6 ms·

Show HN: A programmable tooltip on Mac OS

242 points by tanin 6y ago

baby 6y ago
Oh wow. Plugin to translate chinese to english?
- chris_st 6y ago
  I use PopClip[0] (recommended above). One of the extensions you can download sends whatever you've selected to Google Translate. Don't need it often, but it's fantastic when I do. 0: https://pilotmoon.com/popclip/ https://pilotmoon.com/popclip/
- tanin 6y ago
  Unfortunately, you would have to write your own provider script to do the translation. Otherwise, PopClip would be a great out-of-the-box alternative.
pcr910303 6y ago
Looks somewhat similar to Popclip[0], but is less intrusive(user needs to be explicit) and more visual(result is shown below). Very interesting solution for text manipulation. (A bit off topic but...) Seeing these tools which primary interaction happens with the clipboard make me think that the GUI equivalent of UNIX pipes is the clipboard — it allows programs to interoperate in an unstructured fashion. [0]: https://pilotmoon.com/popclip/ https://pilotmoon.com/popclip/ [edit]: fixed typo & changed some words to convey my meaning better.
- tanin 6y ago
  Yes, it's quite similar to PopClip! Tip is less intrusive and targets programmers (because your provide the script). PopClip is more out-of-the-box and more automatic (I assume PopClip monitors mouse events, but not sure). I wanted to build Tip for Ubuntu as well but I couldnt find a good mechanism. Mac OS's system-wide service is such a beautiful mechanism. Slick and offer the right level of privacy. Quick note on text manipulation. Mac's system-wide service can modify text as well!... But sadly I couldn't make it work in a slick way. I might need to attempt at it again
  - OJFord 6y ago
    > I wanted to build Tip for Ubuntu as well but I couldnt find a good mechanism. The selected text would already be on the 'PRIMARY' uh.. clipboard (I hesitate because that's not the 'CLIPBOARD' one and I'm not sure of the genetic term). I would then use dmenu (or equivalent, e.g. rofi) to show the options generated by the script running on the selection. That wouldn't be a tooltip, (unless there are dmenu-like programs that can be configured to appear at the pointer, I'm not sure) but is probably how most Linux users would expect/want it to appear. To be honest though, since the target user is already supplying the script to generate it, I think you've given the value you can in the idea, and they're best placed to know how to integrate it into their existing tools most effectively. For example, using i3 & dmenu: bindsym <shortcut keys> exec xsel | thescript.sh | dmenu If the user's writing the script anyway, they can write that, and the details vary according to the window manager (or other tool used to bind keys) and the dmenu-like used to display them. Some may also prefer a different/better integration with their clipboard manager. My basic point is that Linux systems are too 'fragmented' and this is too easy for you to a better job once for everybody than they can each do once for themselves. It's a great idea though, I'm certainly going to bear it in mind and see what I do that could benefit from it, thanks!
    - tanin 6y ago
      Ah, yes, now I remember the clipboard on Ubuntu. A selected text is immediately copied to clipboard, and we can use the middle mouse button to paste The idea is very interesting. Basically, I only build the part where Tip takes the text and invokes a script. User then renders the tooltip themselves. Thank you!
- chris_st 6y ago
  PopClip is fantastic... all kinds of useful extensions for it you can download.
- ken 6y ago
  One of them! Internally, the structure is called "pasteboard", and the clipboard is the "general" one. The OS uses this same data structure for transferring drag-and-drop data, which is the other common GUI mechanism for ad-hoc interoperability.
Corrado 6y ago
This looks like it might help me do something I do multiple times a day. I work with multiple AWS accounts and have to sign in to several different ones each day. Currently, I have to: - sign in to AWS SSO - choose an account - copy the ENV VARs to my clipboard - select an iTerm2 tab - paste ENV VARs into the tab Using 'tip' I think I could automated the last 3 steps. It's a small win, but when you do it multiple times a day it adds up.
- tanin 6y ago
  Yes! That is a great use case. One of tooltip item actions is opening URL. I'm not sure if iTerm2 supports executing stuff through URL. (For example, we can open intellij using idea://.) If not possible, please open a GitHub issue or reply here. We can figure it out together. We might be able to get Tip to support triggering iTerm2 somehow natively. Thank you sharing an interesting use case!
- nathancahill 6y ago
  Can you use the profiles in ~/.aws/credentials? This is my lifeblood as a freelancer working with many clients and switching AWS accounts all day.
  - weiming 6y ago
    Yep. AWS commands take the --profile argument to choose one of the items from the credentials file.
    - nicoburns 6y ago
      You can also use the following bash/zsh function to quickly set the current default profile (requires ruby): function aws_switch () { local env="$1" local region="$2" export AWS_DEFAULT_PROFILE="$env" export AWS_ENV="$env" export KITCHEN_ENV="$env" export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=$(/usr/bin/env ruby -e "require 'inifile'; puts IniFile.load(File.join(File.expand_path('~'), '.aws', 'credentials'))[ENV['AWS_DEFAULT_PROFILE']]['aws_access_key_id']") export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=$(/usr/bin/env ruby -e "require 'inifile'; puts IniFile.load(File.join(File.expand_path('~'), '.aws', 'credentials'))[ENV['AWS_DEFAULT_PROFILE']]['aws_secret_access_key']") if [ -z "$region" ] then export AWS_REGION=$(/usr/bin/env ruby -e "require 'inifile'; puts IniFile.load(File.join(File.expand_path('~'), '.aws', 'config'))['profile ' + ENV['AWS_DEFAULT_PROFILE']]['region']") else export AWS_REGION="$region" fi export AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=$AWS_REGION }
aasasd 6y ago
You can do similar stuff with Alfred, which happens to already be quite useful for frequent tasks. At least with Alfred 2, dunno about new versions. Create a workflow, put in a single hotkey trigger block and choose for it to pop up Alfred's window with the selection and the cursor in the beginning. I'm using alt-shift-space as the key. Now you can select text, mash the hotkey and run any of the other workflows that have a ‘keyword’ assigned, plus have ‘script filters’ populate the result/tip list before anything is run. I'm using this to invoke search engines or to add notes in Org-mode, without bothering with the clipboard. While I'm on this topic, let me add that Lua is way faster than Python or even JS, so it enhances the responsiveness if used for workflow scripts or ‘script filters’. I'm also using the Automate app on Android to very similar ends: it can have your workflows invoked via the text selection menu or through sharing (no addons with more payment and embedded ads code necessary, like with Tasker).
- AriaMinaei 6y ago
  Thank you for this. Been using Alfred for years and didn't know text selection could be fed to workflows.
  - aasasd 6y ago
    Same here, actually: used Alfred for a long time, finally got fed up with juggling the clipboard just a couple months ago.
- aasasd 6y ago
  However, I just checked—Alfred does pollute the clipboard with the selection when invoked like that. I guess OSX doesn't have an API to fetch the selection, other than via the services or the clipboard (maybe it's for the better, in terms of security). IIRC some version of Keepass cleared passwords from the clipboard in such a way that even clipboard-history apps obeyed—but can't remember if this was in OSX or Linux. I wonder if this method could be used to pop the previous content back on the clipboard and leave no trace of the selection in the history.
ymt_1503 6y ago
Looks pretty neat.
- tanin 6y ago
  Thank you! any feedback is welcome.
sneak 6y ago
This is neat, reminds me a little of Apple Data Detectors, a text selection parsing thing that Apple shipped around System 8 or so. I still miss it.
nonninz 6y ago
This is fantastic, thank you. I have two questions: 1. Did you decide against including any script in the app bundle for more privacy? It looks like it. 2. So all scripts must be appended in that same file? Have you thought about a behavior like a ".d" directory in the recent "Unix world", where each file can add configuration options? That would enable using different scripts and different languages.
- tanin 6y ago
  > 1. Did you decide against including any script in the app bundle for more privacy? It looks like it. Sorta. My initial use case didn't need a bundled script. My current script involves heavily my local env (e.g. credentials, searching local file). Some use cases are very specific to company's internals (e.g. lookup user id). I might consider embed a script. But I haven't given it much thought yet, and, because of App Sandbox, the script wouldn't be able to do much. > 2. So all scripts must be appended in that same file? Have you thought about a behavior like a ".d" directory in the recent "Unix world", where each file can add configuration options? That would enable using different scripts and different languages. Yes, that's some what in a roadmap. For now, you can workaround by having the main script calls out to the other script Thank you for the questions. Please don't hesitate to let me know how it works for you!
hobofan 6y ago
Awesome! For a lot of my personal productivity tools, I've been using Alfred, but for some of them a tooltip would be a lot more natural. Looking forward to using it!
sportsaw 6y ago
I haven’t used the Acme text editor, but this reminds me of what I have read about it in that any text can be a command. Very neat looking.
- tanin 6y ago
  That's a good way of thinking about it. The fundamental of Tip is that every piece of text has a relevant set of actions.
dmitriid 6y ago
Awesome. Exactly what the all-but-abandoned "services" concept was supposed to do in MacOS (replaced by the all-but-abandoned extensions).
- robenkleene 6y ago
  To me this is one of the great mysteries of computers: Why don't people use these features more? I have tons of Services that I use all day, for me they're one of the most important features of the OS (archiving text, opening all selected URLs, and converting the selection to title case are some examples). Yet Services don't seem popular, why is that? People seem to customize their shells (e.g., write Bash scripts, make aliases, and customize their prompts), and even non-programmers seem to be able to accomplish complex automation in Excel, or with a tool like Zapier. So why don't people customize their OS similarly? I find the gains to be greater, because if I customize at the OS-level, my customizations are useful in any app, and forever, instead of being tied to a particular app or project.
  - tanin 6y ago
    Services is hard to google. The term is overloaded. I think it's called (or was called at some point) "system-wide services". But official doc doesn't use this term. I was simply fortunate to stumble upon it. Initially, I was thinking about building Tip on clipboard (or pasteboard), which would have been inferior.
jan_g 6y ago
> Copying a millisecond-from-epoch number, visiting a website that can convert it to human-readable date, pasting the number, and hitting enter I use the builtin `date` utility for this specific task, instead of querying another webpage to translate it. $ date -r 1577733633 Mon Dec 30 20:20:33 CET 2019
- wjdp 6y ago
  date -r 1577733633 date: 1577733633: No such file or directory ... -r, --reference=FILE display the last modification time of FILE ... Is OSX's date command different from Linux?
  - _nhynes 6y ago
    macOS has BSD date and Linux ships with GNU.
  - wjdp 6y ago
    Found it, for GNU it's `date -d @1577733633`
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- tanin 6y ago
  Yes! I was doing that for a while with a command-line tool. I couldn't make up my mind which way was faster. They were both required some sort of motor skill (e.g. switch to terminal, paste, enter) to perform the flows quickly.
- iandev 6y ago
  Also worth noting that you can pipe the result to `pbcopy` to put it in your clipboard. Super useful if you haven't seen it before. $ date -r 1577733633 | pbcopy
- sportsaw 6y ago
  I think the example was silly, but think about finding the epoch in, say, a log file. With this system you could just click and see the human readable. With the date command you'd have to switch to terminal, type "date -r", paste, enter.
macarthy12 6y ago
ออซัม
- tanin 6y ago
  Well, awesome :)
jtbayly 6y ago
The title doesn’t do it justice once I saw it. These aren’t simply tool tips. They are actions.
- tanin 6y ago
  You're right. I'm finding a way to explain it better. Tip shows related actions that can be performed on a piece of text. A suggestion is very welcome here.
aasasd 6y ago
Btw, if you want to be even lazier and not involve the other hand—services can be run from the context menu (which is a bit busy but at least it's available). Also, regarding Swift, the language is pretty simple: I did't know either ObjC or Swift but was able to make a small program in it. The most annoying thing is that Swift's APIs and types constantly change between versions, so you have to translate between the docs and your version of OSX.
- tanin 6y ago
  > Btw, if you want to be even lazier and not involve the other hand—services can be run from the context menu (which is a bit busy but at least it's available). Yes, Right clicking and selecting the menu manually works as well. Thank you for mentioning it. My setting is that my mouse has an extra button, so I configure the extra mouse button to emit Cmd+F3 (which triggers Tip). It's a one-hand one-click operation!
HABytes 6y ago
I saw it but title did not justice it.
- tanin 6y ago
  I'm open to a suggestion on how to explain it in a better way.

242 points by tanin 6y ago

baby 6y ago

Oh wow. Plugin to translate chinese to english?

chris_st 6y ago
I use PopClip[0] (recommended above). One of the extensions you can download sends whatever you've selected to Google Translate. Don't need it often, but it's fantastic when I do. 0: https://pilotmoon.com/popclip/ https://pilotmoon.com/popclip/
tanin 6y ago
Unfortunately, you would have to write your own provider script to do the translation. Otherwise, PopClip would be a great out-of-the-box alternative.

pcr910303 6y ago

Looks somewhat similar to Popclip[0], but is less intrusive(user needs to be explicit) and more visual(result is shown below). Very interesting solution for text manipulation. (A bit off topic but...) Seeing these tools which primary interaction happens with the clipboard make me think that the GUI equivalent of UNIX pipes is the clipboard — it allows programs to interoperate in an unstructured fashion. [0]: https://pilotmoon.com/popclip/ https://pilotmoon.com/popclip/ [edit]: fixed typo & changed some words to convey my meaning better.

tanin 6y ago
Yes, it's quite similar to PopClip! Tip is less intrusive and targets programmers (because your provide the script). PopClip is more out-of-the-box and more automatic (I assume PopClip monitors mouse events, but not sure). I wanted to build Tip for Ubuntu as well but I couldnt find a good mechanism. Mac OS's system-wide service is such a beautiful mechanism. Slick and offer the right level of privacy. Quick note on text manipulation. Mac's system-wide service can modify text as well!... But sadly I couldn't make it work in a slick way. I might need to attempt at it again
- OJFord 6y ago
  > I wanted to build Tip for Ubuntu as well but I couldnt find a good mechanism. The selected text would already be on the 'PRIMARY' uh.. clipboard (I hesitate because that's not the 'CLIPBOARD' one and I'm not sure of the genetic term). I would then use dmenu (or equivalent, e.g. rofi) to show the options generated by the script running on the selection. That wouldn't be a tooltip, (unless there are dmenu-like programs that can be configured to appear at the pointer, I'm not sure) but is probably how most Linux users would expect/want it to appear. To be honest though, since the target user is already supplying the script to generate it, I think you've given the value you can in the idea, and they're best placed to know how to integrate it into their existing tools most effectively. For example, using i3 & dmenu: bindsym <shortcut keys> exec xsel | thescript.sh | dmenu If the user's writing the script anyway, they can write that, and the details vary according to the window manager (or other tool used to bind keys) and the dmenu-like used to display them. Some may also prefer a different/better integration with their clipboard manager. My basic point is that Linux systems are too 'fragmented' and this is too easy for you to a better job once for everybody than they can each do once for themselves. It's a great idea though, I'm certainly going to bear it in mind and see what I do that could benefit from it, thanks!
  - tanin 6y ago
    Ah, yes, now I remember the clipboard on Ubuntu. A selected text is immediately copied to clipboard, and we can use the middle mouse button to paste The idea is very interesting. Basically, I only build the part where Tip takes the text and invokes a script. User then renders the tooltip themselves. Thank you!
chris_st 6y ago
PopClip is fantastic... all kinds of useful extensions for it you can download.
ken 6y ago
One of them! Internally, the structure is called "pasteboard", and the clipboard is the "general" one. The OS uses this same data structure for transferring drag-and-drop data, which is the other common GUI mechanism for ad-hoc interoperability.

Corrado 6y ago

This looks like it might help me do something I do multiple times a day. I work with multiple AWS accounts and have to sign in to several different ones each day. Currently, I have to: - sign in to AWS SSO - choose an account - copy the ENV VARs to my clipboard - select an iTerm2 tab - paste ENV VARs into the tab Using 'tip' I think I could automated the last 3 steps. It's a small win, but when you do it multiple times a day it adds up.

tanin 6y ago
Yes! That is a great use case. One of tooltip item actions is opening URL. I'm not sure if iTerm2 supports executing stuff through URL. (For example, we can open intellij using idea://.) If not possible, please open a GitHub issue or reply here. We can figure it out together. We might be able to get Tip to support triggering iTerm2 somehow natively. Thank you sharing an interesting use case!
nathancahill 6y ago
Can you use the profiles in ~/.aws/credentials? This is my lifeblood as a freelancer working with many clients and switching AWS accounts all day.
- weiming 6y ago
  Yep. AWS commands take the --profile argument to choose one of the items from the credentials file.
  - nicoburns 6y ago
    You can also use the following bash/zsh function to quickly set the current default profile (requires ruby): function aws_switch () { local env="$1" local region="$2" export AWS_DEFAULT_PROFILE="$env" export AWS_ENV="$env" export KITCHEN_ENV="$env" export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=$(/usr/bin/env ruby -e "require 'inifile'; puts IniFile.load(File.join(File.expand_path('~'), '.aws', 'credentials'))[ENV['AWS_DEFAULT_PROFILE']]['aws_access_key_id']") export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=$(/usr/bin/env ruby -e "require 'inifile'; puts IniFile.load(File.join(File.expand_path('~'), '.aws', 'credentials'))[ENV['AWS_DEFAULT_PROFILE']]['aws_secret_access_key']") if [ -z "$region" ] then export AWS_REGION=$(/usr/bin/env ruby -e "require 'inifile'; puts IniFile.load(File.join(File.expand_path('~'), '.aws', 'config'))['profile ' + ENV['AWS_DEFAULT_PROFILE']]['region']") else export AWS_REGION="$region" fi export AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=$AWS_REGION }

aasasd 6y ago

You can do similar stuff with Alfred, which happens to already be quite useful for frequent tasks. At least with Alfred 2, dunno about new versions. Create a workflow, put in a single hotkey trigger block and choose for it to pop up Alfred's window with the selection and the cursor in the beginning. I'm using alt-shift-space as the key. Now you can select text, mash the hotkey and run any of the other workflows that have a ‘keyword’ assigned, plus have ‘script filters’ populate the result/tip list before anything is run. I'm using this to invoke search engines or to add notes in Org-mode, without bothering with the clipboard. While I'm on this topic, let me add that Lua is way faster than Python or even JS, so it enhances the responsiveness if used for workflow scripts or ‘script filters’. I'm also using the Automate app on Android to very similar ends: it can have your workflows invoked via the text selection menu or through sharing (no addons with more payment and embedded ads code necessary, like with Tasker).

AriaMinaei 6y ago
Thank you for this. Been using Alfred for years and didn't know text selection could be fed to workflows.
- aasasd 6y ago
  Same here, actually: used Alfred for a long time, finally got fed up with juggling the clipboard just a couple months ago.
aasasd 6y ago
However, I just checked—Alfred does pollute the clipboard with the selection when invoked like that. I guess OSX doesn't have an API to fetch the selection, other than via the services or the clipboard (maybe it's for the better, in terms of security). IIRC some version of Keepass cleared passwords from the clipboard in such a way that even clipboard-history apps obeyed—but can't remember if this was in OSX or Linux. I wonder if this method could be used to pop the previous content back on the clipboard and leave no trace of the selection in the history.

ymt_1503 6y ago

Looks pretty neat.

tanin 6y ago
Thank you! any feedback is welcome.

sneak 6y ago

This is neat, reminds me a little of Apple Data Detectors, a text selection parsing thing that Apple shipped around System 8 or so. I still miss it.

nonninz 6y ago

This is fantastic, thank you. I have two questions: 1. Did you decide against including any script in the app bundle for more privacy? It looks like it. 2. So all scripts must be appended in that same file? Have you thought about a behavior like a ".d" directory in the recent "Unix world", where each file can add configuration options? That would enable using different scripts and different languages.

tanin 6y ago
> 1. Did you decide against including any script in the app bundle for more privacy? It looks like it. Sorta. My initial use case didn't need a bundled script. My current script involves heavily my local env (e.g. credentials, searching local file). Some use cases are very specific to company's internals (e.g. lookup user id). I might consider embed a script. But I haven't given it much thought yet, and, because of App Sandbox, the script wouldn't be able to do much. > 2. So all scripts must be appended in that same file? Have you thought about a behavior like a ".d" directory in the recent "Unix world", where each file can add configuration options? That would enable using different scripts and different languages. Yes, that's some what in a roadmap. For now, you can workaround by having the main script calls out to the other script Thank you for the questions. Please don't hesitate to let me know how it works for you!

hobofan 6y ago

Awesome! For a lot of my personal productivity tools, I've been using Alfred, but for some of them a tooltip would be a lot more natural. Looking forward to using it!

sportsaw 6y ago

I haven’t used the Acme text editor, but this reminds me of what I have read about it in that any text can be a command. Very neat looking.

tanin 6y ago
That's a good way of thinking about it. The fundamental of Tip is that every piece of text has a relevant set of actions.

dmitriid 6y ago

Awesome. Exactly what the all-but-abandoned "services" concept was supposed to do in MacOS (replaced by the all-but-abandoned extensions).

robenkleene 6y ago
To me this is one of the great mysteries of computers: Why don't people use these features more? I have tons of Services that I use all day, for me they're one of the most important features of the OS (archiving text, opening all selected URLs, and converting the selection to title case are some examples). Yet Services don't seem popular, why is that? People seem to customize their shells (e.g., write Bash scripts, make aliases, and customize their prompts), and even non-programmers seem to be able to accomplish complex automation in Excel, or with a tool like Zapier. So why don't people customize their OS similarly? I find the gains to be greater, because if I customize at the OS-level, my customizations are useful in any app, and forever, instead of being tied to a particular app or project.
- tanin 6y ago
  Services is hard to google. The term is overloaded. I think it's called (or was called at some point) "system-wide services". But official doc doesn't use this term. I was simply fortunate to stumble upon it. Initially, I was thinking about building Tip on clipboard (or pasteboard), which would have been inferior.

jan_g 6y ago

> Copying a millisecond-from-epoch number, visiting a website that can convert it to human-readable date, pasting the number, and hitting enter I use the builtin `date` utility for this specific task, instead of querying another webpage to translate it. $ date -r 1577733633 Mon Dec 30 20:20:33 CET 2019

wjdp 6y ago
date -r 1577733633 date: 1577733633: No such file or directory ... -r, --reference=FILE display the last modification time of FILE ... Is OSX's date command different from Linux?
- _nhynes 6y ago
  macOS has BSD date and Linux ships with GNU.
- wjdp 6y ago
  Found it, for GNU it's `date -d @1577733633`
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
tanin 6y ago
Yes! I was doing that for a while with a command-line tool. I couldn't make up my mind which way was faster. They were both required some sort of motor skill (e.g. switch to terminal, paste, enter) to perform the flows quickly.
iandev 6y ago
Also worth noting that you can pipe the result to `pbcopy` to put it in your clipboard. Super useful if you haven't seen it before. $ date -r 1577733633 | pbcopy
sportsaw 6y ago
I think the example was silly, but think about finding the epoch in, say, a log file. With this system you could just click and see the human readable. With the date command you'd have to switch to terminal, type "date -r", paste, enter.

macarthy12 6y ago

ออซัม

tanin 6y ago
Well, awesome :)

jtbayly 6y ago

The title doesn’t do it justice once I saw it. These aren’t simply tool tips. They are actions.

tanin 6y ago
You're right. I'm finding a way to explain it better. Tip shows related actions that can be performed on a piece of text. A suggestion is very welcome here.

aasasd 6y ago

Btw, if you want to be even lazier and not involve the other hand—services can be run from the context menu (which is a bit busy but at least it's available). Also, regarding Swift, the language is pretty simple: I did't know either ObjC or Swift but was able to make a small program in it. The most annoying thing is that Swift's APIs and types constantly change between versions, so you have to translate between the docs and your version of OSX.

tanin 6y ago
> Btw, if you want to be even lazier and not involve the other hand—services can be run from the context menu (which is a bit busy but at least it's available). Yes, Right clicking and selecting the menu manually works as well. Thank you for mentioning it. My setting is that my mouse has an extra button, so I configure the extra mouse button to emit Cmd+F3 (which triggers Tip). It's a one-hand one-click operation!

HABytes 6y ago

I saw it but title did not justice it.

tanin 6y ago
I'm open to a suggestion on how to explain it in a better way.