Even though Seth and I no longer have a podcast, we still talk nearly daily about a lot of things. One of them is Drafts, and how we are using it for small life improvements here and there. Journaling is one of them, and it has become a part of standard practice for me. I don't always have to put something in that's poignant, but I do document quite a bit from time to time. I'm not perfect at it, but I try to do the best that I can. After all, it's for me – so if I don't do well at it, I'm only disappointing myself…

I journal using Drafts because I trust the system. Using Shortcuts, I run an automation in the morning to create the entry at 4:00am so I never miss a day; this entry is created in a specific format with the journal tag, date heading in yyyy-mm-dd format, and some weather and date information. I have another automation that runs just before midnight to save it as a nice-looking PDF at night and archive the draft. I still keep all the journal entries in Drafts: they live in my Journal workspace in the archive folder at the top of the drafts list. I keep them just in case I need to search for something later, even though I hardly do it. But there are times where I might want to go back and review them just to see what happened in the past. One of Seth's problems was that he wanted a way to review things that happened on that day throughout the life of his digital journal. We used to use Shortcuts to do this, but that's cumbersome at best. Why use another app when Drafts is perfectly suited for this? Seth ended up finding this forum tip on creating temporary workspaces, which admittedly was from a while ago (November 2018). Even though a lot of you think I'm an expert, there's quite a bit of this stuff that I don't know or use.

Using this example, I was able to create an action to show what happened On This Date. In simple terms, it searches for all drafts tagged journal, then searches for a string of the current date in mm-dd format; the action then has some code to let you filter the look of it, then load the workspace. I added a few things because I want to keep my Journal themes applied when creating this temporary workspace.

Let's walk through the code a bit. First, you'll find some configurable variables for your searching. This sets the name of the temporary workspace, the tags you want to include (or omit using !tag), and some strings to search.

//BEGIN config variables
//setup tags or searches you wish to load...
let name = "On This Date";
let tagFilter = "journal"
const now = new Date()
const date = now.toString("MM-dd")
let queryString = date;
let group = ActionGroup.find("Journal");
app.loadActionGroup(group);
let lTheme = Theme.find("custom", "Journal Light");
let dTheme = Theme.find("custom", "Journal Dark");
//END config variables

I also added the action groups I use for journaling as well as my journaling themes as variables, since I want to make sure I use them later in the action. Now that all that is configured, we can set up the workspace:

//create workspace
//for other options, see:
//https://reference.getdrafts.com/objects/Workspace.html
let ws = Workspace.create();
ws.name = name;
ws.tagFilter = tagFilter;
ws.queryString = queryString;
ws.setInboxSort("created", true);
ws.loadFolder = "all";
ws.showPreview = false;
ws.showTags = false;
ws.showLastAction = false;
ws.showDate = false;
ws.loadActionBarGroup = group;
ws.loadActionListGroup = group;
//ws.lightTheme = lTheme;
//ws.darkTheme = dTheme;

There's a surprising amount of customization. I did find out that there was an undocumented .showDate customization that I could take advantage of. The only thing I would like to see added here is .lightTheme and .darkTheme so that I can set the themes directly with the temporary workspace which would eliminate the need for me to call them using the other methods; maybe those will get added in the future. The last part applies the workspace, shows the draft list, and applies my themes. I appreciated the callout in the original action, so I kept it in there: the workspace is temporary unless you use the .update() function, very much akin to a temporary draft to store information.

//unless you call `ws.update()`, this ws is temporary
//load this workspace, and display draft list
app.applyWorkspace(ws);
app.showDraftList();

//set the Journal themes
app.lightTheme = lTheme;
app.darkTheme = dTheme;

Actions like this can seem like a lot at first, but they are fairly simple enough to manage. This action can bring a lot of awareness and possibly even some joy to your day, looking back on the things you've done in the past. I've also included this in my widgets: I've found that I use it more often this way, and it's a great use of a widget action for Drafts.

I have to admit, this is the first time in a while that I've done something like this to change some of my workflows. Not because I don't adore Drafts, but because of how life has been going for me (all good things, thankfully). But it makes me wonder: what else am I missing? Seems like a great time to go exploring…

With WWDC this past week, I've spent some time sitting – stewing, somewhat – about the iPadOS 15 announcements and the subsequent sessions that have highlighted everything coming in the fall. As I watched the Keynote, I couldn't help but be slightly disappointed in what we didn't get.^[1] At the time of writing this, and for at least until the public betas, I don't have anything installed. I'll let everyone else fall on that sword. But I'm still monitoring and saving bits of information that I see which are relevant to me, noting the things that will change for me once I get it loaded on my devices, and what it possibly means for the future of this device.

For a long time, I had the 11" iPad Pro in a Smart Keyboard Folio (when it wasn't paired with my monitor, external keyboard, and the Magic Trackpad). I wanted to move up in size, but I had been burned by not upgrading at the right time before all the way back to the 10.5" iPad Pro and was determined not to make that same mistake again. But I'm sitting here on the other side of WWDC wondering if buying the 12.9" M1 iPad Pro with 1TB of storage and the Magic Keyboard was the right decision: Apple gave us nothing with iPadOS 15 which requires it and there is no differentiation (yet) to warrant that much power. It's a device that is so capable from a hardware standpoint yet is missing so much in the software. And I'd be lying if I said I didn't have thoughts of what the hell Apple is thinking with the iPad and how it's not going the way many of us want. Ultimately, I do believe it was the right decision based on how long I keep my devices, and I'll do my best not to complain further.

When people start to complain about computing devices, they often turn to their favorite car analogy. But most of them get the wrong vehicle type when it comes to the iPad Pro. It's not a V8 sports car. It's not a motorcycle. It's not a bike. It's a modular computer which can do a lot of things well, makes trade-offs in certain areas to maintain flexibility and portability anywhere you want to go. So if you are going to target the iPad in this way, use an apt vehicle analogy:

The iPad is a Wrangler.

It does a lot of things well. It has different configurations to give you different experiences. It's not the smoothest on-road vehicle, but it's unmatched in the places you can take it anywhere in the world. The iPad Pro is not a powerful laptop, but it's a powerful, capable modular computer. It can be more than a laptop, but there are also trade-offs that Apple is currently making to keep it modular. A great example on a Wrangler is that they don't have power seats. There's an assessment of trade-offs as to why this isn't done, but I'm sure it's something assessed for future incorporation. It's not as easy as people would think: the Wrangler has other requirements to keep, and every change made requires an assessment of what it takes to implement the change. The engineers are forced to think differently when approaching these problems.

You can buy a ton of accessories for the Wrangler to change what you want it to do: you can lift it, put different tires on it, get really wild and put a tent on it, and more. And just like the Wrangler, you can buy different keyboards, input, and output devices which transform the use case. You can order a more powerful chip with more RAM (engine) and cellular connections (NAV system) directly from the factory to allow you to travel anywhere with ease. You can lift it on a stand and use it with an external monitor and keyboard to go more places, just like a lift kit. You can also use it in tablet mode, which feels like taking the top off and feeling the open air when you shed the confinement of the surrounding case. It's precisely this modularity that makes both the iPad and the Wrangler great. There are people out there that have lived out of a Wrangler, which to some seems like it's crazy – but just like a power user of the iPad Pro using extra accessories to get the job done, this is their preferred way to live. These types of people are pioneers of a new experience, and can open new ways of living which you never thought possible before.

At the end of the day, you have to choose the right vehicle/device to get what you want done in the way you want to work and what trade-offs you're willing to live with to get your work done. I wish they would add more. And I think they will start to do that. After listening to Upgrade^[2], Jason had some great points about the groundwork that's been laid for the future (some of this is quotes, some paraphrasing, but you get the idea):

When I look at what they did in multitasking, I start to think that they're on to something, and that they're headed in a direction that could do more. But that the first thing they did in this release was get it functional and give them room to advance it later. They put a multitasking menu at the top of a window, which is similar to the traffic light dots on the Mac. Also, not mentioned in the Keynote, if you build [universal] apps with the menu bar for Mac, the iPad app has an icon in the toolbar containing your entire menu structure. And the Quick Note feature is literally a floating window. They also added a window that opens up that floats above other windows that you can also add to the Shelf. I look at all of this and I am disappointed that there isn't proper external display support, but literally every piece to do that is there. What that makes me believe is that Apple wanted to walk before it ran. When iPadOS 15 ships, they could literally turn this on at any point.

Am I disappointed that this isn't available now? Of course I am. But I do think that it will be here sooner rather than later. Apple added the external pointer support and released the Magic Keyboard, knowing that users would take this one step further. My own personal setup includes a 27" monitor, which looks comical right now with the pillarboxing and letterboxing. Yet, if I play a movie on just a 1/3 split-screen app, it plays in full 4K on my monitor like it's a native screen. The pieces are all there and Apple needed to fix their mistakes before they can really make it possible. Even with the faults, it can become a completely different experience to what a traditional laptop or computer experience can be if you're willing to put in some effort or follow the guide of those before you. The experience of using an iPad Pro is one that I appreciate and I feel that, despite the limitations of iPadOS, I can do more for the way that I work.

Like many, I'm disappointed in this moment that I effectively have a Hemi in my Jeep but the roads I'm forced to travel are limited in speed, have twists and turns creating indirect paths to my destination, and might even contain speed bumps so that I can't really open it up to its full potential.^[3] But when it gets there, when Apple adds those pieces to the iPad Pro – hopefully in a point release – it's going to afford me a different computing experience which I can make my own and really open this up. There are a LOT of people that don't understand the Wrangler experience. It's not something that most people understand how to use in the full capacity unless you've taken trips and put it through its paces, especially when rocks, sand, and water are involved. But when you do understand the capability, it can open up a whole new horizon of exploration for you. And the iPad Pro is just like the Wrangler. It's no surprise that I love both of them.

I remember the day back in 2011 where I drove up an hour and a half to go take a visit. "We're just going to look", I said. On the way up, we talked about what we wanted and how firm I was in some of my thoughts and ideas surrounding a life-changing decision: getting a dog. Getting a pet of any kind is an endeavor, and it comes with a lot of wants and desires for what puppy fits your family best.

For example, I didn't want one that shed. Like, at all. But all it took was about 30 seconds of meeting Alaska that I didn't want to let him go. So much for will power. We decided that's what we wanted to do, this was the puppy for us, and wanted him to come home. Of course, someone else had put their name down right before us, so that wasn't going to work out. I was so angry at the time that I didn't drive home. But when we were about 5 min from home, I got a call that the people had passed him over and he was ours. Just had to go back and get him.

And another hour and a half later, along with a trip to the pet store, we had our puppy. He looked like a little Kodiak bear, and that's why we changed his name to Koda. He took a while to train, and I spend many nights in the living room on an air mattress helping him out every couple of hours to pee. After a while, he was all good. He kept growing, and as we soon found out, shed. A lot. Sometimes trash bags full of undercoat. So much for my insistence.

But that quite literally was the only negative for him ever. He is the kindest dog ever. Just wants love. And bike rides where he would pull me at 16 miles an hour. As time went on, we took long walks, went to dog parks ()when that was a thing you could do), and he even made some really great dog friends that he was fond of.^[1] He never had any issues, and was the lovable part of the family that brought joy into our lives.

And then last October, we got the cancer diagnosis.^[2] Thankfully we found it when we did. We started some treatment, but the only real solution was a surgery, chemo, and radiation. And as much as I wanted to keep him around, I couldn't prolong his life without dignity. So we set a path to enjoy the time with him that we could. In November, we did a 5K with him. In December, I even did a 5 mile walk with him. Seemed like things were good. We did regular 4 mile walks in January, but then in February he couldn't go longer than 2 miles without falling way behind. In March, it was worse. then in April, it was less than a mile. He started not wagging his tail at times. He would half-sit to alleviate the pain he was feeling from the cancer, and you could see it in his face that he was suffering. He never yelped, never cried out. But you could tell it was there.

It's tough to make difficult decisions like this. Far too often, we make decisions based on our own needs/wants/desires and selfishly put ourselves over others. We want to hold on to things longer just so we don't lose them, so we don't have our feelings hurt, so that we feel better about everything. And when a difficult decision becomes the obvious one, it doesn't make it any less shitty.

And now he's feeling no pain, but I know I will for a while. This one hurts. But I'm going to do what I can to remember all the wonderful joy he brought to our lives for over 10 years. I'm going to think back to all of those times he got me out of the house, the times he wanted to keep going and push me, and I'm going to remember those fondly. I'm going to miss all the excitement of me coming home, of him wanting to play, and the shear power of the tail he wagged when he saw our family and friends.

I'm going to miss you forever, Koda…

Since the very recent release of Drafts 26 there have been a couple of changes to theming in Drafts that make creation, modification, and switching easier.

After appearing on the Automators podcast, I shared my module-switching action group, which included the scripts to switch themes based on workspaces. I wished that this feature get rolled into the workspace manager, and although there are a few complications with doing it this way, I think it will be better overall for users now that it has been added.

Within the workspace manager, choose any workspace, scroll to the bottom of the settings, and you'll find the place where you can set both the light and dark theme you want to load when that workspace is selected. This does come with one small catch: you'll need to do this with most of your workspaces. If you don't do that, when you switch to a different workspace that doesn't have one set, it will retain the set workspace. I personally have all mine set and have removed the scripts for the Module action group. You can set the Default workspace to your default themes as well.

But that's not the big news here. The big news is the new Drafts Theme Builder, an online tool which does a fantastic job of setting all the different colors you'd want in a theme. It's pretty easy to use, even without the tutorial explaining things. There are some very nice additions to it as well: you can import your own theme as a file, modify it, and either import into Drafts or export as a file. But the method that I like using is importing the theme from the Directory straight into the Theme Builder for modification using the provided link on the theme page. This means that you can take any of your favorite themes that you find on the directory, import it into the Theme Builder, modify it to create your own, and then import it to Drafts; if you like the way it looks, you can export that theme right to the Directory. I've done this a lot more frequently with my own themes, and the tool has made the whole process easier.

This means you don't need to use a JSON file editor to create your themes (though you will need to do that with syntaxes), and it's a much more visual, user-friendly way of creating them. My only wish for themes in its current implementation: an interface integrated into Drafts itself. But until that happens, I'm extremely pleased with this online creation tool and the improvements made to my workflow.

It's time for you to go forth and create your perfect theme!

In my second appearance on Automators (part of the Relay FM network),^[1] I'm back to talk with David Sparks and Rosemary Orchard once again about Drafts. We dive in on some of the new stuff from version 26 which introduced custom themes and syntaxes. We also touch on a few other updates from the first version to now as well. I hope you enjoy it.

There were a couple of things in the episode that I wanted to follow-up on here, including the homework assignment David gave me. I'm thrilled that the time spent with David and Rosemary gave me the idea, which made me reconsider some things with my personal journaling and changed how I'm doing it going forward.

Theme Switching with Workspaces

Ever since I've used workspaces + action groups to create what I called modules, I've used a script actions to switch between them. Originally, I set each workspace, action group, and keyboard row individually; once the action and keyboard group options were added to the workspace manager, I simplified the actions. I keep the single action in every one of my action groups which I use in the keyboard row to use on the iPhone for quick access to switch. Where I use this switching method a lot is on my iPad, using a hardware keyboard. All of my modules are brought up with keyboard shortcuts, assigned to ⌘2 - 9; both ⌘1 and ⌘9 are reserved by Drafts for the draft and action list show/hide, respectively.

With the addition of themes, I've now modified the modules I have to include themes that I want to use in those different contexts. I'm sure I'll update this more over time. I primarily use dark mode, so that's what I currently have in there. But you could also modify the scripts to include light themes as well. Here's my Modules action group as it stands today for you to play with and make your own. You'll need to change the theme names in each of the module actions, else you might get an error.

I haven't quite yet cracked the switching of syntaxes based on themes. I have, however, leveraged Matt Gemmell's previous Switch Syntax action and created my own which provides a list of all the installed syntaxes. It's not automated, but it does the job when I need it. I'm sure Rosemary is working on something even more clever…

Automated Journaling

On the show, we talked about some of the automations I've used (in most cases, continued to use) frequently. One of my journal shortcuts saves the text of the journal as a PDF for future reading. That's when David brought up a great suggestion: using a Shortcuts automation at a specific time to automatically save the journal at night so I don't have to do it manually.

It took a few modifications to my original shortcut, but I have the automatic saving of journal entries figured out. The Journal • Save shortcut searches my Journal workspace for today's journal entry, gets the content of the draft, creates an entry title (formatted Journal Entry yyyy-MM-dd), creates a nicely-formatted PDF, and saves the PDF version to /iCloud Drive/Shortcuts/Journal/.^[2] I manually move these once a week during my weekly review for now, until the Shortcuts team actually gives me that built in feature.^[3] This action can be used with Shortcuts automation; if you choose to run the automation without asking, it will run automatically in the background. I have mine set to run at 11:00 pm every day, and in my testing since we recorded, it's been working fantastically.

This then lead me to change the way I've been journaling, so that I can just automate the creation of the journal entry and never miss a day. The old way of starting my journal is answering a couple of questions: did I wear my watch to sleep to get data out of AutoSleep – a feature that is broken due to an iOS 14.5 bug  – and how did I feel when I woke up. Here's a secret: I'm not sure I sleep all that well generally, I never use the quantifiable data in any meaningful way, and I don't know that I need a reminder of how shitty all that can be and make me feel. If I want a pretty chart or other meaningful insights, I'd be better off going into AutoSleep or the Health app to get it. Weighing the importance of sleep tracking vs daily journaling, having a journal entry for every day that is just automatically there just makes more sense. Using the Journal • Start shortcut in conjunction with another Shortcuts automation which runs at 6:00am, and automatically starts a journal entry for me without any interaction on my part.^[4]

I've been running this for the week, and it's been really great so far. Removing the friction of interacting every time I want to start and save a journal entry has made me want to journal more. Sometimes, it's those little things that get you change your mind. I'm calling this a win.

Thanks again David and Rosemary for having me on, and for the idea to be a better Automator!