Conscious Images® LLC

I’ve been wanting to find a solution to create a new text file in a folder on Mac OSX for a while… ages actually. Some people don’t seem to need this, but I do it all the time — I’ve got a folder open and I want to add a quick note to the folder.

I’ve search and tried a few different solutions in the past — this MacWorld solution works, but you have to have a document already in the folder to control-click. What if it’s a blank folder?

I’ve recently become an enormous fan of Alfred. Why not use Alfred to create a hotkey to run an Applescript which does this?

Another approach is to create an extension which runs a shell script, but that’s not my thing — I also couldn’t work out how to use the current folder in the shell script.

After lots of trial, error and Googling, I had something which I thought should have worked but I kept getting permissions errors. I posted to MacScripter and very soon had two working versions from Yvan Keonig (who is the MAN at AppleScript by the way).

This is the version I’m using (the second version) which Time/Date stamps the blank file — otherwise if there was a file called “untitled.txt” in the folder it would get rewritten. I used it by creating a hotkey to launch it but you could probably just as easily add it as an extension to Alfred:

on run
tell application “Finder” to set myFolder to (folder of the front window) as text
tell application “TextEdit”
activate
make new document
tell application “System Events” to tell process “TextEdit” to tell menu bar 1 to tell menu bar item 5 to tell menu 1 to tell menu item -1
if enabled then
“.rtf”
else
“.txt”
end if
end tell
save document 1 in file (myFolder & my dateTimeStamp() & result)
end tell
end run

–=====

on dateTimeStamp()
return (do shell script “date +_%Y-%m-%dT%H.%M.%S”)
end dateTimeStamp

–=====

Thanks Yvan!

Btw, there’s also another solution by Jonas Wisser which is pretty cool — it’s called New Text File Here. If you use it with Alfred, you’ll get an extra step “Press Run to run this script or Quit to quit.”… slightly annoying. But it does let you title the file first— this could be a handy feature for some.

Problem solved!

Edit: The reason I was always getting the dialogue “Press Run to run this script or Quit to quit.” was because my Alfred hotkey contained the control key — the final post in this thread confirms that when the control key is held when running a script, you get that dialogue. I changed my Alfred hotkey and voila! no dialogue. These are both excellent solutions—question is, which works best for you?

Journler

On my iPhone I use Moe’s Notes. Love it. Does what I need it to do. Evernote offers conveniences and some terrific features but I like to keep my data close to home.

I’ve been struggling with what to do with my Moe’s notes on my desktop for over a year. I was thinking of investing in Pear Note but didn’t because it doesn’t offer a mobile counterpart and was limited in other crucial (for me) areas. I’ve tried everything else.

Simultaneously, I’ve been struggling to replace Journler as my Go-To note taker. I love Curio for creative brainstorming, like DevonThink for permanent/archived things and I like Notational Velocity for quick notes and syncing with SimpleNote on my iPhone, but nothing replaces the ease and reliability of Journler.

I happened to look at the website to see if there was any news (despite being great software and Phil offering good support (to me at least) and an active forum, it’s been abandonware for some time). But low and behold there was a beta of a new version for Snow Leopard and Lion. I downloaded it, thinking I had already dismantled my database but to my great joy it fired right up   well over a year later. Needless to say, it brought back memories.

I flashed to my Moe’s problem, and 2 minutes later I had the answer to my problems. All of the Moe’s folders imported as folders, in their place and each folder had the same files as in the original folders. Images were intact in one file. Audio — playable from within Journler — in another. And notes in a third and metadata in a fourth.

Problem solved.

Journler

In Journler: File -> Import Files. Select your Moe’s backup folder. You’ll see the box above - select your category, tags, label and how to deal with the dates. Make sure ‘Preserve folder hierarchy’ is checked below your selected folder. Sit back and wait (folders with lots of data might take a couple of minutes). You’re done!

One of our favorite plug-ins — Extended Live Archives — though long-neglected has recently risen from the dead thanks to Jason Hansen at theglitch.ws.

Archives are one of the lesser-developed aspects of Wordpress, and this plugin, while years old, still hasn’t been improved on in terms of simplicity and function. Yet the author stopped development in ‘06 or ‘07, before the release of Wordpress 2.3. From then on a series of patches appeared from different authors, always coming to the rescue but often difficult to track down. For the uninitiated and impatient, it was a bit of an ordeal. No more. Thanks, Jason!

If you want to see ELA in action on WordPress 2.7 from one install (no patches!), check out our archives.

Back in September, a client needed an e-commerce solution for Wordpress MU that had some specific requirements: it had to handle both PayPal and Google Checkout, had to support digital downloads and intangeables as well as physical goods with various tax and shipping options, and it had to be secure and customer-friendly as well as play nice with MU.

After a quick search only one WordPress plugin could (possibly) fit those needs: WP E-Commerce by Instinct Entertainment in New Zealand (WPSC for short).

A download and install revealed its impressive options. A quick configuration seemed to go ok, and we began to style the shop. That seemed to go ok too—at first. Cutting a long story short, there were lots of problems. After two full days, it was apparent that the plug-in (in our humble opinion) just isn’t ready for the prime-time, particularly with MU. So what to use?

The next choice was to go for e-Junkie a bolt-on Javascript shopping cart that allows a lot of flexibility. But there were two problems: WordPress MU strips many tags from posts, and requires (in our experience) some degree of finagling to get it to accept many of the tags we needed for e-Junkie—something which my client didn’t want to deal with. The other problem was the monthly fees—the longer you use it, the more you should have purchased a long-term solution. This client was in it for the long-haul, so e-Junkie was ruled out.

Almost by magic, at the exact time we needed to close in on a solution, Shopp appeared, then in Beta. The install went smooth. And the configuration. And the styling (remarkably easy to port a WPSC styling into Shopp!). And, low and behold, the ordering.

Shopp works! And, it works with MU (at least where we installed it, in the plugins folder).

It’s not 100% yet, but it’s very close—in only a few months it’s become a very solid product and the best option for Wordpress when a great deal of flexibility is needed (if you don’t need so much flexibility, check out eShop—it’s free). At $55, Shopp will pay itself back many times over. If you accept your own payments through authorize.net or HSBC, those gateway additions are $25 each.

The biggest feature lacking in our experience is the lack of customizable download options by product—all download options are universal, so every product must share the same download limit, expiration time, etc. A minor thing to be sure, but something which hopefully will be added soon. Otherwise it fits our needs perfectly.

Support on the forums is excellent. Good work Jon!