Mac – Page 20 – Macinations

May 4, 2021

Convert letters to phone keypad numbers with Keyboard Maestro

I ran into this the other day where I needed to convert my username to digits I could type on a phone keypad. While not a big deal, there are plenty of online tools to do it, I wondered if it could be done with Keyboard Maestro. The answer is yes, and in just a few blocks. This is a simple macro, but it has a couple of neat items. First, it gets the text to convert. That text is converted to lowercase and any spaces are removed. It then uses RegEx to check a range of letters such as [a-c] or [d-f] to see what number on the keypad to assign. The values can also be separated using the pipe | symbol. [a|b|c] would be a or b or c. That’s convenient. Once the conversion is done, the final result is copied to the clipboard. This could easily be changed to a text box where the value could be […]

April 23, 2021

A few quick thoughts on the Apple Spring Loaded event

I thought the Apple Spring Loaded event delivered quite a bit of excitement. The new M1 iMacs are very nice entry level machines. Some like the new design. Others don’t. I’m a fan of the new look and colors. I hope those color options actually carry over to the 27 and possible 30 inch models. A yellow or red iMac would be awesome. The cabling, matching keyboard and mouse, and external power brick make for a nice package. It’s a well rounded machine that will handle all the same tasks we’ve seen benchmarked with the MacBooks. It might go even more due to the cooling. The fact it’s actually thinner than an audio connector jack is quite amazing. It will be interesting to see if the chin sticks around for the larger models. I wouldn’t be surprised if that disappeared. With the iPad Pro getting the M1 chip, the bridge to the MacBook Air has been crossed. The latest M1 […]

April 19, 2021

Position and Resize Windows with Keyboard Maestro

There are dedicated tools like Magnet and Display Maid to position and resize windows. However, if you have Keyboard Maestro you can emulate that functionality. It takes a small amount of effort and two simple macros. The first step is to arrange windows in the desired location and at the correct size. That done, it’s time to create a simple macro to record the window locations so they can be used in another macro. Keyboard Maestro has built-in commands to display the window name, position, and size. We’ll use these to capture the coordinates of the window. Top: %Calculate%WinFrame.Top%Left: %Calculate%WinFrame.Left%Width: %Calculate%WinFrame.Width%Height: %Calculate%WinFrame.Height% This macro will trigger when the window focus changes. As you click different windows, the name and position are displayed in a Keyboard Maestro result window. This is a macro you will want to turn off once this bit of testing is complete. With all the window positions recorded, the next step is to use the Move a […]

April 13, 2021

Text Filtering and Replace with Keyboard Maestro

Along with many other features, Keyboard Maestro has some solid text Filtering features. You can combine this with Search and Replace to strip formatting and clean text. If it’s extensive, I hand this task over to TextSoap, but Keyboard Maestro has quite a few tricks to work with. For example, the Filter block has some built in ways to clean text. As an example, there is: The Search and Replace block can replace words as well as use Regular Expressions. This can be used to remove Tab, CRLF, and other characters that Filter may miss. I used this for a variety of tasks. The obvious is stripping out characters or making sure everything is lowercase. I’ve also taken Katalon Studio comments and stripped out the // and /* blocks so I could use my comments in documentation. Another use has been a macro to convert JIRA tickets into a task list. I copy the text, then use Keyboard Maestro to […]

April 11, 2021

Securing and sending documents for job and taxes

Since applying for jobs and filing taxes is a virtual affair, how do you secure your documents so everyone doesn’t see your social security number and other sensitive information? With switching jobs, I had to send multiple documents including my driver’s license, salary information, SSN, beneficiary details, birthdate, address, and lots of other personal details. Not information you just want floating around out there. So, how do you deliver such information? Create a Secure Volume: If the other person has a Mac, the easiest thing to do is use a password protected DMG file. It only takes a moment to create and you can drop all your files inside. To work cross platform, if they’re willing to spend a few moments installing software, VeraCrypt creates a password protected volume that works on both Mac and Windows. Another alternative is the password protected Zip file. Using tools like Keka, BetterZip, or 7Zip, add files to the archive, set the password and […]

Convert letters to phone keypad numbers with Keyboard Maestro

A few quick thoughts on the Apple Spring Loaded event

Position and Resize Windows with Keyboard Maestro

Text Filtering and Replace with Keyboard Maestro

Securing and sending documents for job and taxes

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