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Looking at Obsidian and the Craft App

I’ve heard from a lot of listeners/readers about the new Craft app and I’ve spent the last few days taking a closer look at it. Craft is one of the growing crop of intelligent notes/thinking apps. It has the ability to make notes both atomic-sized and large. Craft also uses a block text formatting making it easy to move individual blocks around (or even group them). Craft is a competitor in my life with Obsidian. Although the apps are very different.

  • Obsidian is just text. Craft can hold multi-media.

  • Obsidian is just a group of markdown files and entirely in my control. Craft is a closed system (with an export feature) where you must use Craft’s sync back end. (Although Craft has many export features.)

  • Obsidian gives you 100% control over your markdown files and their security. Craft data is stored on Craft servers and not end-to-end encrypted.

  • Craft is a native app. It has the beautiful look of a native app and it runs like a native app. Craft has many additional features that I doubt will ever go to Obsidian. Obsidian is not a native Mac app but instead an electron app. It doesn’t have a lot of the usual Mac niceties and it uses more RAM than a native app would. (That said, Obsidian is the nicest electron app I’ve ever used.)

  • Craft runs on Mac, iPad, and iPhone and your data is available easily on all platforms. Obsidian is a Mac-only app. You can access via iPad using third-party apps, but it is pretty rough.

  • Craft displays in rich text by default while at the same time supporting markdown. Obsidian works in a markdown (but can display rendered rich text easily enough.)

  • Obsidian has a friendly and passionate collection of users and developers behind it. Having spent just a few days in the Craft Slack channel, it appears Craft does too.

My takeaway is that both of these apps are very capable and on the right track. There are real differences between these apps and a good case could be made for either of them. I can see Craft’s appeal, particularly when I want to access and modify data on iPhone or iPad. Another Craft benefit for me would be the ability to embed images without having to link out to an external file. That said, I think Craft’s lack of end-to-end encryption is probably a deal-breaker for me. I say that now, but this is all very much a moving target right now with both apps iterating nearly daily. Fun times for us nerds.

A Step in the Right Direction of Restoring the Proxy Icon to Its Rightful Place of Glory

I’ve written before about my biggest gripe with Big Sur being the unnecessary cuteness of hiding the proxy icon and requiring a delayed mouse hover to get it back. Holding down the shift key makes the proxy icon appear immediately when you hover near, which is an improvement. Herman van Boejen (via Brett Terpstra) has figured a way to remove that initial delay so the icon animates in as soon as you get near the document name. Here it is:

  1. Open Terminal App

  2. Paste this: defaults write com.apple.Finder NSToolbarTitleViewRolloverDelay -float 0

  3. Press Enter

  4. Type: killall Finder

  5. Press Enter.

This solution is an improvement, but what I’d really like is for the proxy icon to just be there.

DIY Touch Bar

Stephen Hacket has been upping his game on his Touch Bar using BetterTouchTool along with Keyboard Maestro to run setups on his laptop. This all grew out of a similar workflow he’s been using on his Mac Pro following some gentle encouragement from me that he buy a Stream Deck.

The Touch Bar is something a lot of folks love to hate but I don’t see it that way. I think Apple’s biggest mistake with the Touch Bar is shipping it with the Siri button right over the top of the delete button. As a result, it’s easily triggered and this makes people hate the Touch Bar. The good news is that you can customize it (and even remove the Siri button). I also use BetterTouchTool with my Touch Bar but rather than triggering Keyboard Maestro snippets, I’ve been using it to display information, like the date, weather, and upcoming calendar events. I’ll do a separate post in the future outlining my tweaks but in the meantime, if you have a Mac with a Touch Bar, you’ll want to check out BetterTouchTool for making the Touch Bar work for you.

Mac Power Users 564: Taking Pictures and Enriching Lives with Austin Mann



Mac Power Users Artwork.png


Stephen and I talk with photographer Austin Mann on the latest episode of Mac Power Users about his work and his annual iPhone camera reviews.

This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:

  • TextExpander, from Smile: Get 20% off with this link and type more with less effort! Expand short abbreviations into longer bits of text, even fill-ins, with TextExpander from Smile.

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Field Guide Black Friday Sale

I don’t often run sales on the MacSparky Field Guides. Instead, I price the courses so, in my opinion at least, they are always good values. Nevertheless, I decided this year to make an exception. Through this weekend only, all of the MacSparky Field Guides are $10 off. That’s the biggest discount I’ve ever offered. So if you’d like to get better at something nerdy on your Mac or iPhone, now’s the time to jump on board. To get the discount, just scroll to the bottom of any course (or press the enroll button at the top) and select the Black Friday discount price before check out.

Track Your Time with the Updated Timing App (Sponsor)


The New Timing App

This week MacSparky is sponsored by Timing, the time tracker that automatically tracks your time for you. Timing has just received a significant update for Big Sur, and the new design is beautiful and modern. It fits right in with Big Sur. They’ve also updated the icon. The clock on the new icon updates in real-time, letting you put the current time in your dock. I’ve grown to appreciate having the time in my dock. (It also shows the current time in your menu bar.)


The New Timing Icon

Timing’s best feature remains its accuracy and automatic time tracking. Because Timing is automatically logging your time on your Mac, you get better data. You find out exactly how much time you spent in that Word document versus how much time you spent on Amazon.com. It is that accurate data that can help you keep track of how you are doing and make intelligent changes. I use Timing on my laptop and desktop Macs, and Timing handles syncing the data for me. If you want to get productive, the starting point is assessing how you are currently doing, and there is no better tool to do that on the Mac than Timing.

You can get Timing directly from the TimingApp website or as part of your Setapp subscription. Install it today and start getting accurate data on how you are spending your time. Download with this link for a free 14-day trial and get 10% off for the first year!

Hazel 5 and the Next Hazel Field Guide


Hazel Icon 2020

With the release of Big Sur, Paul Kim released a brand new version of Hazel. Version 5 adds several new features. Just a few of them include:

  • Support for macOS Big Sur.

  • A standalone app form factor instead of a preference pane.

  • A pile of UI improvements making creating and organizing rules easier and better.

  • Way better match text tools

If you purchased Hazel 4 anytime during 2020, you can upgrade for free. Otherwise, the upgrade is $20. I paid immediately. I’ve received a lot of email about the Hazel Field Guide. With this new interface and toolset, I will be making a second edition Hazel Field Guide in early 2021. It will be a new purchase but have an upgrade price for prior customers. Stay tuned. 

Being Thankful on Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Growing up, I thought of Thanksgiving as a way to get out of school for a few days and eat copious amounts of turkey, but as I get older, the thankfulness bit has taken the front row seat.

A few years ago, I started the practice of writing down one thing I was grateful for every day. It is one of the first things I do every morning, and I find it helps me get the day started right. This isn’t just a bunch of California granola-eating nonsense. Science supports me on this. I try to make it something different every day, making it kind of fun to find new things that delight me. You could record your daily gratitude on your calendar, in a journal, or even just a plain text file. I’ll be going over the details of how I do it in tomorrow’s newsletter.

It’s been a tough year, and you may be thinking that, of all the years, 2020 is the last one in which you should be practicing gratitude. I’d reply that because it is 2020, you need a gratitude practice now more than ever.