Text View Email Scratch Pad

[sepulchra]

I’m experimenting with making a little email scratch pad I can trigger with a hotkey and use the new text view object. I’ve been using Tot.app for this purpose, but wanted to try and replicate that workflow with the new text view object.

 

My current Tot workflow does the following:

- copies a specific tot.app dot (document) I write my email drafts in to the clipboard.
- deletes the contents of the dot (document) so when i write a new draft it is blank.
- opens the mail app so I can paste the text the body of my already open email message.

I’ve rebuilt this with textview the following way:

- I’ve created a txt file called email draft.txt
- hotkey opens textview to that path, saves to file’s contents (set to overwrite)
- copies file contents to clipboard and then open’s the mail app.

 

This seems to work well, but I’m curious if there is a better/different way. I’m always curious to learn something new. Pasting the flow below.

 

[sepulchra]

I still want to hear other thoughts but just realized that you don't need to have a text file -- you can set text view to "object input" and connect it to Copy to Clipboard. You can put the lime in the coconut without requiring Harry Nilsson!

 

Edited February 29 by sepulchra

[Stephen_C]

I guss you could get more flashy if you wished 😉, write to a text file and provide in the workflow for an option to edit that file if it exists. That way you could continue to develop the draft email—and then choose a modifier from Text View to copy to the clipboard when you wish.

 

Only a thought…!

 

Stephen

[Stephen_C]

So, without the frills at the end (copying to clipboard, etc.), it might look something like this:

 

(You need the empty Arg & vars before the lower of the two Text Views so you don't end up sending false to Text View.)

 

Of course, you may not want your draft email workflow to work like that! 😀

 

Stephen

[sepulchra]

one other thing i just tried..... you could add an external trigger to Vitor's Window Switcher Worklfow and then call that workflow after copy to clipboard and pick the open app/window you want to paste into.

[vitor]

2 hours ago, sepulchra said:

You can put the lime in the coconut without requiring Harry Nilsson!

 

Not the first time you’ve made an analogy from music. I like that, digging the sound. I was familiar with some of his other songs but not that one.

 

2 hours ago, Stephen_C said:

I guss you could get more flashy if you wished 😉, write to a text file and provide in the workflow for an option to edit that file if it exists.

 

See why I enjoy so much when you two discuss workflows? Nice idea!

 

2 hours ago, sepulchra said:

you could add an external trigger to Vitor's Window Switcher Worklfow and then call that workflow after copy to clipboard and pick the open app/window you want to paste into.

 

Huh, interesting idea too! I can see that being useful in other cases. Just released 2024.1 which adds an External Trigger.

[sepulchra]

25 minutes ago, vitor said:

 

Not the first time you’ve made an analogy from music. I like that, digging the sound. I was familiar with some of his other songs but not that one.

 

 

Sound/hearing is my favorite of all the senses and the focus of most of my work. If you'd like to learn about Harry Nilsson, there was a solid documentary made about him in the early 2000s. He had a pretty remarkable career and life, which sadly was cut too short by some of his personal choices.

 

25 minutes ago, vitor said:

 

Huh, interesting idea too! I can see that being useful in other cases. Just released 2024.1 which adds an External Trigger.

 

It is amazing how fast you turn these updates around.

Edited February 29 by sepulchra