Mac App Store

Earlier today, I released Yoink 3.4 for Mac with supposed “PopClip by Pilotmoon Software” Integration.
Only that it doesn’t work, because I screwed up. My sincere apologies, it worked in testing but I managed to remove it from my Mac App Store submission by mistake, so the button does effectively nothing.

So, here’s how to fix it:
Instead of using Yoink’s “Install PopClip Extension” button in Yoink’s preferences (which is, on top of everything, badly aligned – because it’s just that kind of day for me), download the extension below and double-click it. If you have PopClip by Pilotmoon Software installed, it’ll do the right thing and ask you if you’d like to install it.

 – Download Yoink’s PopClip Extension – (then double-click in Finder)
(A logout/login or restart of your Mac might be necessary for macOS to recognize Yoink’s new system service)

Again, my apologies, this wasn’t how I wanted this to go 😉

I hope you enjoy Yoink besides this little hiccup, you can be sure it’ll be fixed with the next update!

– Matt

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Yoink Mac App Icon

I’m happy to tell you that today, Yoink 3.3 is available for download from the Mac App Store. It’s a free upgrade for everyone who’s purchased it before. You can download a 15-day trial for the app here.

What Is Yoink?

Yoink simplifies and improves drag and drop on your Mac.

Simplify.

It simplifies drag and drop by providing a temporary place for files you drag, so you can navigate more easily to the destination of the files.
It’s especially useful when trying to move or copy files between different windows, Spaces or (fullscreen) applications.

Moving a file with Yoink

When you start moving a file in Finder, or app-content like an image from a website, Yoink appears at the edge of your screen, offering a temporary place for you to drag the files to. Without having to keep the mouse button pressed, you can now get to the destination of your file quicker and easier.

Improve.

Drag and drop is improved in several ways, including:

  • Collect multiple files from different locations you’d like to move to one destination without having to go back and forth
  • Split up a multiple-files-drag so you can move files to different places without having to go back and forth
  • Copy files to multiple locations more efficiently

Customize.

You can customize Yoink’s behavior so it fits in perfectly with your workflow. Aside from having to option to show it at either edge of your screen (at the top, center or bottom), you can set it up to only appear when you drag files to the edge of your screen or to appear directly at your mouse cursor when you start dragging, making drag and drop even faster.

Yoink appearing at the mouse cursor

For applications where you don’t need Yoink, add them to a “blacklist”, so Yoink doesn’t interfere with your work. A keyboard shortcut (by default, F5) lets you manually show or hide it, should you need it anyways.

What’s New in Yoink 3.3?

Version 3.3 lets you bring back files to the app that you’ve previously removed, in case you find you need to move or copy the file(s) somewhere else.
Just keep its keyboard shortcut pressed (by default, F5)

Press and Hold Shortcut Key in Yoink

or right-click onto Yoink to bring back previously removed files:

Right-click onto Yoink

Webloc files can now optionally show favicons for quicker identification:

Yoink loading favicons for webloc files

Further Improvements

  • Yoink now includes macOS’ “Share” menu to more easily share files to different services
  • More easily add links from your browser to Yoink by right-clicking onto it in your browser and selecting Share -> Yoink
  • A new Alfred File Action to make sending files from Alfred to Yoink possible (activate it in Yoink’s “Advanced” preferences)
  • Many improvements, refinements and bug fixes

Pricing and Availability

Yoink 3.3 is available for purchase on the Mac App Store for the price of $6.99 / £6.99 / €7,99. It is a free update for existing customers of the app.
You can download a free, 15-day demo version here, even if you’ve tried Yoink before. Yoink runs on Macs with OS X Lion 10.7.3 or newer. OS X Yosemite or newer is recommended.

If you’re interested in writing about Yoink, you can download the press kit here, which contains screenshots, links to a short video and further information.
Promo codes are available to members of the press at press (at) eternalstorms (dot) at.

Yoink Usage Tips

To get the most out of Yoink, I’m collecting useful tips and tricks for you on this website.

I’m looking forward to hearing from you and to see what you think about Yoink v3.3. If you like the app, please consider leaving a little review on the Mac App Store, it would help me out a lot!
Should you have trouble with it or have any feedback or questions, please be sure to get in touch, I’d love to hear from you! Thank you.

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Working on Transloader 3, I wanted to re-implement the Finder’s Open With… contextual menu:

The Finder's Open With contextual menu

Getting the apps in there turned out to be the easy part. What took some effort was the “App Store…” menu item, as I wanted to precisely replicate its functionality.

Transloader 3's Open With contextual menu

Right-click a file in Finder, select Open With -> App Store…, and it will launch the Mac App Store with a UTI search, for example: uti:public.zip-archive.
This will give you a list of all apps available in the Mac App Store that can handle that file type. Neat!

The ‘macappstores’ URL scheme

The Mac App Store app luckily offers a URL scheme:

  • macappstores://
    Launches the Mac App Store
  • macappstores://showUpdatesPage
    Launches the Mac App Store and takes you directly to your Updates page
  • macappstores://showPurchasesPage
    Launches the Mac App Store and takes you directly to your Purchased page
  • macappstores://itunes.apple.com/app/idYOURAPPID
    Launches the Mac App Store and takes you directly to the product page, identified by the product ID

That’s very practical, but not what I was looking for. I was in need of a way to start a search the way Finder does.

In order to find out the URL Finder uses, I wrote a quick throwaway-app that would overtake the Mac App Store’s URL schemes (using LSSetDefaultHandlerForURLScheme) and print out the URL that was opened.
Alas – no dice. Apparently, Finder uses Apple Events or some other magic that “can not be used in a third-party sandboxed app anyway”™ to do its bidding.

After googling the issue, I found a URL that supposedly worked: macappstores://ax.search.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZSearch.woa/wa/search?q=searchterm, but just to pour more salt into an already wide-open wound, it only worked on pre-10.9 systems:

The search URL in 10.9-and-beyond systems

Another dead end. Or was it?
I guess I should have experimented with that URL a little, because Jan Vitturi (@jan4843 on twitter) had the answer: just remove “ax.” from the URL, and it works (on both pre-10.9 and post-10.9 systems)!

Using this URL:
macappstores://search.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZSearch.woa/wa/search?q=searchterm
I was able to get a search going on the Mac App Store, right from within my app.

Sadly, there’s a caveat.
I can’t do a UTI search this way. When I pass (even a percent-escaped) search term along the lines of ‘uti:public.zip-archive’, the Mac App Store tells me there are no results. Reloading that very same page then does show the results – weird and annoying, but nothing I was able to work around.
Using extension:zip seemed to work a little better, but still didn’t return all results a reload would.

Jan Vitturi to the rescue again – the URL’s a little different for UTI or extension searches:
macappstores://search.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZSearch.woa/wa/docTypeLookup?uti=youruti

Alternatively, instead of uti=…, you can use extension=… to search by file path extensions.

My sincere thanks go to Jan Vitturi!

 

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I have a few good deals for you on some of my apps on today’s Black Friday.

Yoink App IconYoink – Simplify and Improve Drag and Drop on your Mac
— 42% off ($3.99 instead of $6.99) —
Website (with 15-day trial)
Purchase on the Mac App Store

ScreenFloat App IconScreenFloat – Use the power of Picture-in-Picture for your Screenshots
— 44% off ($4.99 instead of $8.99) — 
Website (with 15-day trial)
Purchase on the Mac App Store

Glimpses App IconGlimpses – Create Stunning Still Motion Videos from your Photos and Music
— 50% off ($9.99 instead of $19.99) —
Website (with 15-day trial)
Purchase on the Mac App Store

These deals last from today, Black Friday (November 25th 2016) to inclusively Cyber Monday (November 28th, 2016).

Enjoy 🙂

Eternal Storms Software Logo

– – – Do you enjoy my blog and/or my software? – – –
Stay up-to-date on all things Eternal Storms Software and join my low-frequency newsletter (one mail a month at most).
Thank you 🙂

Read more