New Release: 2020.6
I’m really happy to announce the biggest update to Toolbox Pro since it launched 8 months ago!
This version features a brand-new design and some incredibly powerful new tools for performing natural language calculations and automating your file system on iOS & iPadOS.
Let’s jump in!
Design
I’ve applied a new lick of paint to the app to keep things looking fresh, including a whole raft of alternative app icons to choose from.
I’ve also optimised the app’s launch time so it should feel snappier when performing automations that require Toolbox Pro to open.
Soulver
This free new tool lets you harness the powerful engine of the excellent Mac app, Soulver, to perform natural language maths, currency and date calculations with ease. It’s like a Siri calculator that works offline.
It can drastically reduce the number of actions in your shortcuts that require complex calculations.
Here are a few examples of what Soulver can do:
“£150 is what 25% of what”
= £600
“(1500*15)/10”
= 2,250
“30 hours at $30/hour”
= $900.00
“3:35 am + 7 hours 15 minutes“
= 10:50 am
“17:30 to 20:45“
= 3 hours 15 min
“120 days from now“
= 17 November 2020 at 14:56
“4.54 hours as timespan“
= 4 hours 32 minutes 24 seconds
You can find lots more details about the language it understands here.
Bookmark Files & Folders
In Shortcuts, there’s no way to access files outside of the Shortcuts iCloud folder without manually selecting them using the ‘Get Files‘ action.
Having to manually select files or folders makes it harder to create useful automations such as batch saving photos to your desktop or deleting any large files in your downloads folder that are older than 30 days.
The new File & Folder Bookmarks tools in Toolbox Pro let you access and manipulate files outside of the Shortcuts sandbox in lots of useful ways.
You can also search for files and folders, generate preview images to use in menus, copy, move, tag or trash files.
I’ve put together two quick tutorials that give a quick glimpse at what these tools can do:
Set Nested Dictionary Values
Shortcuts has a really useful ‘dot notation’ syntax for accessing values deep in nested dictionaries.
For example you can use the Get Dictionary Value action and type ‘people.alex.job’ to get the value of ‘Chef’ in the nested dictionary in the first image below:
To write a new value however, you’d have to access the nested dictionary, set the new value and then write the nested dictionary back in to the container dictionary, as shown in the second image.
This can be a cumbersome process and takes some mental gymnastics for anything other than a very simple dictionary.
The new Set Nested Dictionary tool in this release lets you use the same dot notation syntax to write values deep into complex dictionaries. Meaning the three actions in the second image above, become the single action in the final image.
What’s Next?
I’m excited to get this release out. I think these tools will make it easier to build even more powerful shortcuts.
I’m also already hard at work getting Toolbox Pro ready for iOS14. There are some big changes to Shortcuts that will make many of Toolbox Pro’s actions far more powerful.
For example many actions will now not need to open Toolbox Pro to run (Get Text From Images, Filter Images etc).
Generating menus will no longer use a workaround that generated fake contacts and uses a new Visual List API.
You can see a sneak peak of features as I work on them on Twitter.