PopClip

PopClip from Pilotmoon is another of those frontrunning macOS apps that live on my ‘load first’ shortlist. A new Mac is fed the these before other apps are loaded during a clean install.

With this little app running in the background, whenever you highlight page content in any app, as soon as the mouse click is released a smart bar pops up above your selection.

The menu displayed depends on both on your selection and the options available within its library. Edit the running order and  available popclip extensions through the Popclip icon on the OS top bar.  Pilotmoon’s repository offers extensions for a large selection of popular apps.

These tiny extensions bring considerable power to PopClip, they automate the clipping and handling process removing mouse action and keystrokes from your workflows. Have a look at Pilotmoon’s repository.

Hazel

Making time and headspace usually means working smarter, and when that avenue exhausts, bringing in help is next. Any Mac user with limited command over their fingers, hands and arms would really appreciate Hazel. She’s the most efficient secretary you’re likely to meet in any virtual space. Her ability to transform chaos into order makes her hot competition for the clairvoyant, super-PA Donna in the TV hit, ‘Suits’.

This is an app for those who delight in streamlining their workflows and banishing repetitive, boring tasks. If you’re willing to invest a little time to set Hazel up, here is a friend you will bring aboard every new Mac you buy. She doesn’t get in the way or demand attention, if notifications were turned off results would be the only clue to her work. Hazel warms the inner geek in the same way Textexpander snippet expansions and Keyboard Maestro macro actions do.

This post is a Hazel introduction, an overview rather than a ‘how to’.

Keyboard Maestro – Automation Supercharged

Keyboard Maestro sat unused on my Mac for ages after I read an article about it. On opening it seemed like more fuss than use – a geeks time squanderer.
Then academic work with other research and writing gave me a series of frequently used apps and workflows that started to make life busy. As work pressure built, time became scarce and increasingly valuable. The truth dawned – working smarter wasn’t just a cool thought, it had become a pressing necessity.

MND/ALS – a Slow but Determined Thief

It’s easy to compartmentalise the progress of this disease into hands/no hands, speech/no speech etc. In fact the onset is progressive: the part that’s relevant to our conversations here are a slow robbing of finger, hand, then arm function. Whilst this is distressing it does at least allow us to plan, adapt and set up new tools and workflows for the dimmer end of the journey.

Text Expansion – Kill Keystrokes, Save Time

The leveraging of work done in the past gifts us time and effort saved at the keyboard. How many times do you find yourself producing repetitive runs of text? A simple example would be an email signature, another might be the standard letter, often taken care of with a template using Pages or Word. Wouldn’t it be a fine thing to summon either with a simple stroke key combination based around the task?

The Eyetribe eye-tracker

The EYETRIBE
This compact and sleek eye-tracker is currently the only device with software for  the Mac. If you want one you need to join the line as this Swedish (Copenhagen) company releases them in batches. When your device has shipped you access links to the software (SDK) through your EyeTribe  account page. 

Keyboard shortcuts – enter KeyCue

It’s useful to have a starting point when looking at Assistive Technologies (AT). We will work initially using two assumptions. Let’s consider as a baseline users with limited use of their hands, certainly those with little finger dexterity remaining. They can press a key, but typing is best performed using their eye-tracker and on-screen keyboard (Optikey or Click2Speak).

I’m waiting for my eyetribe™ tracker to arrive with its associated software, so for the moment I will deal with AT software components rather than workflows. A working knowledge of various apps capabilities brings a lightbulb moment when we realise how we might use them within our unique situation.

The Mission – Access & Control

Look at inspirational individuals like Gal Sont.

Their dogmatic refusal to be cowed, to take the hand dealt them, shuffle then replay it is admirable. Gal (a developer – PC man) has fashioned an on-screen keyboard that can be controlled through an eye-tracker. What’s more he is giving it away for free. Not only has this happened in Israel, Julius Sweetland (another PC developer driven by altruism¹) is doing much the same here in the UK. Doesn’t that make you want to jump on your chair and clap?