Why hello there. It's been a while. The summer time is normally hard for most people, with big events, family vacations, and the extra daylight to spend all your time outside.
Except this summer hasn't been that for me. It's probably the busiest, craziest summer I've ever had (at least that I can recall). It's been full of ups and downs, and non-stop action every day. I can't remember the last time I had some true down time.
So what's been going on? Well, there's been a lot of personal stuff – too personal to get into on a public site. I've extensively journaled about it, which has been great. Personal life has influenced the vacations I took this summer - a grand total of zero. Kids have been active this summer, there's a ton to do around the house, and things slip through the cracks. It happens. I'm originally from east of Cleveland, so I know what it means to have it not be your year.
Work has been hellacious, but in a multitude of great ways. It's been busy with so much going on, but I'm managing more than ever. There's a shift in the perception of who I am and what I can bring, which has been fantastic. I've even switch to a single task manager rather than having two. Even though I enjoyed the bifurcation, this has been better for me this summer with everything going on. For now – and you know it is always subject to change – I've settled on Todoist. A huge reason why is the addition of the Todoist script objects in Drafts and the speed at which I can enter everything in. But more on that at a different time.
I have spent the summer doing a few things to take care of me. For too many years, I let certain things go. But in the spring, I came to the realization that I put off me too much, and I needed to reclaim some of it. So I've been working out regularly – three to five times a week. I'm making sure to complete those goals not for the gamification, but because I know the end result will be a healthier me. I'm going to bed at a reasonable time, and waking up at 5am every morning to get this done, but it's been better.
All this to say: all of this has made it so that I haven't been writing as much. I had planned on writing more on some aspects of Drafts after I wrote the review. I still have those plans. And I will do them. Life often just finds a way to get the way of some personal life stuff. But I don't regret the decisions I've made in reclaiming some "me" time. I'm working on a better balance, and a better me. A short hiatus every once in a while is a wonderful thing.
In conversations I’ve had over the past week, it’s become clear that there’s nothing very self-explanatory about Mastodon as a social network, and that in many ways Twitter users are both prepared and unprepared for the experience.
With the state of things at Twitter the company and with Twitter the service, I'd be remiss if I didn't think about moving to a new social network. The idea of going completely dark doesn't seem like the right choice for me, but I'm not enjoying Twitter as much as I used to anymore. This was true before they #BrokeMyTwitter, but it's even more so now that some of the features I enjoyed – like activity and certain notifications – are no longer part of the apps that I use. I loathe the Twitter app, so it's just a horrible experience for me now.
Even though I have no idea what the hell Mastadon is all about, I did end up signing up for an account. I was able to get one on mastadon.social, under the same handle as my Twitter. I haven't "tooted" a single thing yet,[1] and I'm not sure when I'll start. But I'm glad that Joe has taken the time to write an explainer. I have a much better understanding of what is going on with all of it than I did before, all parsed down to a single post.
The idea of leaving Twitter – one of the largest social networks on the planet – isn't really the answer I'm looking for with all of this. I'm looking for Twitter to take a stand against wrong-doing. I'm looking for them to curtail abuse and the spread of misinformation. I'm looking for them to improve their app experience, while simultaneously not being a dick to the developer community that made them who they are today. They need to be better, and everyone who uses (not abuses) the service deserves that too. But unless there are some major changes ahead, it doesn't hurt to have one foot in another door.
I find this whole "toot" thing hilarious. There's a lot of fart jokes to be made here. Yes, I'm a child. ↩︎
You know that I'm a long-time user, a self-proclaimed Drafts evangelist, and wrote a big review on the Drafts 5 release. But even I can miss some of the hidden treasures of the app from time to time.
As I'm going through the notes of the upcoming Drafts 5.4 update – coming out around when iOS 12 releases – I found myself looking at the upcoming list that will eventually become the notes in the "What's New" section on the App Store. Drafts has some of the best version notes in the app store, typically broken up into a "new features" section and the "other fixes and changes" section. Even in the beta, Greg provides detailed notes about each beta release.
So I was able to grab all of the notes thus far in the beta, and load them into a single draft. I created a couple of new headings for the different sections, and entered arrange mode to move items around. Something I didn't really highlight in my review is that you can use the combination of line and block modes to move items around. There were some beta updates that showed a new line here or there; others were the big new features, and I needed to keep those blocks together. I don't know of another app that provides the flexibility in this way, and it's fantastic.
But to my surprise, there was something I discovered when moving the lines around. New in the 5.0 release – that's right, from the beginning – is the ability to edit the lines/blocks by tapping on them. So not only can I move and change around a draft, but I can also fix a little mistake here there if I find them. I can also add to a section if I think of something to add.
This small, but powerful feature is well considered, even if it is hidden. It's a small delight that I found months after using the initial beta, and I'm so glad that I have.[1]
Turns Out™, you learn something new every day.
Makes me wonder what other little features I've missed… ↩︎
One of the small, but powerful for which I use Drafts is sending multiple events to my calendars. And for a long time, I've used the power of Drafts' automation to send those events to my calendar via Fantastical.
The great thing about using Fantastical for this purpose is the natural language parsing capabilities: I can simply type out a calendar event the way I need to type it, and it will populate it for me. But thanks to the incredible scripting capabilities in Drafts 5, it is possible to create the date and time parsing aspects – the part where Fantastical excels – and put that right into an action in Drafts.
The end result is as advertised – fantastically good. Not only does it replicate the way I input events into my calendar, but it does it even faster now that it's all native in Drafts. There is no longer a back-and-forth dance with the action to create multiple events. It runs quickly, and I can move along with what I was working on when it is completed. I can also include locations and durations as well. I can even use the calendar shortcut syntax (example: /w for my work calendar) with the action. It is a really robust solution.[1]
And if that wasn't enough, Peter requested the changed in Drafts 5.3 which provide the same parsing for reminders as well, which replaces the other aspect of Fantastical for me. You can include the level of priority denoted by exclamation marks ! and use the reminder list denoted by the same shortcut syntax as the calendar (/inbox).
These two actions are what I had envisioned in the GTD module of my review. This is a case where I knew that they were going to be possible, but I do not have the technical knowledge to create. Initially, I wanted to create one based on some unique syntax, similar to the Send to Things action. But what Peter has done here exceeded my expectations and is fantastically awesome.
Cheers Peter!
There is a limitation of creating recurring events via the API. This may come in the future. ↩︎
People often post about their homescreens. I've shared one of mine in the Club MacStories newsletter, but I thought it might be time to give an update.
A great homescreen starts with the wallpaper. I generally like a dark background for visual deference to the icons, and I like to have the same wallpaper on both. This means I need a high-resolution option. And with WWDC happening, I turned to 512 Pixels for my even-darker Mojave wallpaper.
My second pages on both devices are nothing but folders. This allows me to group apps that I search for via Spotlight search or don't regularly use into like categories. There are a bunch of apps on both devices on the second screen, too many to cover here.
The main focus for homescreen layout should always be around the dock.
The iPad Dock
When iOS 11 was introduced and the iPad dock was changed to be different than a larger iPhone dock, my homescreen immediately changed. I needed to move most apps into the dock to facilitate multitasking with apps in layouts. The usefulness of dragging an icon out of the dock and into a split view or as the slide-over app was a fundamental shift in the way I was using my device.
With using an external keyboard – first the Logitech Create, then the Smart Keyboard – it became apparent that I could use the shortcut of ⌘space to pull up Spotlight search from anywhere, and it meant that unless the app was in the dock, I didn't need to have it on the main homescreen. All I have to is search for the app I want, and then I can either tap to open or drag it into one of the app slots on my screen.
The apps I use the most are in my dock. The three center icons of my dock are similar to what I have on my iPhone. I like having those central in both places. Surrounding them are apps that frequently use during the day and/or in a split-screen setup. I have folders on either side of the dock: on the left is a folder of the "creative" apps that I use to generate podcasts or images for my site; on the right is a folder of reference apps.
I tried a new setup a while back after seeing the homescreen master do it for his iPhone X. I thought that it would be great for using a larger variety of wallpapers, and allow me to break from my typical black and white image to something with some color. At first, I was hesitant to do this: it seemed more cumbersome and inefficient. But then I remembered my iPad homescreen, and thought that I should give it a try.
While the mechanics of the screens between the iPhone and iPad are different – largely due to the multitasking abilities of the iPad – the end result of this path has been the same: my most important apps in the dock, and other apps grouped into folders. I'm a proponent of the three-icon dock, and that has remained unchanged for a while. So for me, I needed to put the folder in the center for balance, with Drafts and Things 3 flanking either side. In the folder are my most-used apps: it is a mix of apps that change from time to time, but are all vital to my daily workflow. The folder contains (from top left to bottom right): Calendar, Music, Safari, Mail, Castro, Workflow, Slack, Twitterrific, and Messages.2
And the rest of the rows are blank. Which, as I said, seems to be very odd when you first see it. But, there are a few benefits. First off, I don't have the temptation: no tapping all the icons on the homescreen, no badges on the screen to pull my attention, reduced stress. I don't feel compelled to dive into Twitter, Instagram, or YouTube to look through content. It's clean, it's focused, and it helps me not sit and waste idle time. The other nice benefit is that I have a giant area to pull down on the homescreen, allowing me to quickly access Spotlight search. I'm actually faster at opening my apps now because I just pull down, type a few characters, and I'm there.
One of the biggest enablers for me was the new update of Drafts, and the subsequentupdates after it was released. It has replaced so much for me that I find myself not using other apps and figuring out new ways to use Drafts in my daily workflows.
I've tried going back to icons in other rows. But it fills me with more anxiety, mental overhead, and makes me feel like I'm serving my apps instead of my apps serving me. Maybe one day I'll go back to it, especially with Screen Time, but for now, this is what I need and I love using it this way.
Homescreens are very personal. I often change my mind about them, but this is the first time in recent memory where the layout had remained the same. The apps in certain spots may change, but for the most part, the layout has remained the same for months now. I'm happy with it. I'm sure this will change when I get a new device, but for now, I'm happy to have it figured out and have less stress facing me in my daily life as a result.
I'm right handed, so Drafts is on the right for better access when I'm using my phone in one hand. I also have the folder set up to be more accessible while using my right hand as well. ↩
