Tags

This week, Rosemary revisits a useful app that we looked at back in 2018, Dropzone. Now on version 4, this menu bar utility for Mac acts as a temporary storage shelf where you can drop folders and files that you want to act on later. It also offers various actions so you can perform repetitive tasks more easily.

In this tip you discover the ins and outs of Dropzone 4 using common scenarios you might encounter while using your Mac.

In the second part of his Fantastical two-part series, Lee looks at some at some of the more advanced features that version 3 of the calendar application has to offer, such as Time Zone support, Invitee Availability and Weather. You also learn about template creation and get a tour of the configuration options within Fantastical's Preferences.

We've previously seen the power and flexibility of shortcuts and automation on iOS. With NFC tags you can take your automation to the next level. NFC tags are small, discrete and inexpensive "stickers" that can be used as triggers for shortcuts in iOS. With an iPhone XS or newer, you can run a shortcut just by tapping it on an NFC tag.

Don takes you through the simple process of assigning an NFC tag to a shortcut with two real-life examples: Firstly, switching smart LED lights in your home on and off, and then opening the charge port on a Tesla Model 3, with a simple tap of the iPhone.

In this video Rosemary walks you through the newest version of NetNewsWire on the Mac and iPad. After getting a tour of the user interface, you learn how to add news feeds, organise them into folders, and sync all your content between your Mac and iOS devices using Feedbin.

Zoom is an extremely popular video conferencing application, that is used by the British government for press conferences, as well as by schools, universities, and businesses around the world.

In this special tip show, Rosemary shows you how to configure Zoom and quickly host your first meeting, even before creating an account. She then goes on to show you many of its great features including the ability to schedule recurring meetings, create templates that make hosting the same type of meeting or webinar more efficient, how to use the built-in chat, and much, much more. You also learn the many settings Zoom offers to customize your experience.

Some privacy-sensitive issues where Zoom installed a local server on your Mac, or the iOS app sending data to Facebook, have both been resolved and should no longer be a concern for users.

In the first video of a two-part series, Lee starts to take a deep dive into the new version of Fantastical, by Flexibits. Fantastical 3 has added a lot of premium features and in this screencast, you learn how to get started with the application on all platforms. First by understanding the new licensing model, installing the app, and adding calendar accounts.

Lee also goes over creating and editing new events, adding calendars within an account, how to create Calendar Sets, as well as subscribing to external calendars that focus on your key interests.

This week, Lee shows you how to use a utility application on macOS that helps you deal with focusing when you have multiple windows cluttering your desktop.

HazeOver will fade out non-active windows and bring focus to the currently used window(s) in the active application, allowing you to work without the need to minimise application windows to remove distractions in the background.

In this video, Lee introduces a task management application that has recently undergone a change of ownership.

Formerly known as Wunderlist, Microsoft To Do is a cross-platform task management solution that allows you to make quick lists of tasks that require completion. You learn how to create tasks and lists, configure notifications, use attachments and notes, and collaborate with others. Lee also walks you through the configuration of Siri Shortcuts to add tasks to lists on the move. After switching to the Mac, he wraps up with a short section that shows how Outlook and To Do work together.

In this tutorial, Rosemary shows you the new features added to Drafts for Mac since its launch. You learn about dictation, multiple window support, and merging drafts, before diving deep into the headline feature: Actions.

As well as finding out what Actions and Action groups are, you learn how to install and edit them. You also see how Actions can be created from scratch. Rose concludes this screencast with a look at Workspaces, which combines tags and Actions to help you improve your efficiency and productivity while using Drafts.

DEVONthink is one of the most powerful database applications made for the Mac. In fact, some people have said this one application makes it worth getting a Mac just to run it!

In the third of this three-part foundation tutorial, Todd covers how to work with your data once it is inside DEVONthink. He then goes on to show how to use the powerful search AI to find the files you have in your database and some of the automation features that are new to version 3. From there he shows how to sync your databases with your other devices and ways you can get your information out of DEVONthink if you want to use it somewhere else.

In this tutorial, Rosemary walks you through Unibox, a modern email client for Mac and iOS.

Unibox's fresh approach groups your emails by sender rather than chronologically. Alongside many of the things you would expect of your mail program, it incorporates unique features. These include an attachment view which you can filter by type, a clever way to compose emails and keep track of your drafts in one window, as well as flexible swipe gestures on iOS so you can quickly process your inbox.

This week, Lee walks through some of the improvements made to the popular Spotlight alternative for macOS - Alfred - which is now on Version 4.

In this video, you will be shown how to configure themes from scratch, run through the new preferences setup, look at new workflow utilities such as Conditional Utility and Split and much, much more.

In this episode, Lee shows you how to use the macOS version of MarginNote 3, a study aid that allows you to annotate a variety of text-based file types, as well as extract content to provide a more focused view on a topic.

You learn how to import documents, notes from Evernote, web pages, as well as annotate and highlight text. Lee also goes over creating mind maps to link subjects and ideas together, and shows you how to create a flashcard deck to test your understanding of a topic.

In this tip video, Lee shows you a handy little utility application for iOS that allows you to create multiple timers and give them unique names. This allows them to be activated by Siri with ease.

In this episode, Rosemary shows you the new Shortcuts application for iOS and iPadOS. There are a lot of changes in this greatly improved version of the app, now part of the iOS and iPadOS operating systems. They range from home and personal automation, the addition of many actions to automate common tasks, as well as much broader support for third-party apps.

Rose also shares two of her custom shortcuts and shows you, step by step, how to build them from scratch.

A special guest this week: Tim Stringer. Tim has been a contributor to ScreenCastsOnline before, covering Daylite, but for this week he brings us up to date with the improvements to OmniFocus 3.4 on iPhone and iPad. Since contributing to ScreenCastsOnline, Tim has set up his own video tutorial service, Learn OmniFocus. You can learn more about this terrific service at the end of these show notes, along with a special offer for ScreenCastsOnline members.

OmniFocus 3.4 is a significant update that taps into new functionality that Apple introduced in iOS & iPadOS 13. Most notably, it's now possible to automate OmniFocus in many new ways, thanks to enhancements to Shortcuts.

DEVONthink is one of the most powerful database applications made for the Mac. In fact, some people have said this one application makes it worth getting a Mac just to run it!

In the second of this three-part foundation tutorial, Todd covers the many ways you can view your database and goes over setting up workspaces. He also shows you how to work with the rich metadata that you can assign to your files inside of DEVONthink, then goes over how you can use groups and tags as a way to organise the information inside your databases.

This week, Don shows you SideNotes, a macOS app that gives you a simple but effective way to create and organise notes from a side panel. Create notes using Markdown syntax, plain text or monospaced code blocks, and organise by colour or folders.

With support for drag and drop and the ability to paste directly from the clipboard, SideNotes is a useful application to have on hand.

ScreenFlow is the ultimate video production tool for screencasting and is the core tool we use every day here at ScreenCastsOnline to record and edit our weekly shows. Since recording the ScreenFlow 8 Foundation course in early 2019, Telestream has released ScreenFlow 9, a major update to this amazing application.

In this update episode, Don walks you through all of the new features of version 9, which turns ScreenFlow from a niche screencast production tool to a fully-featured video recorder and non-linear editor, capable of tackling most video projects.

This week, Lee introduces you to CalZones, an iPadOS & iOS application that helps solve the problem of scheduling appointments with people across different time zones.

You learn how to add and remove time zones, as well as create and view appointments. Lee also shows you how to set up the widget for quickly viewing time zone information, and configure the different versions of the Apple Watch complications.