macOS

Transloader v3 Icon 1024px

I’m so happy to finally be able to announce the immediate availability of Transloader v3.0 for Mac, iPhone and iPad.
The app has been re-imagined, re-designed and re-developed from the ground up, with macOS Big Sur, iOS/iPadOS 14 and Apple Silicon in mind.
It’s been such a long time since the app received its last meaningful update, but oh boy, this is a great one, if I may say so myself.

Intro to Transloader

What is Transloader?

With Transloader running on your Macs, you can assign downloads to it from afar – using your iPhone, iPad, and other Macs.

Say you’re in a Café, surfing on your iPhone and find out Apple has just released a new beta of Xcode. Wouldn’t it be awesome if you could start downloading that huge xip file immediately on your Mac back home, and have it ready when you return? With Transloader, you can.

Send the link to your Mac, and it will start the download right away. When it’s done, it’ll also send you a push notification about it.
You can start downloads on Macs from Transloader itself, directly from within your browser using its Share extension, and – on iOS – with Siri Shortcuts.

What’s New in Transloader v3.0?

– Support for multiple Macs
You can now specify one or several Macs you’d like to download a link on.

– Start downloads from other Macs
Where in previous versions you could start downloads only from your iOS devices, Transloader 3.0 lets you initiate downloads on Macs from other Macs as well.

– Login to download
If a download requires a login on its website before you can access it (like the aforementioned Xcode beta), that’s no longer a problem for Transloader.
You can login to sites you anticipate to download from beforehand, or later, at any time, from any device.

– Link- and File Actions on Mac
Using Actions, you can modify Transloader’s behavior in different scenarios.

With a Link Action, you define an app or Automator Workflow that should be opened with a specific assigned link (based on criteria like the URL host, or URL scheme), instead of being downloaded in Transloader.
This way, you can send ftp:// links directly to your favorite FTP app.

File Actions make Transloader open specific files it has downloaded with an app or Automator Workflow you choose – based on criteria like the downloaded file’s type, or the original URL’s host. As an example, you could use this to organize downloaded files into folders automatically.

– Share Extension
Start downloads on Macs right from within your browser, or any other app that supports sharing links – on any device.

– Save links for later
Whether your desired Mac is not yet activated with Transloader, or you’d just like to wait for a later time until you start a download, you can now save links in Transloader for later, and assign them whenever you please.

– Push Notifications
Transloader can inform you about the status of your downloads, and that of your Macs.

– New App for iPhone and iPad
Alongside the new Mac app comes – naturally – a new iOS app.
Among other key features, the app now supports gestures, drag and drop, keyboard shortcuts, Siri Shortcuts for powerful download workflows, and a Share extension, which works like the Mac version’s.

 

Can I see more of Transloader in action?

Of course.

Login to Download
Link- and File Actions

What are Transloader’s requirements?

– An iCloud account
– At least one Mac with macOS 10.14 or newer
– An optional iPhone and/or iPad with iOS 14 or newer with the free iOS Transloader app

Where can I get Transloader?

Mac:
Free, 15-day trial: https://eternalstorms.at/transloader/Transloader.zip
Purchase on the Mac App Store ($4.99 / €5,49 / ￡ 4.99 introductory price at ~50% off): https://apps.apple.com/app/transloader/id572281534?mt=12&at=1001l8pT
Transloader for Mac will be available on Setapp in July 2021

iPhone and iPad:
iOS App Store (free): https://apps.apple.com/app/transloader/id572280994?mt=8&at=1001l8pT

It’s currently available in English and German – more languages will follow.
Transloader 3 is a free upgrade for existing customers.

Do you have more info about Transloader?

Sure!
Transloader Usage Tips: https://eternalstorms.at/transloader/tips/
Press Kit: https://eternalstorms.at/press/Transloader-3-Press-Kit.zip
Transloader Playlist on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXlKHhRX6pIeaHIMKLVqeMSPA6HZSbeR9
Privacy Policy: https://eternalstorms.at/privacypolicy/#transloader

I hope you’ll enjoy this new version of Transloader for Mac, iPhone and iPad. Should you have any feedback or questions, please don’t hesitate to write me! If you’re a member of the press and would like to get in touch, please feel free to do so at any time!

Read more

Yesterday, I was working on Transloader v3.0. In particular, on its push notifications and making sure everything syncs properly.
Today, I wanted to continue working on this, but found myself unable to. My Mac suddenly didn’t receive CloudKit push notifications anymore.
Even worse, neither of the delegate methods

- (void)application:(NSApplication *)application didRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithDeviceToken:(NSData *)deviceToken

and

- (void)application:(NSApplication *)application didFailToRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithError:(NSError *)error

weren’t called anymore – without any code changes. Something was wrong.

But here we are, a couple of hours later, and everything’s working again. Finally.
So, to save you some time should this happen to you, here’s what I did:

Restart

I restarted my Mac – the obvious solution. You might think. Only that it didn’t work, the problem persisted. But it’s still the first thing I’ll try if this returns.

Delete Containers, Group Containers, and CloudKit Caches

In Finder, delete

/Users/yourname/Library/Containers/yourAppContainerFolder/
/Users/yourname/Library/Group Containers/yourGroupID.yourAppGroupContainerFolder/
/Users/yourname/Library/Caches/CloudKit/yourAppID
/Users/yourname/Library/Caches/CloudKit/CloudKitMetadata* (*all files that begin with that filename)
/Users/yourname/Library/Caches/CloudKit/CloudKitOperationInfo* (*all files that begin with that filename)

Now launch Activity Monitor.app and force quit the following processes:

cfprefsd
apsd
notifyd
remoted

Now, I’m not sure you need to force-quit each and every one of those, but I wanted to relaunch any process that remotely looked like it had to do with remote/push notifications.

At this point, I restarted Transloader through Xcode, and lo and behold, it worked again.
On my MacBook Pro, where the same problem occurred simultaneously, I took the same steps. And it *didn’t* work. A restart was required, so your mileage – like mine – may vary.

Additional Info

There’s also this handy technical note from Apple, which can help debugging push notifications on both macOS and iOS.

Read more

For Transloader’s upcoming version 3.0, I needed an NSMenuItem that not only showed a title, but also a subtitle, along with an optional image.

Because it took a bit of work and “reverse-engineering” (the click-on-an-item-selection-animation’s timing, in particular), I figured someone else might benefit from this.

Where to get it / Sample Project

It’s all pretty straight forward, and best shown / explained as an Xcode project, which you can download on Github.
This is basically all you need to do:

Screenshot the sample project's source code

That’s it!

Caveats

There are some things this implementation can not do, which the default NSMenuItem can:

  • There is no type select
  • The arrow keys can’t be used to go through the items
  • You can’t activate items with the space or enter keys

Basically, keyboard interaction is unavailable.

I do hope it’s useful to you anyways.
If you’re using this, I’d love to hear from you! 😊

Read more

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 🙂

Read more