SCOM0223 LaunchBar 5 - Part 1

If you work with text, you need TextSoap!

TextSoap is the perfect application for fixing or cleaning your text.

With over 100+ built in text cleaners, TextSoap will fix all those niggling problems with your text, from extra spaces and returns to stripping out unwanted strings or even HTML code. You can even create your own simple text cleaners to match your requirements exactly, or built complex conditional cleaners to do things you never thought possible. Either way, you'll wonder how you ever lived without it.

In the tutorial, I walk you through the basic User Interface and introduce you to some basic cleaners, moving on to customising and even creating your own cleaners. I also use plenty of real world examples to give you a taste of the tasks you can use TextSoap 7 for.

This full tutorial includes sections on:

• Introduction to TextSoap 7
• TextSoap UI
• Cleaning Text With SCRUB
• Cleaning eMail Text
• Cleaning HTML Text
• Batch File Cleaning
• Customising MyScrub Cleaner
• Creating Custom Cleaners
• Creating Cleaner Groups
• Creating Advanced Cleaners
• Exporting and Importing Cleaners
• TextSoap Menu

The third and final (for now) part of the Alfred v2 Masterclass!

Alfred v2 has been re-written from the ground up to be faster, more efficient and easier to use.

This week, I finally take a look at the brand new workflows feature of Alfred v2, accessible via the optional Powerpack.

I think you'll be impressed!

In this extended episode, I take a look at some of the core principles behind workflows, and examine some of the provided sample workflows. I also take a look at some of the most popular (and most impressive) third party workflows to demonstrate just what can be achieved.

This full tutorial includes sections on:

• Workflows Overview
• Recreating Some Sample Workflows
• Workflow Templates
• Shared Workflows
• Battery Workflow Link
• Weather Workflow Link
• AlfredTweet2 Workflow Link
• Evernote Workflow Link

Alfred v2 Workflows: A Few of Our Favourites So Far

Continuing on from last week, it's part 2 of an Alfred v2 Masterclass!

Alfred v2 has been re-written from the ground up to be faster, more efficient and easier to use.

According to the Alfred blog, less than 15% of Alfred v1′s code was reused and every feature has been carefully improved. In addition, they've added in some neat new features, including WorkFlow, a highly customisable replacement for Extensions and Hot Keys.

This week, I take a look at some of the changes to the built in features of Alfred v2 with the optional Powerpack.

This full tutorial includes sections on:

• Calculator & Dictionary
• Contacts
• Clipboard History & Snippets
• iTunes Mini Player
• System & Terminal/Shell
• Customising Alfred

Alfred v2 has just been released, and this week, it's part 1 of an Alfred v2 Masterclass!

Alfred v2 has been re-written from the ground up to be faster, more efficient and easier to use.

According to the Alfred blog, less than 15% of Alfred v1′s code was reused and every feature has been carefully improved. In addition, they've added in some neat new features, including WorkFlow, a highly customisable replacement for Extensions and Hot Keys.

This week, I start from scratch and take you through some of the basics of Alfred, cover some of the changes, and demonstrate how to customise Alfred's default behaviour.

This full tutorial includes sections on:

• Installation & Upgrade Considerations
• Why You Need The Powerpack!
• Using Alfred - The Basics
• Configuring Default Results
• Searching and Opening Files in Alfred
• Navigating Your Files & Folders
• Configuring the Action Menu
• Actioning Multiple Files - The Buffer
• Web Search in Alfred
• 1Password Integration

PDFpen & PDFpenPro V6 have just been released.

PDFpen is a great PDF editor from Smile Software that allows you to edit, sign and correct PDFs. Although I've covered PDFpen before, the new version has some great new features including newly designed toolbars, support for Retina displays, new sidebar options and a spectacular "Export to Word" feature.

The Pro version builds on it's current advanced feature set with the addition of document permission settings and a great new automatic form layout feature.

This tutorial gives you a refresher on PDFpen and introduces you to all the new features.

This full tutorial includes sections on:

• PDFpen Introduction
• New User Interface
• Main Toolbar
• Editing Toolbar
• Exporting to Microsoft Word
• OCR in PDFpen
• New Features in PDFpenPro v6
• Create Form Fields Automatically
• Document Permissions

Please note that Cobook for Mac is no longer a free application!

The Contacts application in OSX (previously Address Book), hasn't really changed much over the years. Except for a questionable make over, the basic functionality has remained the same.

Enter Cobook.

Cobook is a re-imagining of the traditional Contacts application, with some very smart new features. Best of all, it utilises the same underlying contacts data and is able to sync using iCloud. Add in a fully featured iOS application, and you can use Cobook across all your devices.

Cobook resides in your Menubar or can be configured to act as a normal windowed application. It includes powerful integration with most of the major social networks allowing you to auto populate and maintain your contacts list.

Searching your contacts is a breeze and you can easily organise by using tags from within the application.

This full tutorial includes sections on:

• Installation & Setup
• Setting Up Preferences
• Syncing with Social Media
• Adding Contacts
• Window Mode
• Social Media Integration
• Contact Tool Bar
• Editing Your Contacts
• Searching in Cobook
• Conclusion

This week, it's time to revisit the de facto alternative to the standard OSX Calendar application - BusyCal.

BusyCal is a fully featured calendaring and to-do list application that syncs your iCloud calendars, your Google calendars and most other CalDAV based services. It also integrates with your iCloud reminders, allowing you to view your reminders and events from a single application. As it uses iCloud data, events and to-dos created or updated in BusyCal are seamlessly synced across all your Mac and iOS devices.

The standard views in the built in Calendar application of OSX can be a bit limiting, but BusyCal has the flexibility to allow you to tailor your daily, weekly, monthly and yearly views to your particular requirements, and allows you to navigate your calendars quickly and easily. You can even display both events and to-dos in the main calendar view.

With extremely powerful and customisable alarms, BusyCal allows you to integrate with the standard OSX notification service, or even better, use it's own custom notifications. This allows you to dismiss or snooze alerts, not just once, but for minutes, hours or days - you specify how long to snooze for.

The new Menu bar helper app runs independently of the main application, and gives you immediate access to you events and to-dos, and allows you to create new events and to-dos using natural language.

Finally, I take a look at using Smart Filters to create and store multiple bespoke views of your events and to-dos, as well as using graphics to annotate your events.

This full tutorial includes sections on:

• Introduction to BusyCal
• Using Views
• Entering Events & To-Dos
• BusyCal Menu Bar Helper App
• Alarms in BusyCal
• Smart Filters
• Using Graphics