Subject: Re: [Butler Talk] Why is there no one in here?

From: John Quile <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2014 19:32:55 -0700 (PDT)

Ah OneClick...

Fun times on AOL.... 

:) 

On Thursday, January 13, 2011 3:59:10 AM UTC-6, Thomas Rohde wrote:
>
> Hello Listees,
>
> At 21:04 Uhr -0800 12.01.2011, andyselby wrote:
>
> >  I guess this app has been around so long and it's so easy to use 
> > there's just nothing to say. ;)
>
> :-D
>
> I for one AM here, listening and waiting for anything Butler-ish to 
> appear here.
>
>
> >  I remember back in the day I loved Apollo to death.  Anyone 
> > remember that app?
>
> No. For me it was the same with Westcode Software's OneClick -- 
> anybody remember THAT? (Only if you remember pre-Mac-OS-X! ;-)) It 
> was a programmable (w/ its own scripting language) macro program with 
> self-definable palettes and hundreds of user-contributed 
> palettes/buttons. There were quite a few prominent names among the 
> user/coder mailinglist subscribers.
>
> http://www.designwrite.com/oneclick/ (Nice, old-ish website with lots 
> of info about OneClick)
> http://www.macworld.com/reviews/product/406527/review/oneclick_20.html
>
> Rob Renstrom of Westcode Software was formerly in the team of the 
> legendary Beagle Brothers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beagle_Brothers
>
> Sadly, Westcode Software went down shortly after version 2.0, perhaps 
> also due to too friendly (if that's possible) licensing policy like, 
> IIRC, lifetime licenses (price was $40, often with 50% discounts, 
> also IIRC). That I purchased it several times didn't help :-S
>
> The demise of OneClick was -- for me -- one of the saddest software 
> extinctions I have witnessed in my past 30 years of computing since 
> OC was SOOO customizable, there was almost nothing one couldn't do 
> with it. Buttons and Palettes enhancing the Finder an all kinds of 
> software, very easily to be handled and even scripted by users like 
> me.
>
> I'll always remember OneClick as THE singular most helpful software 
> I've ever encountered.
>
> Later, on Mac OS X, Peter Maurer's Butler came to my "rescue" and I 
> have give it the title "THE singular most helpful software *alive*" 
> since OneClick is dead.
>
> At 21:25 Uhr -0800 12.01.2011, Rob Griffiths wrote:
>
> >  [..]  a few items on the list that we're investigating...
> >
> >  * Quick Look-like previews of items on the pasteboard
> >  * Searchable pasteboard
> >  * Better Address Book integration
> >  * Sync some/all settings across multiple Macs
> >  * Interface overhaul: what should the new Butler look like?
>
> Sounds good so far.
>
>
> >  [..] what do you all want to see in Butler 5?
>
> - What I'd love to have is an editable pasteboard w/ a few 
> automatisms like changing to/from word/sentence caps, cleaning 
> whitespace, changing line ends, etc., it would also be really nice to 
> have a mini text editor for the pasteboard to change text entries by 
> hand.
>
> - updated web search stuff
>
> - and since I mentioned OneClick: How about self-made Palettes with 
> Buttons which could contain AppleScripts and which only appear in 
> defined programs? I'd love to have a small Finder companion palette 
> which could, e.g., allow me to apply Finder Labels to selected files 
> via coloured buttons in *one* click since going to a menu and find 
> the appropriate label colour feels quite tedious for me.
>
> I guess the last point may be something only I wish for, and I also 
> guess that it would be hard to implement, but hey, one can dream, 
> right? ;-)
>
> - Another thing I'd love to have (also reminiscent of OneClick) is a 
> platform where Butler users could exchange useful Applescripts and 
> *.butleritems, etc.
>
> That's it for now, I'll post as soon as I have new ideas/wishes.
>
> Greetings,
>
> Tom
> --
> Thomas Rohde
> Wiesenkamp 12
> D-29646 Bispingen
> GERMANY
> ----------------
> +49-5194-6741
> [email-masked] <javascript:>
>
>

---

From: Rob Griffiths <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2013 09:48:51 -0800

On Nov 16, 2013, at 9:44 AM, Eurobubba <[email-masked]> wrote:

> And also, while I'm at it: if a Butler item exists in a custom menu and also has a keyboard trigger, display the keyboard trigger in the menu item, just like it would be shown in a normal application menu, to make it easier to remember.

That one’s on our list already :).

-rob.

---

From: Eurobubba <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2013 09:44:06 -0800 (PST)

And also, while I'm at it: if a Butler item exists in a custom menu and 
also has a keyboard trigger, display the keyboard trigger in the menu item, 
just like it would be shown in a normal application menu, to make it easier 
to remember.

Michael

On Saturday, November 16, 2013 11:35:26 AM UTC-6, Eurobubba wrote:
>
> Reviving a very old but (hopefully, given recent comments about Butler 5's 
> status) still relevant thread:
>
> I would love to see extensive support for Mavericks tagging in a future 
> version of Butler. Off the top of my head, I'm thinking one or more smart 
> items to let the user create a menu of all tags in use, favorite tags, 
> and/or specific individual tags and apply them to a selected Finder item or 
> other object, open a search window, or create a smart folder based on one 
> or more tags.
>
> Michael
>
>
>
> On Wednesday, January 12, 2011 11:25:22 PM UTC-6, Many Tricks wrote:
>>
>> On Jan 12, 2011, at 9:04 PM, andyselby wrote:
>>
>> Quiet group so far; not a lot new in the land of Butler lately ... but 
>> ... how about this for a jumpstarter? What would all of you like to see in 
>> Butler 5?
>>
>> Disclaimer: There's clearly no way we can commit to anything discussed 
>> here, but it would be interesting to see if there's a general consensus 
>> behind certain features. To get things started, here are a few items on the 
>> list that we're investigating...
>>
>> So beyond that list (don't worry, we have much more, but at this time 
>> would rather not share the full list publicly), what do you all want to see 
>> in Butler 5?
>>
>> -rob.
>>
>>

---

From: Rob Griffiths <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2013 09:41:43 -0800

On Nov 16, 2013, at 9:35 AM, Eurobubba <[email-masked]> wrote:

> I would love to see extensive support for Mavericks tagging in a future version of Butler. Off the top of my head, I'm thinking one or more smart items to let the user create a menu of all tags in use, favorite tags, and/or specific individual tags and apply them to a selected Finder item or other object, open a search window, or create a smart folder based on one or more tags.

Great ideas, thanks for the suggestions — I’m not sure how much Apple will let us do with tags (Name Mangler 3 can read them, but it’s not involved in trying to write them), but we’ll take a look!

regards,
-rob.

---

From: Eurobubba <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2013 09:35:26 -0800 (PST)

Michael

On Wednesday, January 12, 2011 11:25:22 PM UTC-6, Many Tricks wrote:
> Quiet group so far; not a lot new in the land of Butler lately ... but ... 
> how about this for a jumpstarter? What would all of you like to see in 
> Butler 5?
>

---

From: NineMirrors <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2011 03:50:13 -0700 (PDT)

I would really like more filesystem integration. I've been trying out
Alfred and Alfred lets me access the file system if I start with a ~
and then just writing a few chars to select the dir I want and step
down in the hierarchy.
Generally Alfred is wickedly fast, it can find any file or folder on
the disk without having to configure it ( i guess it's using spotlight
to find the
desired item) and I like that. It uses keywords in the popup dialog (a
bit like quicksilver). If I type 'find <some file name>' it will
display the files with that name and so on.
Alfred also starts quickly.
Lest this would sound bad for butler, butler is far more adaptable and
offers a number of features I like.

cheers
Erik

---

From: MDC <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2011 07:26:17 -0700 (PDT)

I would echo most of what has been said here. A few comments.

I would love better integration with address book. I have given up
trying to get the address I need directly through Butler and just use
it to open address book.

RE: the clipboard bug
- Periodically I get the same thing—only clipboard 0 works.
- I have never submitted a ticket because it is sporadic (every 2
weeks or so) and I can’t figure out what is causing it
- quitting and relaunching Butler fixes the problem

Mark

On Mar 7, 1:29 am, Rob Griffiths <[email-masked]> wrote:
> On Mar 2, 2011, at 3:11 AM, henrik wrote:
>
> > 1. I'd like the ability to launch shell scripts.  Now I can only
> > launch apps (right?).
>
> Correct. But you can wrap your shell script in an AppleScript wrapper, and launch that. (I think there's also a way to launch a shell script as an app, but I don't recall the details.)
>
> > 2. The pasteboard is buggy.  Now and then I cannot paste entries 1-9:
> > only entry 0 is returned.
>
> If/when this happens again, please open a trouble ticket on manytricks.com/support, and we'll see if we can figure out the cause.
>
> regards,
> -rob.

---

From: Rob Griffiths <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2011 21:29:05 -0800

regards,
-rob.

---

From: henrik <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2011 03:11:23 -0800 (PST)

---

From: Thomas Rohde <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2011 16:41:27 +0100

At 7:02 Uhr -0800 on [y-m-d] 31.01.2011, Rob Griffiths wrote with 
subject "Re: [Butler Talk] Re: Why is there no one in here?":

>  As long as Peter and I are around, Butler won't die, because we 
> both rely on it extensively :).

OK, thank you very much for this confirmation -- this is what I 
really really needed.

Greetz,

Tom

---

From: Rob Griffiths <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2011 07:02:16 -0800

On Jan 31, 2011, at 6:49 AM, Thomas Rohde wrote:

> p.s.: I dearly hope that the number of contributors in this list does NOT allow any conclusions about Butler's user base, because if it did, I'd think that Butler is dead (some day in the future). In which case I guess I'd cry, cry, cry.

As long as Peter and I are around, Butler won't die, because we both rely on it extensively :).

-rob.

---

From: Aaron Enfield <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2011 08:57:30 -0600

Thomas,

I've always had a hard time describing myself wrt technology, but I think
you nailed it.  Software romantic.

Perfect!

If I could only get the functionality of my Kaypro back...

ahem :-)

On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 8:49 AM, Thomas Rohde <[email-masked]> wrote:

> At 10:52 Uhr -0800 on [y-m-d] 30.01.2011, sherman wrote with subject
> "[Butler Talk] Re: Why is there no one in here?":
>
>
>   I absolutely DO remember OneClick.
>>
>
> Cool, I'm not the only dinosaur :-)
>
>
>   [..] I hated it when they went out of business.
>>
>
> Yeah, me too. Life on the Mac immediately became a LOT harder. And the ease
> of OneClick was never again reached, by no program.
>
> Now, Butler gave me some of that back. And if I could easily create as many
> palettes, choose whether they'd be global or bound to an application (i.e.
> only visible when this app is front), with Buttons representing Applescripts
> (which I'd have to learn), and make these customizable w/ regards to size,
> colour and form, then we'd  get *quite* a good piece of way towards such
> funcionality again, even if Applescriptability would constrict this to apps
> which are applescriptable. I can perhaps already get something similar w/ a
> combination of DragThing and Butler?
>
> Anyway, I admit that I have NO idea at all how much work it would be to
> implement all this. I guess I'm kind of a software romantic ;-D
>
> Greetings,
>
> Tom
>
> p.s.: I dearly hope that the number of contributors in this list does NOT
> allow any conclusions about Butler's user base, because if it did, I'd think
> that Butler is dead (some day in the future). In which case I guess I'd cry,
> cry, cry.
>
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Butler Talk
> group. To post to this group, send email to [email-masked].
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
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> .
>
> For more options, visit the Butler Talk web page at <
> http://groups.google.com/group/butler-talk>
>

---

From: Thomas Rohde <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2011 15:49:31 +0100

>  [..] I hated it when they went out of business.

Yeah, me too. Life on the Mac immediately became a LOT harder. And 
the ease of OneClick was never again reached, by no program.

Now, Butler gave me some of that back. And if I could easily create 
as many palettes, choose whether they'd be global or bound to an 
application (i.e. only visible when this app is front), with Buttons 
representing Applescripts (which I'd have to learn), and make these 
customizable w/ regards to size, colour and form, then we'd  get 
*quite* a good piece of way towards such funcionality again, even if 
Applescriptability would constrict this to apps which are 
applescriptable. I can perhaps already get something similar w/ a 
combination of DragThing and Butler?

Anyway, I admit that I have NO idea at all how much work it would be 
to implement all this. I guess I'm kind of a software romantic ;-D

Greetings,

Tom

p.s.: I dearly hope that the number of contributors in this list does 
NOT allow any conclusions about Butler's user base, because if it 
did, I'd think that Butler is dead (some day in the future). In which 
case I guess I'd cry, cry, cry.

---

From: sherman <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2011 10:52:40 -0800 (PST)

I absolutely DO remember OneClick. I'd tried several macro programs at
the time, but OneClick was remarkable in its ease of use,
programmability, and the range of functions it could do. I hated it
when they went out of business.

--
Sherman

---

From: kikashi <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2011 11:07:03 -0800 (PST)

Andy, you have made my day!

I wrote it. I certainly do remember it.

One of my continuing regrets is that I never had the time to re-code
Apollo for OSX, all those years ago. Now I'm so out of touch with that
kind of system-level programming, I doubt I'll ever do it again. I
like Butler a lot and find it a pretty good substitute, though of
course nothing you haven't written yourself is ever quite the same.

Eheu fugaces!

Jeremy

On Jan 13, 5:04 am, andyselby <[email-masked]> wrote:
> I remember back in the day I loved Apollo to death.  Anyone remember
> that app?

---

From: Rob Griffiths <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2011 17:57:51 -0800

On Jan 14, 2011, at 6:41 AM, Bucozar wrote:

> The Search Engines:
> - bug: sometimes they get mixed when adding a new engine (URLs
> overwritten etc.)
> - an easier way to add engines, e.g. from a web page; hit shortcut
> key, auto-detect search form or from URL (a Firefox extension?)
> - easy to apply hot keys

Noted and noted and noted.

> The Configuration:
> - it is bit of a mess now when lots of items

Agreed.

>  - easier to search, filter and order (sort by) the configuration
>  - add hot key in the configuration table
>  - could use it's own toolbar, always going through the plus button
> is a bit tedious

Yep, we've got similar items on our list here.

> E.g. I hit hot key, and input "Beatles" and hit enter,
> this text would go to my script as an input and the script would
> activate my music app (Spotify in my case),
> use keystrokes to focus the search field, paste, and hit enter to
> perform the search.

In theory, you could do this via AppleScript with dialogs, but I've never tried it.

Thanks for the feedback!

-rob.

---

From: Bucozar <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2011 06:41:16 -0800 (PST)

On Jan 13, 7:25 am, Rob Griffiths <[email-masked]> wrote:
> Quiet group so far; not a lot new in the land of Butler lately ... but ... how about this for a jumpstarter? What would all of you like to see in Butler 5?
>
> Disclaimer: There's clearly no way we can commit to anything discussed here, but it would be interesting to see if there's a general consensus behind certain features. To get things started, here are a few items on the list that we're investigating...
>
> So beyond that list (don't worry, we have much more, but at this time would rather not share the full list publicly), what do you all want to see in Butler 5?
>
> -rob.

First off I have to say that I think 75% of why I love using a Mac is
Butler.
If I'm on a Mac without it and my scripts, I feel frustration levels
nearing Windows-use..
So thanks to Peter and Rob for creating and re-inventing this
beautiful gem of usefulness.

I trust you will make Butler better with features I can't even
imagine, but here are my few thoughts:

The Search Engines:

The Configuration:

Idea; I have been wondering that it would be cool if I could use a web
search window like pop-up input to enter some text and then send that
text to a script
E.g. I hit hot key, and input "Beatles" and hit enter,
this text would go to my script as an input and the script would
activate my music app (Spotify in my case),
use keystrokes to focus the search field, paste, and hit enter to
perform the search.
Another application could be to execute text as an shell command and
showing the result as a Growl notification.
This could be also used in menu bar. Hope that made some kind of
sense..
I think that could be really powerful function.

I actually had few more but I just found out the features were already
there, I just didn't know how to use them.
Every day you learn something new...

I'm anxiously waiting to get my hairy hands on Butler 5,
I know it'll make my mac use easier in ways I can't yet even
comprehend...

- Jami

---

From: Aaron Enfield <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2011 08:21:04 -0600

Butler keeps me from turning my iMac into an Ubuntu box.  Gnome Do and
Kupfer don't come close and that's the best there is.

As far as what I would like to see, the only problem that I have with Butler
is remembering what all cool things I have programmed to do with it. I have
to open my configuration and pore over each section to remember something
clever I created- some smart text or Keystroke.  Because I have configured
it so heavily there is just too much to remember and the interface doesn't
organize things in a way that reminds me of what I have done.   That being
said, I have no idea how to improve it- I am not a GUI designer- but I think
that's what I am waiting on Butler 5 for the most.

A couple other things that I would like to see if I had my druthers-
searchable pasteboards like in Anamnesis in Ubuntu.  I am sure there are
others for Mac and Windows, but it sounds like you already have that as a
maybe.  The only thing that I miss Quicksilver for is the very sweet/ easy
way to move files around.  Select the file with the initial keystroke from
Finder/ Path Finder, type move to, tab, type destination folder, return.  I
know you can drag the file up to the menu bar and then navigate the tree
which I appreciate but that's not super fast.  When I scan receipts or move
pictures from the camera to their respective folders, doing this a hundred
times gets a bit old.  That would be a great feature.

Sync across Macs might be nice, but not a game winner for me.  However, if
you could include everything in a single export that would be nice.  Right
now the search engines require their own save.  That took me a while to
figure out being not all that bright :-)

I think the idea of address book integration, while neat, doesn't apply to
me (and perhaps a ton of others who are the type to use Butler) because I
use gmail (any webmail).  Being able to integrate Butler and default mail
handler better might be a nice touch but again I am thinking Quicksilver-y
and I am not sure how better to integrate that.

Going back to the pasteboard, I have a hard time understanding why more
people don't use Pasteboards- especially ones with shelves.  I think
 somehow integrating the smart texts into a easy to organize shelving
system- perhaps a multi-tab window with a tab per category with all the
shelf items displayed with a reminder label and then the actual clip inside-
editable of course.  Thinking back to my days of using Window's Spartan/
Titan.

Anyhow, Rob, thanks for soliciting feedback on my favorite program of all
time.

Aaron

On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 11:25 PM, Rob Griffiths <[email-masked]> wrote:

> So beyond that list (don't worry, we have much more, but at this time would
> rather not share the full list publicly), what do you all want to see in
> Butler 5?
>
> -rob.
>
> --

---

From: Thomas Rohde <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2011 10:59:10 +0100

Hello Listees,

:-D

Sounds good so far.

Greetings,

Tom
--
Thomas Rohde
Wiesenkamp 12
D-29646 Bispingen
GERMANY
----------------
+49-5194-6741
[email-masked]

---

From: Rob Griffiths <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2011 21:25:22 -0800

-rob.

---

From: andyselby <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2011 21:04:07 -0800 (PST)