatting and syntax highlighting, it’s very beneficial to set up your own. The time investment will be worth it later when you can focus in on your code based on it’s color without having to read each and every line. Katalon has two areas where you can set formatting options. Both are under Preferences. The first is under General > Appearance > Colors and Fonts. This handles the main font style, color and size of the editor window. The other, related to syntax highlighting is located under: ​Java > Editor > Syntax Coloring You will then have Java, JavaDocs, and Comments. Java contains most of the options you will be interested in and you will see an example of your syntax highlighting in the Preview window. Once this is set, it’s awesome, however, when you upgrade Katalon, those formatting options will be overwritten. This is not awesome. But, it’s easily handled by making a […]

Setting up a secondary keyboard for macros

After setting up several keyboard shortcuts within Alfred and Keyboard Maestro, it became clear that I was putting together some bizarre key combinations and odd hand gestures to make sure I wasn’t interfering with other applications. Then it occurred to me, don’t video and audio editors have dedicated keyboards for shortcuts? Can the same thing be done for keyboard macros? The answer is, yes it can. And rather easily too, using a standard keyboard and Karabiner Elements. You don’t have to buy a specialty keyboard or programmable keypad or anything else. You can use any USB keyboard you have lying around. I have dozens from all the Windows machines I’ve ordered throughout the years. This also works for a Bluetooth keyboard, so it doesn’t have to be wired. The easiest way to configure this is install Karabiner Elements and go to the devices tab. Turn off all the other keyboard except the secondary one you plan to use for macros. Then […]

Katalon regression project is complete

Good news! My QA automation project is now complete. Well, complete in the sense that I have a full test suite to run against QA and Production. No code project is ever really complete and there is plenty more for me to work on. But, at this point, I have a fully functional project with 30 tests that cover a majority of the functionality. I recently finished the regression suite with all the tests running together. Small adjustments were needed due to some small timing issue, and a few leftover hardcoded values I missed on my previous pass. A few initialization scripts were also written to setup and retrieve data before the test fully got underway. The suite also did it's trial by fire, by being used in a Production smoke test for our last deployment. I'm obviously not going to let it run completely unsupervised, but it did very well. It checked all the data points it was supposed […]