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Yoink for iPad and iPhone Usage Tip #7

The following explains how to use Yoink on iPad in Slide-Over or Split View.
For more Usage Tips like this, click here.

It seems quite a few people have been getting new iPads recently – to those, I say: congratulations on your purchase 🥳
Coincidentally, that’s probably why I’ve been asked quite frequently lately how to use Yoink in Slide-Over or Split View.
Here’s a quick guide on how to do it.

1) Use Yoink in Slide-Over

– With a full screen app open, swipe up from the very bottom of your iPad to reveal the Dock
– Drag Yoink from the Dock to the side of your iPad’s screen

In Slide-Over, you can reposition Yoink to either edge of your iPad’s screen, or dismiss it by dragging it all the way to the right.

2) Use Yoink in Split View

– With a full screen app open, swipe up from the very bottom of your iPad to reveal the Dock
– Drag Yoink from the Dock to the top right of your iPad’s screen
– Alternatively, If Yoink is already in Slide-Over, drag the its top horizontal indicator to the top right of your iPad’s screen, and it will enter Split View.

In Split View, you can adjust the size of each Split view app by dragging the indicator between them.
You can remove an app from Split view by dragging the top horizontal indicator of the app.

Further Reading

Apple’s iPad User Guide
Use Multitasking on your iPad
Open an app in Slide Over

 

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Yoink for Mac Usage Tip #14

The following explains how to make Yoink automatically pick up any new file added to a specified folder.
For more Usage Tips like this, click here.

 

Yoink 256

If you’d like Yoink for Mac to automatically pick up any new files you download or save into a specific folder, here’s how it’s done.

Automator Folder Action

Automator, an app that comes with every Mac, allows you to create Folder Actions, which are small programs that run every time files and folders are added to a folder you specify.

I’ve prepared such a Folder Action for you: Download (direct download, ~42 KB)

Installation
  • Download the action above, then unzip and double-click it. It will prompt you with this:
Screenshot of Automator Installer 13 10 2020 14 39 16

Choose the folder you’d like to attach this action to and click on Install. The action will then be moved to /Users/yourname/Library/Workflows/Applications/Folder Actions/Yoink Save Folder.workflow
If you ever wish to uninstall it, just delete that file.

  • With the Folder Action installed, whenever you download or save a file into that folder, it will be added to Yoink, like you can see in this video:
  • To create multiple of these, all you need to do is unzip again, change the filename of the Automator action, double-click it and follow the instructions above
Details

If you’re curious about what the Folder Action actually does, it’s this:

Screenshot of Automator 13 10 2020 14 35 23

The action runs this shell script

open -a Yoink “$@"

any time new files or folders are added to the specified folder, which instructs macOS to open the specified file with Yoink (which ultimately results in the file being added to Yoink’s list).

Advanced

You can edit the shell script anytime (by right-clicking onto the Automator file and selecting Automator):

Screenshot of Finder 13 10 2020 14 54 50

which would enable you, for example, to tell the action only to add files of a certain file type, or with a certain file extension.
The following script sample shows how to make the Folder Action only add PDF files:

for str in "$@"
{
   filename=${str##*/}
   pathExt=${filename##*.}

   if [ $pathExt == 'pdf' ]
   then
      open -a Yoink "$str"
   fi
}

Enjoy 🙂

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Yoink for iPad and iPhone's App Icon

Today, Yoink for iPad and iPhone is 3 years old 🥳. Time surely flies when you have… bugs to fix.

It certainly doesn’t feel like three years. It feels like only yesterday, to be honest.
On the other hand, the release process, yes, that felt like it took three years, because I was eager to release alongside iOS 11 (which, due to its drag and drop capabilities, made Yoink for iOS possible in the first place), but there were some serious delays with App Review, who rejected the app multiple times because of its keyboard extension, and later, its File Provider (while other, similar keyboard/FP extensions were apparently perfectly fine and allowed on the App Store. This is my single biggest gripe with App Review – the inconsistencies in rejections. It’s obvious why these things happen, and it’s understandable, but it’s frustrating nonetheless).

But all that’s in the past. Yoink for iOS has been out there for three years now, and it has been doing great – thanks to all of you who use it, leave ratings, reviews or send feedback.
It’s been featured on the App Store on numerous occasions – here are a few examples:

Yoink featured on ios app store

Yoink iOS App Store Feature 17 09 2020 14 39 25

Yoink iOS iPhone App Store US Feature 07 12 2017 13 06 01

So thank you all for three amazing years. Let’s hope for many, many more 🤗

P.S.: Keep an eye out on my social channels (twitter | facebook | linkedin), as I’ll be posting a few promo codes there!

 

– Matthias
mail | website | twitter | instagram | facebook

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Here’s an update on the state of my apps regarding macOS Big Sur and Macs with Apple Silicon.

In short: All my apps are ready for both, and the updates mentioned below will be released when macOS Big Sur is available at the latest (depending heavily on App Review and whether or not macOS Big Sur’s release is going to be the same, fun catastrophe of a surprise as iOS 14’s).

Let’s get into a little more detail.

Yoink for Mac (website | Mac App Store)

Yoink 128 2xFor Yoink – your file shelf that simplifies and improves drag and drop on your Mac –, all I had to do to make it fit nicely within Big Sur was to resolve some UI issues.
Recompiling for Apple Silicon went without further intervention on my part.

– Firstly, I updated the preferences window to the new style (which you can read more about here).
2

– Secondly, macOS Big Sur introduces larger insets for most (if not all) of its scrollable views, so I’ve had to make Yoink’s window a little wider to make everything fit nicely again, while maintaining the new inset and selection look.
1

– Last but not least, I asked Alex Käßner to update Yoink’s icon, and he certainly delivered (see above).

ScreenFloat (website | Mac App Store)

ScreenFloat for Mac App Icon

For ScreenFloat – which lets you create floating screenshots to keep almost anything visible in whatever app, space or window you are – my priority was to get it running natively on Apple Silicon and fix the most glaring UI issues on Big Sur (like the preferences window, again).
A bigger update is in the works, so my attention goes into that, but I wanted to make sure that – until the big update drops – it’ll run as efficiently and well as it can.

flickery (website | Mac App Store)

flickery for Mac App Icon

flickery – a full-featured client for flickr – will run natively on Apple Silicon and received, like ScreenFloat above and the apps below, a minor face-lift of its preferences window.
I’ve also had to remove QTKit (which I mostly did with a previous update of the app for macOS Catalina – but some more references I had kept around came up as an error in Xcode, so those had to go as well).
It was used to allow the user to edit videos before uploading them. It’s gone for the time being, but there are plenty of free tools (including QuickTime Player) that can step up here for the user in the meantime.

Transloader for Mac (website | Mac App Store | iOS App Store)

Transloader for Mac App Icon

Transloader – which lets you start downloads on your Mac remotely from your iOS device – also will receive a minor update. I had to remove some shadows from texts so it would look nicer in Dark Mode (and who does shadows nowadays anymore, anyways…).
I’ve also had to update its use of CloudKit, because some APIs were deprecated and replaced (in particular, I was using CKSubscription instead of the newer CKQuerySubscription). In the end, it was easy enough.
Transloader 3.0 is still in the works (some bits of progress you can read about here, here and here), so, like with ScreenFloat, I wanted to make sure it runs on macOS Big Sur (and natively on Apple Silicon) until the bigger update is available.

Glimpses (website | Mac App Store)

Glimpses for Mac App Icon

Glimpses – an app that lets you effortlessly create still motion videos – will receive a more substantial update.
After I fixed a glaring UI issue where the progress bar that Glimpses shows for the render progress was almost invisible, I gave the video creation algorithm an overhaul, which makes it up to 4x faster than before, which I’m really happy with. Multi-threading ftw! The app, too, will run natively on Apple Silicon.

SiriMote (free, website)

SiriMote for Mac App Icon

SiriMote didn’t require any UI fixes for Big Sur, but v1.3.9 which I recently released fixes a couple of connectivity issues – and already runs natively on Apple Silicon!
The app allows you to control your Mac and apps with your Apple TV Siri Remote.

I’m glad I was able to make all my apps ready for macOS Big Sur, and am very curious where things are going with Apple Silicon!

– Matthias
mail | website | twitter | instagram | facebook

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