Toggle Witch off and on via AppleScript

November 15th, 2013 by Rob Griffiths

Recently, a few users have asked about disabling Witch when certain programs are in the foreground. Typically this comes up because of conflicts between Command-Tab or Option-Tab (the two most-common Witch activation keys) and the foreground app. For example, you can’t use Option-Tab in a Remote Desktop Client Windows window, because Witch will grab it. Or when using Fusion to run OS X in a virtual machine, you may find that Command-Tab is trapped by OS X before it gets to your virtual machine.

In those cases, it’d be nice to easily disable Witch, then quickly enable it again when you’re done with the app in question. As of today, you can’t do this within Witch, although we have plans to change that. For now, though, the best solution is to create an AppleScript that will toggle Witch off and on as needed. You can then use any program that can run AppleScripts via hot keys (such as our own Butler) to give yourself a keyboard combo that toggles Witch off and on.

Setting up the AppleScript isn’t overly complicated, though it does differ slightly depending on whether you’re using the App Store or direct version of Witch. If you’re interested in creating your own Witch toggle, read on for the how-to…
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How-to: Enable Moom in Mavericks

October 23rd, 2013 by Rob Griffiths

Moom is fully compatible with Mavericks, but Apple has changed how users enable the OS X feature (access for assistive devices) that Moom (and some of our other apps) uses to get things done. Enabling this feature isn’t much harder than it was before, but it is different.

Here’s the expert version: After installing Moom 3.1, visit the Privacy tab of the Security & Privacy System Preferences panel, and place a check in the box next to Moom’s entry in the window. Once you’ve done that, Moom should work fine. (If, for some reason, it doesn’t work, please check the end of this blog entry for some troubleshooting tips.)

If you’d like a more-detailed walkthrough on getting Moom to work in Mavericks, keep reading…a
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Desktop Curtain and Time Sink updated

October 23rd, 2013 by Rob Griffiths

Today we’re releasing Desktop Curtain 3.0.1 and Time Sink 1.2.2. Neither of these are Mavericks-specific releases; they’re mainly bug fix releases with a couple small new features here and there. As with our Mavericks-specific updates, the following warning applies to these updates:

IMPORTANT NOTE: The following updates will bump the minimum system requirement to 10.7 or newer; if you’re still running 10.6, DO NOT INSTALL THESE UPDATES.

Why 10.7 or newer? Apple recently declared an old security-related API dead (i.e. deprecated), and recommended that all developers switch to the newer API, which we did. But that new API requires 10.7 or newer.

App Store buyers should see the updates shortly; direct buyers can get them through in-app updating, or by downloading directly from our site. If you care about the nitty-gritty details, make sure you check out the release notes pages for each app (Desktop Curtain • Time Sink) to see what’s up.

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Oh when the updates come marching in…

October 18th, 2013 by Rob Griffiths

We’ve been quiet here lately, but that’s not because we haven’t been busy. Far from it; we’ve been testing our apps with Mavericks, and making changes where necessary (mostly cosmetic in nature). We’ve also addressed a number of minor bugs that have been reported (thanks!) since our last updates. So be prepared, we’re updating nearly the entire lineup today—everything here is Mavericks-ready, for whenever Apple ships the system.

As always, direct purchasers can update within the app, or by downloading a new version from our servers. App Store buyers should see the updates (soon, if not already) in the Updates tab of the App Store application.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The following updates will bump the minimum system requirement to 10.7 or newer; if you’re still running 10.6, DO NOT INSTALL THESE UPDATES.

Why 10.7 or newer? Apple recently declared an old security-related API dead (i.e. deprecated), and recommended that all developers switch to the newer API, which we did. But that new API requires 10.7 or newer.

So what’s new and improved today? It’s quite a list…

  • Butler 4.1.16: A number of behind-the-scenes updates for improved Mavericks compatibility, and a couple minor bug fixes.
  • Leech 2.2: We’ve fixed a fuzzy date bug, improved the ‘resume download,’ and squashed a couple of bugs.
  • Moom 3.1: Lots of goodness here, but the biggie is that you can now specify resize dimensions as a percentage of available space. We’ve also changed how custom names work for saved window layouts, added a new AppleScript command, and made a number of other little changes. Check out the Moom release notes page for all the details.
  • Name Mangler 3.3: The big news here is that Mavericks users can use Tags in renaming operations. We also fixed a couple of minor bugs, and added a checkbox to the Terms List dialog that will make Name Mangler check the source file for updates. Full details on the Name Mangler release notes page.
  • Witch 3.9.3: We’ve updated the “how to enable” text for Mavericks users, and worked around a glitch for those using XtraFinder.

    • If you’re scoring at home, that’s five apps updated; the missing suspects (Desktop Curtain, Keymo, Time Sink, and Usher) all have updates in the works, and we hope to have those out shortly as well. Even without updates, those apps will work fine on Mavericks—so if you’re upgrading your OS, you should be in good shape with all of our apps, assuming you apply the updates we have released.

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Saying Goodbye to ‘Buy with Google’

June 24th, 2013 by Rob Griffiths

If you didn’t see the news, Google recently announced that they would be shutting down Google Checkout come November, 2013. Here at Many Tricks, we presently offer Google Checkout as one of our three payment options (direct credit card and PayPal are the other two).

When we relaunched Many Tricks in 2010, having Google Checkout was important, as it was the only alternative to PayPal available to our customers. As such, Checkout accounted for over 20% of our sales in that first year.

But over time, this 20% figure began to drop—even before we added support for direct credit card transactions as a third buying option, it seemed people were moving away from Checkout. Then, when we did add direct credit card purchases, Checkout fell even further. How far? So far in 2013, Checkout accounts for less than 5% of Many Tricks’ buyers.

Given that Google is walking away from Checkout this fall, and looking at Checkout’s greatly-diminished importance to our customers, we’ve made the decision to turn off Checkout at the end of June. So on June 30th, no earlier than 6PM Pacific time, Google Checkout will no longer be available as an option on our site.

If, in the future, we find a decent alternative to Google Checkout that works with our transaction processing house, we’ll see about adding them to our site as a third purchase option. For the short term, though, you’ll be able to choose between using PayPal or paying directly via credit card.

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Name Mangler and Butler updates released

June 11th, 2013 by Rob Griffiths

We held these off for a day, so as to not steal the thunder from Apple’s WWDC keynote. But now that that’s over with, we’re releasing Name Mangler 3.2 and Butler 4.1.15 into the wild.

Name Mangler 3.2 adds support for Notification Center, and the ability to highlight spaces (including special emphasis on leading, trailing, and double spaces) in your filenames. We added/fixed some other stuff, too—for more details, check out the release notes. Direct buyers can get the update via in-app updating, or by downloading the new version from our site. App Store buyers should see the update in the App Store application (if not now, then shortly).

Note: If you’re running OS X 10.6 or 10.7 and downloaded or updated to Name Mangler 3.2 earlier today, please check again for updates. We just pushed out Name Mangler 3.2.1, which fixes a post-rename crashing bug.

We’re sorry we didn’t catch this one in our testing prior to release. We’ve given ourselves a good talking to, and we’ll do our best to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Butler 4.1.15 fixes a couple of minor bugs and updates how Butler handles clipboard content. The Butler release notes page contains the details on these thrilling changes. Update within the app, or by downloading the new version from our site.

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Announcing two free Safari extensions for tab addicts

April 30th, 2013 by Rob Griffiths

Today we’re releasing two free Safari extensions, targeted at those of us who rely on tabs to speed our browsing. Here are the details on each.

⌘-Click Avenger

About a week ago, I tweeted this:

I really really hate sites (autotrader.com is another) that use JavaScript and onclick events to break this functionality. Unbeknownst to me, this behavior also irked the other half of Many Tricks, and Peter was already at work on fixing the problem. A few hours after my tweet, Peter sent this one:

After downloading and testing, I discovered it didn’t actually fix the autotrader.com site, because they were using a global onclick handler. After some revisions (including splitting the two functions into separate extensions), though, the extension now works on ESPN, autotrader.com, and many other similar sites. It may not work for 100% of the sites out there, but it’s been pretty robust in our testing.

Download ⌘-Click Avenger

Unread→Tabs

This extension is for those who use vBulletin forum sites. It adds a contextual menu that lets you open all unread article links in new tabs, with a single click. As of now, it only works for vBulletin, but if you use forum sites based on other systems, we may be able to get it working if you can give us a URL to look at.

Download Unread→Tabs

Technical details

These are free extensions (MIT license), and we’ll be submitting them to Apple’s Safari extensions gallery. However, as we don’t know how long that process may take, we’re releasing them here for those who’d like to use them now.

These extensions are provided as is, without any formal support. If you have the “Install Updates Automatically” box checked in Safari’s Extensions preferences panel, you’ll automatically get any updates we release.

Source code: If you’d like to see the source for either extension, here’s where to get it…

⌘-Click Avenger: Bitbucket • GitHub
Unread→Tabs: Bitbucket • GitHub

Alternatively, you can just unpack the extension on your Mac, via Terminal: xar -xf /path/to/extension.

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Name Mangler 3.1 released

April 8th, 2013 by Rob Griffiths

Yes, it was just six weeks ago that we released Name Mangler 3, but today, Name Mangler 3.1 has hit the streets. Direct purchasers will find the upgrade in the Update section of Name Mangler’s preferences, if they haven’t set the program to automatically check for udpates. App Store users will see an update for Name Mangler within the App Store application.

So why so quickl for a “full dot” upgrade? Here’s why…

With the 3.0 release, we attracted a lot of new customers, and we received a fair bit of feedback about how Name Mangler’s file list area didn’t act like Finder—you couldn’t select more than one file, making it hard to remove a number of files from a renaming list, or to quickly reorder many files. With Name Mangler 3.1, we’ve changed the file list area to behave more like Finder, addressing this feedback. (We also added a new View > Click in List To menu item to control this behavior. If you prefer the original Name Mangler behavior, set this menu option to Cycle Detail.)

In addition, we were asked for a few additional time and date formatting options, so we’ve added those. In the longer term, we’re looking at adding a full date/time formatter to Name Mangler, but these additional formats address all the requests we’ve had since 3.0 came out.)

The other big change is that Name Mangler no longer commandeers the Command key plus arrow keys text navigation shortcuts—if you’re editing a text field, you can use these shortcuts to jump to the start or end of that text field. Previously, these shortcuts were used to cycle history; those keys have been changed to Control-Command plus the arrow keys.

There are a number of other changes, which you can read about on the Name Mangler release notes page.

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Name Mangler 3 is new and noteworthy…

March 8th, 2013 by Rob Griffiths

We, of course, have already proclaimed as much, but Apple has now decided the same, featuring Name Mangler 3 in their current New and Noteworthy category.

We were supposed to move Name Mangler 3 to its normal $19 price yesterday, but in lieu of this news, we’ve decided to leave it at $10 through the weekend. So if you were on the fence, now’s the time to make the move—both the App Store and direct versions are $10 each for three more days.

Before buying, please compare the two versions to make sure you know what you’re getting with each one. Two key differences are OS X version required (10.8 for App Store; 10.6.8+ for direct) and Path Finder support (none in App Store version; present in the direct version).

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How to: Restore Command+Arrow keys in Name Mangler

March 3rd, 2013 by Rob Griffiths

One of the new features in Name Mangler 3 is a comprehensive history of renaming operations. Name Mangler will remember your last 50 (or more, if you change it in prefs) renaming actions. You can access these saved configurations via our history browser:

To make it easier to browse your history, we provide two keyboard shortcuts: Command-Left Arrow (previous configuration) and Command-Right Arrow (next configuration). Experienced keyboard users will instantly recognize that those are the shortcut keys for jumping to the start and end of text strings in an input box, and may wonder how we have the keys serving both roles.

The short answer is “we don’t.” In Name Mangler 3, you can’t use those shortcut keys to navigate input boxes, only to navigate history.

But there is an easy solution, for those who prefer these keys in their text field roles: change the keyboard shortcuts for the history browser. After changing these shortcuts, the Command plus arrow key shortcuts will work as expected in Name Mangler’s text fields.

If you’re experienced with changing OS X keyboard shortcuts, you just need to assign Previous Configuration and Next Configuration to new shortcuts, and you’re done. If you need more specific how-to help, keep reading.

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