This week MacSparky is sponsored by BetterTouchTool, the Mac App that gives your input devices superpowers. While Apple makes some excellent trackpads and mice, the built-in gestures are just a taste of what you could do with those devices. With BetterTouchTool, you can completely re-design your Touch Bar, configure various Magic Mouse and Trackpad gestures, define keyboard shortcuts, bind standard mouse buttons, use the Siri Remote with your Mac and do tons more.

BetterTouchTool offers many actions to automate various tasks on your Mac. These can be assigned to any input-device trigger you choose. Additionally, it contains some handy features like window snapping, a clipboard manager, a screenshot editor, and much more. It even includes a free iOS app to control your Mac and trigger actions remotely. If you have a MacBook or MacBook Pro, this app is an absolute game changer.

There is lots of news with BetterTouchTool. Recent updates let it run just fine on the Catalina beta. There is also a new dock widget for the Touch Bar and soon (hopefully next week) we’ll get a fancy new calendar widget on the Touch Bar. Also, you can now join the BetterTouchTool Community at community.folivora.ai to learn how to get even more from BetterTouchTool. Users have shared some amazing presets there, including some very advanced custom Touch Bar setups that you should check out.

BetterTouchTool comes with a 45-day trial after which you can choose between a license that includes all updates for two years and a lifetime license.

BetterTouchTool has been around for nine years, and I’ve been using it the entire time. With BetterTouchTool, I can make my Mac dance. You should too. MacSparky readers can purchase BetterTouchTool for 15% off at checkout by using the coupon code MACSPARKYBTT for a limited time. So don’t delay. Go to folivora.ai to learn more and take advantage of the special limited-time, 15% discount on BetterTouchTool.

This week, MacSparky is sponsored by PDFpen for Mac. Preview does a good job at very basic PDF edits but if you need more powerful tools for PDFs, look no further than PDFpen and PDFpen Pro. I use PDFpen Pro nearly daily to manage and create digital documents for my day job. I like PDFpen because it brings so much to the table. PDFpen version 11 released last month with a lot of new features:

• Split-view mode for editing

• New Font Bar for expressive font control

• Import scans from Continuity Camera

• Customize page-number locations

• Add multiple items to the Library at once

• Option to turn off guides

• Medical/Legal dictionaries for OCR (English language)

• Automatic deskew independent of OCR

• Option to specify default zoom

• Specify Facing Pages settings for individual documents

• Improved Sidebar

• Edit Form Elements Properties for multiple form fields simultaneously (PDFpenPro)

PDFpen can even take a PDF document and turn it into a workable Microsoft Word file. In that sense it is also a PDF deconstruction tool and so very handy. PDFpen does all of this, and so much more. Smile also offers PDFpen for iPad and iPhone for editing PDFs for when you are on the go.

Head over to the PDFpen website for a full list of features. Also, make sure to let them know you heard about it here at MacSparky. 

Recently, I was talking to a nerd-friend about email, and he explained how he likes email but just wished it had a few additional features, like deferred mail. What he didn’t realize is that he could have all of that immediately, in Apple Mail, with this week’s sponsor, SaneBox. SaneBox is the solution to so many email problems. SaneBox is the email service that adds a pile of productivity features to your email, regardless of what email client you use. For a lot of folks, email is a constant pain point, and it doesn’t need to be. With SaneBox at your back, you can:

• Wake up every day to find the SaneBox robots have automatically sorted your incoming email for you so you can address the important and ignore the irrelevant.

• Defer email for hours, days, or weeks, so it is out of your life until a more appropriate time. They’ve even added a new feature that can optionally auto-reply to snoozed email with something like, “I’m sorry, but I’m underwater right now. I’ll get back to you in a few days.”

• Set secret reminders so if someone doesn’t reply to an important email, SaneBox gives you a nudge to follow up.

• Automatically save attachments to the cloud (like Dropbox).

• Use their SaneForward service to automatically send appropriate emails to services like Evernote, Expensify, and Kayak.

• Move unwanted email to the SaneBlackHole and never see anything from that person again.

The list goes on. For instance, you can have SaneBox send an auto-reply when you defer an email. Why not straighten out your email by getting a SaneBox account today? If you sign up with this link, you even get a discount on your subscription.

This week MacSparky is sponsored by inShort for macOS.

inShort is an advanced diagramming and planning tool that lets you specify processes, resources, and how they all fit together. All of this is built around a unique interface that enables you to drill down into the details of a project or move back up to the overview and see the project in its entirety. The interface is brilliant.

Since the last time I featured inShort on this website, there have been several significant updates. The application now works with layers (for pro subscribers), which add a new dimension to your diagrams, successfully combining related schemes in a common space.

If your project works in cycles, there’s new logic available in the application that lets you take into account several schedules for one object. One of the most interesting new features to me is the introduction of failed tasks. You can map out what happens if the task fails in your project planning. This lets you log and analyze how what happens if things break, and it even updates the Gantt chart to display the failure.

Other improvements include the ability to customize your chart presentation style, a dark theme, and several other minor improvements.

If you’d like to bring some powerful tools to your planning, check out inShort.

This week MacSparky is sponsored by OmniFocus, the application I use to capture, manage, and complete my tasks and projects. One of my favorite reasons to Use OmniFocus is its powerful review tools.

Specifically, with OmniFocus you can assign a specific review frequency to each project. For some active projects, I may set the frequency to once a week. For other less active projects, it may be just once every six months. Regardless, this system builds in an easy way for me to stay on top of projects that may otherwise fall through the cracks. The trick is, at least once a week I take a look at all of the projects that are due for review.

Once I take a look at the projects, I often find things that I can update, revise, or even kill. Think of it as Game of Thrones, but for projects. Every week something must die. I love having these powerful review tools in my task manager, and it has saved my bacon more than once. Over the years, the team at the Omni Group has made this feature even more powerful, and it is easy to use on all of the various platforms including Mac, iPad, and iPhone.

My weapon of choice for review continues to be my fancy iPad with a cup of tea somewhere away from my desk. For some reason, I find it easier to kill projects when I’m not sitting at my desk. Maybe a psychiatrist could explain that to me one day.

Either way, if you’ve got OmniFocus installed, start using the review process now. You’ll be surprised at how powerful it is and how much better you feel once you have a regular review practice. If you don’t have OmniFocus, download the free trial and see what I mean. The Omni Group sweats the details, and this is just one of many features that you’ll love.

This week, MacSparky is sponsored by PDFpen for Mac. To properly work with PDF documents, you’ll need some powerful tools:

• You’ll need to have the ability to perform optical character recognition on the document so you can search it.

• You’ll need a full set of annotation tools.

• You’ll need the ability properly redact private information.

• You’ll need image support.

• You’ll need the ability to add a digital signature.

PDFpen does all of this, and so much more. Smile also offers PDFpen for iPad and iPhone for editing PDFs for when you are on the go.

Head over to the PDFpen website for a full list of features. Also, make sure to let them know you heard about it here at MacSparky.com. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=18&v=1OVaaLEbFH0

This week MacSparky is sponsored by BetterTouchTool, the Mac App that gives your input devices superpowers. While Apple makes some excellent trackpads and mice, the built-in gestures are just a taste of what you could do with those devices. With BetterTouchTool, you can completely re-design your Touch Bar, configure various Magic Mouse and Trackpad gestures, define keyboard shortcuts, bind standard mouse buttons, use the Siri Remote with your Mac and do tons more.

BetterTouchTool offers many actions to automate various tasks on your Mac. These can be assigned to any input-device trigger you choose. Additionally, it contains some handy features like window snapping, a clipboard manager, a screenshot editor, and much more. It even includes a free iOS app to control your Mac and trigger actions remotely. If you have a MacBook or MacBook Pro, this app is an absolute game changer.

Recently, the BetterTouchTool Community was begun, which you can find at community.folivora.ai. Users have shared some amazing presets there, including some very advanced custom Touch Bar setups that you should check out.

One of my favorite Better Touch Tool gestures lets me quit the current app by pinching with my thumb and two fingers. Whenever I want to shut down a bunch of apps, and my hand is on the trackpad, there is no faster way.

BetterTouchTool comes with a 45-day trial after which you can choose between a license that includes all updates for two years and a lifetime license.

BetterTouchTool has been around for nine years, and I’ve been using it the entire time. With BetterTouchTool, I can make my Mac dance. You 2should too. MacSparky readers can purchase BetterTouchTool for 15% off at checkout by using the coupon code MACSPARKYBTT for a limited time. So don’t delay. Go to folivora.ai to learn more and take advantage of the special limited-time, 15% discount on BetterTouchTool.

This week MacSparky is sponsored by OmniFocus, the task manager I’ve used for years to stay on top of my work and make time for play.

OmniFocus not only offers its users power, it also comes with flexibility. You can make this app work the way you think. Need tags? OmniFocus has them. Want to review your active project routinely? OmniFocus does that. Need to quickly get your tasks out of your brain and into your Mac/iPad/iPhone? OmniFocus makes task capture trivial.

With OmniFocus, you have all the tools. This week has been bananas for me. Because of some work commitments, I only have time for the few most critical tasks every day. OmniFocus is helping me out with that because I tag the most important tasks (I use “Big Rock”) and OmniFocus has a perspective to show me the big rocks every day. This week. I’m just doing those items. Next week, when things slow down a bit, I can dive deeper, but for now, I see exactly what I need. It’s a simple perspective and I’m adding a screenshot at the bottom of this post.

I use OmniFocus every day to keep my life together. There is no way I could run a law practice, video business, three podcasts, and be a dad without the powerful tools that OmniFocus gives me. Why not check it out for yourself? Head over to the OmniFocus website and download the free trial. Make sure to let them know you heard about it here at MacSparky.com.

This week MacSparky is sponsored by Ulysses, that powerful writing tool that works on Mac, iPad, and iPhone and I use every day. In the last year, my usage of Ulysses has only increased more. It has become for me, “the place for words”. Not only do I keep a repository of text, I call it the “text bank” that I use in my law practice in Ulysses, it has also become the place I keep notes, work on drafts, outline screencasts, plan podcasts, and write just about all the other words I make in one context or another. I love the clean design and the way it syncs everything everywhere. The image to the right is my Ulysses sidebar. There is so much contained in these categories.

The Ulysses team has been busy. Recent additions include new styles and themes and the new ability to split the view, showing you two different Ulysses notes at the same time. I’ve only been using split view a short time but already couldn’t imagine Ulysses without it. Best of all, if you sign up with the links in this blog post, you’ll get three months of Ulysses for free. 

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This week MacSparky is sponsored by the latest release of TextExpander 6.5 for macOS and 2.0 for Windows and their new visual editor for snippets. The new editor make it easier to see and edit snippet Fill-ins, dates and date math, nested snippets, and more.

TextExpander has always been powerful. With this update it gets even easier to use that power. Now you can nsert words, phrases, forms, templates, and more with just a couple key clicks—everywhere you type.
Go download it today and take control of your time and productivity by letting TextExpander handle your repetitive typing tasks. Sign up with this link and get 20% off.