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Show HN: TextFlow – Automator workflows for text manipulation in OS X

76 points by vladdanilov 11y ago

dorian-graph 11y ago
This is super useful! Thank you for making it. /installed
- vladdanilov 11y ago
  Thank you too. I am currently working on Text Substitution performance. Please check back soon.
- calebm 11y ago
  The email extractor is super useful. I wrote a command-line script for doing this, but will probably start using this instead.
weslly 11y ago
Automator is the most useful, powerful and underrated feature of OSX. It makes me sad how almost nobody talks about it.
- cefstat 11y ago
  One reason I don't like Automator so much is that it forces me think where to save the workflows I create. Automator has a very iTunes-like interface and I would expect that it takes care of organizing the created workflows. Actually, I think the Workflow app for iOS has nailed this down perfectly (together with integration of the workflows with the rest of the system).
  - vladdanilov 11y ago
    You may go to Script / Applescript Editor Preferences and check "Show Script menu in menu bar". This way you can have scripts organized in folders and available through the menu bar. Console apps / Shell scripts supported as well and run in the background. I believe you can create a symbolic link to have them indexed by Spotlight as well.
- Watabou 11y ago
  That and the related automation scripts. I would have thought that now that they introduced Javascript for Automation (similar to Applescript), it would be a lot more popular and would spur a lot of interest in creating workflows. So far, I've not seen anything. I do use javascript for automation myself. A useful "trick" is to write Javascript using Script Editor, save the script as a .app file and place it in /Applications or similar and have Spotlight execute that Script. I've done things like Empty Trash, Lock Screen, launching a new Swift Playground (too many steps to do that with Xcode alone), quitting all foreground apps, etc. Almost makes Spotlight act like Alfred or Quicksilver. I would really like to see what other people can come up.
  - oalders 11y ago
    Do you have any of these scripts publicly available?
    - Watabou 11y ago
      I do: https://github.com/ajh17/Scripts https://github.com/ajh17/Scripts
  - szymon_k 11y ago
    I do the same! I have "dock" and "undock" apps for switching between mobile, and, ekhem, docked state for my macbook (switching wifi, turning bluetooth on/off, unomounting USB drive, etc). I also have "move tabs to chrome", because I use safari for everyday and chrome for dev, and sometimes I start something in safari and it turns out it should be in chrome. Also "Chrome Incognito" for quick incognito sessions (cmd-space, "incognito", enter). Very useful!
    - Watabou 11y ago
      Oh nice tip on the Incognito mode ;). I wonder if Safari has a flag like that too.
  - vladdanilov 11y ago
    I also find Script menu (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9586970 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9586970) very useful. Perfect for utilities, starting SSH sessions, mounting drives, etc.
shill 11y ago
Nice work. I use this automator for pretty printing JSON. import json import sys text = sys.stdin.read() try: print json.dumps(json.loads(text), sort_keys=False, indent=4) except Exception as e: print e
- vladdanilov 11y ago
  Thank you. I thought on including some developer formatters. But decided it should be left to code editors. In particular there is JSCS linter (http://jscs.info/ http://jscs.info/), or SublimeLinter-JSCS as Sublime Text plugin (https://packagecontrol.io/packages/SublimeLinter-jscs https://packagecontrol.io/packages/SublimeLinter-jscs) which can do this and much more.
bshimmin 11y ago
Goodness: https://github.com/vmdanilov/TextFlow/blob/master/Transform%20Selected%20Text%E2%80%A6.workflow/Contents/document.wflow https://github.com/vmdanilov/TextFlow/blob/master/Transform%... XML wrapped around AppleScript, Perl, and some good old shell-scripting. What a labour of love!
- vladdanilov 11y ago
  Thanks. I was walking on the edge with this one :)

76 points by vladdanilov 11y ago

dorian-graph 11y ago

This is super useful! Thank you for making it. /installed

vladdanilov 11y ago
Thank you too. I am currently working on Text Substitution performance. Please check back soon.
calebm 11y ago
The email extractor is super useful. I wrote a command-line script for doing this, but will probably start using this instead.

weslly 11y ago

Automator is the most useful, powerful and underrated feature of OSX. It makes me sad how almost nobody talks about it.

cefstat 11y ago
One reason I don't like Automator so much is that it forces me think where to save the workflows I create. Automator has a very iTunes-like interface and I would expect that it takes care of organizing the created workflows. Actually, I think the Workflow app for iOS has nailed this down perfectly (together with integration of the workflows with the rest of the system).
- vladdanilov 11y ago
  You may go to Script / Applescript Editor Preferences and check "Show Script menu in menu bar". This way you can have scripts organized in folders and available through the menu bar. Console apps / Shell scripts supported as well and run in the background. I believe you can create a symbolic link to have them indexed by Spotlight as well.
Watabou 11y ago
That and the related automation scripts. I would have thought that now that they introduced Javascript for Automation (similar to Applescript), it would be a lot more popular and would spur a lot of interest in creating workflows. So far, I've not seen anything. I do use javascript for automation myself. A useful "trick" is to write Javascript using Script Editor, save the script as a .app file and place it in /Applications or similar and have Spotlight execute that Script. I've done things like Empty Trash, Lock Screen, launching a new Swift Playground (too many steps to do that with Xcode alone), quitting all foreground apps, etc. Almost makes Spotlight act like Alfred or Quicksilver. I would really like to see what other people can come up.
- oalders 11y ago
  Do you have any of these scripts publicly available?
  - Watabou 11y ago
    I do: https://github.com/ajh17/Scripts https://github.com/ajh17/Scripts
- szymon_k 11y ago
  I do the same! I have "dock" and "undock" apps for switching between mobile, and, ekhem, docked state for my macbook (switching wifi, turning bluetooth on/off, unomounting USB drive, etc). I also have "move tabs to chrome", because I use safari for everyday and chrome for dev, and sometimes I start something in safari and it turns out it should be in chrome. Also "Chrome Incognito" for quick incognito sessions (cmd-space, "incognito", enter). Very useful!
  - Watabou 11y ago
    Oh nice tip on the Incognito mode ;). I wonder if Safari has a flag like that too.
- vladdanilov 11y ago
  I also find Script menu (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9586970 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9586970) very useful. Perfect for utilities, starting SSH sessions, mounting drives, etc.

shill 11y ago

Nice work. I use this automator for pretty printing JSON. import json import sys text = sys.stdin.read() try: print json.dumps(json.loads(text), sort_keys=False, indent=4) except Exception as e: print e

vladdanilov 11y ago
Thank you. I thought on including some developer formatters. But decided it should be left to code editors. In particular there is JSCS linter (http://jscs.info/ http://jscs.info/), or SublimeLinter-JSCS as Sublime Text plugin (https://packagecontrol.io/packages/SublimeLinter-jscs https://packagecontrol.io/packages/SublimeLinter-jscs) which can do this and much more.

bshimmin 11y ago

Goodness: https://github.com/vmdanilov/TextFlow/blob/master/Transform%20Selected%20Text%E2%80%A6.workflow/Contents/document.wflow https://github.com/vmdanilov/TextFlow/blob/master/Transform%... XML wrapped around AppleScript, Perl, and some good old shell-scripting. What a labour of love!

vladdanilov 11y ago
Thanks. I was walking on the edge with this one :)