Proxi Blog

The Proxi open beta has been out for a while now and it seems that a few people have a false impression about what Proxi is and how it can help them. For example:

“Do you have to have Griffin hardware to use Proxi?”

Griffin hardware is not required to use Proxi. Of course, we hope you’ll like what you see and consider extending Proxi’s functionality with the purchase of an AirClick or PowerMate.

“Is it an Automator clone?”

Not exactly. Automator will certainly allow you to define tasks (workflows), but it is missing the other half of the equation: triggers. To run an Automator workflow you have to click the Play button in Automator or save your workflows as applications and launch them when needed. Proxi allows you to describe events to trigger your tasks automatically.

“But it’s only free during the beta, right?”

Proxi is and will continue to be a free download even after the beta is complete.

So what can Proxi do for you?

Proxi has been likened to Legosâ„¢ for your Mac. We’ve provided all the pieces. It’s up to you to decide how to put them together. A few ideas are:

• Create hotkeys to launch your favorite apps, execute Automater tasks, or run AppleScripts.
• Customize your AirClick to control FrontRow, VLC, QuickTime player and other media players.
• Schedule tasks to run periodically such as a backup, reminder or alarm clock.
• Use one or more PowerMates to control GarageBand, iMovie, Podcast Maker and more.
• Initiate a Skype call by speaking a phrase like “Call home”.
• If your computer is equipped with an iSight, have Proxi periodically take a snapshot and use it as your iChat picture.
• Have Proxi watch for incoming email that contains a particular subject and speak the contents to you when it arrives.

The possibilities are limited only by your imagination. We hope you’ll take Proxi for a test drive and see what it can do for you.

Still not convinced? Head over to the wiki and get more information.

link: Proxi v0.20

In this update:

• Growl Notifier task
• Store Value task and extra value added
• AppleScript task now supports compiled AppleScripts
• “Save As Blueprint” added to trigger popup menu.
• Fixed a crash with Update preferences
• Fixed Check For updates command in dockless mode
• Filter items a little easier to select
• Fixed formatting of plan text extra values
• Launch Application task now shows icon of app to be launched as a badge

Yeah I know I shouldn’t really be adding new features to a “beta” but I couldn’t help myself. So a bunch of minor things and then the most requested addition: Growl Notification task. It’s pretty straightforward. Enter a title, description and select and image if you like. If you do not select an image, Growl will display the Proxi icon instead.

The next item is a bit more complicated and if you care nothing for storing values or later retrieval of these values both within Proxi and through other means, then you can stop reading now.

So, people have requested some means of storing a value and then retrieving it again later in another trigger. You could sort of do this with a Write To File task, but it was a bit clunky. Well, now you can use the Store Value task. Select the value you want to store from the popup menu and give it a name. You’ll use this name to retrieve it later. These stored values are persistent through relaunches and restarts.

To recall a stored value, add an extra value to your trigger. Select Stored Value from the popup menu and set the name to the name you used in the Store Value task. When your trigger fires, it will retrieve the value and make it available to your task/s.

Stored values use a SQLite database located in ~/Library/Application Support/Proxi/proxi.db. Mac OS X has included support for SQLite since the release of 10.4. sqlite3 is a command line tool that command line tool that comes with Mac OS X that can be used to query or modify these database files. And there are other 3rd party tools available. Bottom line, it’s a standard that Apple seems to be taking advantage of and so that’s they way I went. If you are going to poke around in proxi.db you should know the schema:

CREATE TABLE store (name text, type int, value blob);

Simple. The name is the name of the stored value. The value is data representing the stored value The type is a number indicating the type of stored variable:

0 = text
1 = number
2 = date
3 = image

If your going to be changing these records outside of Proxi it’s important to know that if you change the value of an image field to text but neglect to change the type field then you will probably anger Proxi when it goes to looking for this image data that is no longer there. So important safety tip: Never cross the streams.

Well there you have it. Hope you enjoy v0.20. Feedback here on the blog or the wiki is always welcome.

Good stuff from Brent Simmons, developer of NetNewsWire: How to manipulate me (or, Tuesday Whipper-Snapping)

And more good stuff from the guys at Rogue Amoeba developers of fine apps such as Audio Hijack Pro and Airfoil: Pistols At Dawn or How Not To Request A Feature

link: Proxi v0.19

In this update:

• AppleScript trigger
• Help menu now available in dockless mode
• About box / Splash screen reworked
• Improved updater
• Updater preferences
• Fixed extra value and filter item selections after a delete
• Exported blueprints check to make sure they are not replacing an existing file
• Assorted cleanup in anticipation of open beta

Mostly minor and cosmetic changes in anticipation of the open beta. I did add the AppleScript trigger though and that’s not really so minor. Not only is it useful for the obvious reasons, but you can also have Proxi trigger itself through an AppleScript task, allowing you to chain together triggers (be careful to avoid an endless loop). The AppleScript trigger definition takes this form:

trigger v : Proxi AppleScript trigger
trigger reference : the object for the command
description Unicode text : Description of the trigger
name Unicode text : Name of the trigger
[image TIFF picture] : An optional TIFF image for the trigger
[pictImage picture] : An optional PICT image for the trigger
[value integer] : An optional value for the trigger

To try it out, add an AppleScript trigger to your trigger list and set the AppleScript trigger name to “test”. Add a Screen Message task displaying the Description value or whatever. Then create a new AppleScript in Script Editor that looks like this:

tell application "Proxi"
trigger name "test" description "Testing Proxi triggers via AppleScript"
end tell

Run the script and marvel at the results. I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.

link: Proxi v0.18

In this update:

• Folder monitor
• URL coloring removed
• Help menu

My apologies to anyone affected by the expiration of v0.17, I usually set the expiration date one month beyond the release date, but this time I let it slip.

Folder monitor. This works similarly to Apple’s own Folder Actions. When a folder has an item added to or removed from it, it will generate a trigger with the name, url and some other information. You might use this to monitor a drop box or initiate a series of actions via AppleScript.

URLs in Screen Messages (and elsewhere) no longer force the text color to blue unless you have not specified a color for your text. So you should be able to set the URL color to whatever you like. I do force the underlining of a URL however.

Help: This kept me busy for awhile, I have a hard time when it comes to documenting for some reason. And I was kind of rushed with the expiration problem at hand so there are probably numerous grammatical and spelling errors.

So there you have it not much in this release, I’ve had a few other neglected projects that I spent time on over the last 2 weeks. I think we’re getting close to opening up the beta so if you have any additions you really want to see, now would be the time to make those requests.