Workflow for iOS

Two Map Photos Workflows on iOS

Ben Volio Technology , , , , ,

A few weeks ago I thought I’d be clever (too clever it turns out) and try to integrate Dr. Drang’s map-photos.py Pythonista Script with Workflow so I could map photo locations directly from Photos.app. I was hoping to use Workflow to create an action extension that could grab a photo, put it to the clipboard and then run map-photos.py to display the location of the photo on a map without having to launch the script through Launch Center Pro or, slower still, opening up Pythonista, navigating to the script, and then tapping run. Unfortunately that project turned out to be a miserable failure because clipboard.get_image() in Pythonista doesn’t allow you to get the metadata of the image on the clipboard. Out of sheer laziness I left the useless workflow on my phone, taunting me every time I opened the app.

With the advent of general stability in Workflow 1.11, I decided to spend some time thinking about how I could better use the app. Tonight, for some reason, inspiration struck when I saw the Map Photos workflow looking me in the eyes. So I decided to take on the challenge.

The initial workflow idea was to create an action extension that could select multiple photos and display them all as separate pins on the map. While I think this is possible, I didn’t want to get derailed with that. I just wanted a reliable way to serially display multiple images on a map on iOS. The easiest way I could figure out how to do this was by using an X-Callback-URL. The problem is that there isn’t a reliable way to return to the source app when using an X-Callback-URL from an action extension on iOS. Also, Apple Maps doesn’t support the callback function of the X-Callback spec, obviously.

So I looked online and it turns out that Google Maps on iOS does support the X-Callback-URL spec, making the choice a no-brainer. So I built two different workflows:

  • one that would be able to run as an action extension to map photos directly from Photos.app as well as other apps, and
  • one that could take a series of images, display them in Google Maps, then return to Workflow to load up the location of the next image and send that one to Google Maps.

The what I like better about the Dr.’s method is that it actually grabs the Latitude and Longitude from the image file, whereas my workflows grab the address. I typically prefer Lat/Long because, especially in rural or newly developed areas, using the address can be highly inaccurate. This is another reason why I’m using Google Maps on iOS for this project. Three years into Apple Maps I still trust Google’s data more.

  1. probably because now I know that the steps of my workflows won’t just randomly be erased when running the workflow ↩
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Using Drafts and Launch Center Pro/Workflow to Open Evernote Notes Directly

Ben Volio Technology , , , ,

This past summer I stumbled across Jeffrey Kishner’s helpful post about using Pythonista, Drafts, and Launch Center Pro to create a direct link to any Evernote note on iOS. I have been using that workflow quite a bit to easily launch Evernote notes directly on my iPhone. Some of the notes I want to have quick access to are my Bible Verses to Remember and Prayer Requests notes.

There were a few things about the script that seemed like they could be optimized:

  1. There’s no need to get the link to the note from your Mac, you can get it directly from the iOS Evernote app.
  2. The manual of your six-digit string and the s.. in the Evernote URL could easily be automated.
  3. There workflow overall didn’t seem to be automated enough.

So I decided to try my hand at eliminating Pythonista from the workflow by using the new JavaScript actions in Drafts 4. To someone who knows JavaScript, or programming in general, I’m sure the script I hacked together is hideous, but it works, and to me that’s all that matters.

To check it out look for the Create Direct Link to Evernote Notes link on my projects page.

Workflow to Pythonista: New from Gist

Ben Volio Technology , , , ,

While the rest of iOS-land is caught up in the Workflow frenzy, the past few days I’ve been spending my free time learning more about scripting in Python. One major project I’ve been working on is a large update to my Drafts & Pythonista workflow for getting Bible verses. Since I’m such a hack and Pythonista doesn’t have version control built-in, I’ve been uploading my work-in-progress files to GitHub as private gists so I can go back in case I royally screw things up. That’s caused me to be downloading a lot of gists lately. Continue reading →