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TextExpander — Say More with Less Work (Sponsor)



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I’m always looking for things to help me save time, which is one of the reasons I dig TextExpander, MacSparky’s sponsor this week. TextExpander puts time-saving power at your fingertips. You set up a shortcut once, and then future you thanks you for having less work to do and saving some time. Instead of re-typing the same thing over and over again or copying and pasting a message or reply, use a few keystrokes with TextExpander and see TextExpander expand your snippets. For instance, if I type, “xdts” (four tippety-types), TextExpander will put a date and time string that looks like this: 2021-07-08 09:10. Dashes and colon and 16 tippet-types !?! Time saved. I didn’t have to stop and look at a calendar or clock for reference. I just hit a few keys, and, whoomp, there it is.

And you can do this anywhere you type because you can get your snippets on all your devices. Convenient, accurate, and consistent. TextExpander helps you communicate easier, and you get to focus on what matters most. If you’re even TextExpander-curious, now is the time to try it because they’re offering 20% off your first year.

Focused 129: No One Wants to Work with a Jerk, with Colleen Wainwright



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Gmail ninja Colleen Wainwright joins Mike and me on this episode of Focused to talk about delegating work to others, the evolution of the attention economy, and working out of email without going crazy.

This episode of Focused is sponsored by:

  • Squarespace: Make your next move. Enter offer code FOCUSED at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase.

  • HPE Tech Talk: HPE news, tech insights and world-class innovations. Listen now.

  • Memberful: Best-in-class membership software for independent creators, publishers, educators, podcasters, and more. Get started now, no credit card required.

Will MailKit Save Mail.app?

One of the announcements to come out of WWDC this year is a new framework for third parties to create plugins for Apple’s Mail.app called MailKit. Mail.app has been stagnant for a long time. While the app continues to get support for email rendering and improvements to its basic functions (like search), that’s about it.

Most who use it day-to-day have gotten somewhat accustomed to how dated it feels. Making a stable, feature-rich email application isn’t easy. Most third-party developers seem to fall down on the “stability” part. Apple nails that but seems uninterested in the “feature-rich” part.

I hope that this new MailKit will allow third-party developers to pick up that slack. There is already a rich ecosystem of Apple Mail plugins, but I’ve become increasingly leary about using and recommending them during recent years. My concern was that Apple could, at any point, pull the plug on Apple Mail plugins.
A few years ago, I talked to an Apple engineer at WWDC who explained that mail plugins, historically at least, represented a security vulnerability, and Apple is very much interested in removing any security holes. The good news is that the announcement of MailKit means Apple is not pulling the plug on plugins but instead found a safe way for them to continue while keeping the platform secure.

This new sense that mail plugins have a future path and will continue to exist makes it easier for me to use them. I hope this also encourages other developers to get off the sidelines and explore developing new and helpful Mail.app plugins. Hopefully, another benefit will be that in future updates to macOS, plugin developers won’t have to re-invent the wheel every year. One of my favorite plugins is SmallCubed’s MailSuite, but every year I have to turn it off on beta machines and often for the first few months after a macOS update releases.

Unfortunately, MailKit is only for the Mac, leaving Apple’s Mail app on the iPhone and iPad sad and lonely, still without even the dignity of a sharing button. I’d love to see MailKit also make its way to iOS and iPad OS, but I’m not holding my breath.

Mac Power Users 595: The Poetic Mike Vardy



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Mike Vardy returns to Mac Power Users to update us on where he has found balance between the iPad and the Mac. Mike also discusses how he blends analog and digital tools, and how he shares tasks and ideas with his remote team.

This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:

  • 1Password: Have you ever forgotten a password? You don’t have to worry about that anymore.

  • SaneBox: Stop drowning in email!

  • Squarespace: Make your next move. Enter offer code MPU at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase.

  • Setapp: More than 200 powerful apps for your Mac. Try it free for a week.

Apple TV: Foundation

I read the Foundation series when I was really young. I remember that I enjoyed the books and blew through the whole series over the course of a month during summer vacation. That’s all I remember. I hope this new series from Apple lives up to the books.

Jazz Friday: Steven Feifke with Veronica Swift “On the Street Where You Live”

Over the last few years, I have really come to enjoy Steven Feifke‘s arrangements, particularly for his Big Band. He’s taking more chances than ever with his arrangements, and I dig it. A case in point is their recent recording of “On the Street Where You Live” featuring Veronica Swift (an upcoming jazz vocalist that has it). The song starts with vampy single notes as Veronica belts out the melody on top. It’s like the band is in some sort of holding pattern. Later the arrangement opens up and the band roars to life behind a gifted vocalist, and it’s glorious.

Have a great weekend!

Mr. Hackett’s Mac Calendar

My pal Stephen Hackett has been hard at work over the last month designing a custom Apple-themed wall calendar with some gorgeous pictures and tons of special dates included. For example, did you know the Flower Power iMac was introduced on February 22, 2001?

Stephen has already blown past his Kickstarter funding goal and this calendar is going to happen. Check it out.

Menuwhere



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Menuwhere pops up the frontmost app’s menus at the current mouse location. Once on-screen, you can drill down into the menus as far as you need to go, using either the keyboard (arrow keys and/or first-letter typing) or the mouse. Either way, your targeted menu item is quickly located.

And it’s customizable. Choose if you want to see the Apple menu at the end of the list or not at all. Maybe you don’t need the Help menu or the Edit menu. Menuwhere can make them disappear. Want to always see the alternate menu items or never see keyboard shortcuts in the pop-up menu? Set up what you want to see in the Menu tab of Menuwhere’s preferences. You can add a second keyboard shortcut to Menuwhere, and open a menu showing the menus from all open apps. You can also set menus’ text size from a range of sizes.

If you’re tired of mousing to and from the menu bar, get Menuwhere and stop mousing around .


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