A little clarification
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.
April 18th, 2006 at 3:15 pm
While it is true that Automator doesn’t have a built-in means for launching workflows, it *is* possible to do so via a variety of methods, such as scheduling launch in iCal and applying them to folder actions. Of course 3rd party “hotkey” apps such as Proxi and QuicKeys can do this as well
All that said, I think Proxi and Automator have different core focuses, and thus coexist (and in fact work together) quite nicely.
April 18th, 2006 at 3:53 pm
I think you’re absolutely right Steve. I’m not suggesting that Proxi replaces Automator. Personally I think it suppliments Automator quite nicely. However I noticed some comments (on other sites) over the past few days that seemed to indicate some people didn’t feel the need to look closer since, in their minds, Proxi is nothing more than an Automator clone. So I wanted to highlite the differences between the two.
April 18th, 2006 at 9:18 pm
Agreed. Obviously I use Automator for a lot of things, but so far, Proxi has replaced a number of utilities, such as Synergy for itunes, and a few Growl functions.
I’m interested in how the 3rd party blueprint (and triggers/tasks) market will evolve…I assume, like Automator, user will need the “t/t’s” (ok that sounds bad…) for the blueprint to work, so there should be a means of sharing them, perhaps also in the Blueprint browser?
April 19th, 2006 at 9:34 am
We’ll have to see how things evolve (t/t’s… heh i may have to use that). The Blueprint browser was a bit of an afterthought so it could use some tweaking right off the bat. And though the protocol for t/t bundle creation is public, we’ll have to see if anyone actually takes advantage of it. For now if you load a blueprint that references plugins that you do not have installed, it will only tell you that some elements could not be loaded. I don’t really have a good method to inforrm the user which components they are missing. Obviously I have some work that can be done here, but if no one creates plugins for Proxi, then it will likely remain low on the priority list.
April 20th, 2006 at 4:46 pm
I’m trying Proxi fr the first time and I like it !
I’d like to control the pulse of my powermate when I get a new Mail.
I’ve tried to configure a task and the powermate pulse when I’ve got a new mail.
But when I’ve read that new mail, powermate still pulse and I can’t stop it. Is there any way to resolve that ?
Many thanks.
Nicolas (from France)
April 20th, 2006 at 5:08 pm
You’ll have to make a trigger to reset it. Sadly the mail trigger doesn’t “see” when mail has been read. Anyway, I’d set up a hotkey like ctrl-1 or something that turns the PM light off.
April 20th, 2006 at 5:30 pm
Thank you.
I’ve made the trigger that stops the light with a hotkey.
Do you know if a script exist to make this light off when the mail is read ?
April 21st, 2006 at 6:29 am
Is this the right place to report bugs?
Just a minor one - if you ask Proxi to download and install a new version it installs it into /Applications without any option. I don’t want it there - I keep it in ~/Applications.
Is there no way to check where the current version is installed - or as the user which domain they want it installed into?
April 21st, 2006 at 9:45 am
I think (I’ll have to double check) that Apple’s installer will take everything in the package and install it relative to the path you’ve choosen. So if you choose ~ then the app would indeed go in ~/Applications, but the other items would go in ~/Library/Application Support, ~/Library/Frameworks, etc. And this might work (aldo have to double check that I load plugins from ~/Library/Application Support/Proxi/PlugIns in addition to the root path) , but the user would have to be very careful that they did not accidentally install it into ~/Applications or even Applications because it would then put create an install with items in ~/Applications/Applications/Proxi and ~/Applications/Library/Library/Application Support/Proxi/PlugIns, etc.
In a nutshell, this could end up getting a bit messy so I need to proceed with caution.
April 22nd, 2006 at 8:50 am
Hi there, loving the work done on proxi, i’m audio visual software developer and have been using a Powermate to control the a/v application on the fly constantly. i have notice that you’ve added support for multiple Powermates again ( i recall the Powermate 2.0 beta was removed … may be because of proxi?) but anyway i rely heavily on the cursor movements, and may be I’m being a tad blind but i can’t find any task function to control the mousemovements! will this be added for the final release? is there anyway i could get this functionality with 0.2? + i’ve tried using “Cursor OSAX 1.0″ apple script with no luck.
April 25th, 2006 at 10:01 pm
I set up a Powermate tonight to ONLY control iTunes and it was invaluable when running Keynote in the foreground. No need to exit the show to stop or turn down the music. Yeah!
The problem was, the person who’s laptop I set this up on also wanted to push and hold for a second to mute the whole system. This works, but when the powermate is set to pause itunes when you push once, and mute the system when you push and hold, it first pauses itunes and then mutes when you go to push and hold it. I wonder if there’s a way you could modify the app so that it checks to see if the first click is short and then is let off, so that a long hold isn’t first read as a short one.
Also, I’d LOVE to see the ability to control the volume and playback in other apps. That way one could set up several Powermates, all controling different apps at the same time. For conferences where you might have iTunes, Keynote and some kind of QuickTime based app running, this would really be cool.
May 1st, 2006 at 4:09 pm
I was wondering whether there was any plan to support the Apple remotes (that ship with the MacIntel iMac and MacBook Pro) as triggers in Proxi??
I haven’t been able to find that out anywhere in the documentation.
May 2nd, 2006 at 10:10 am
The problem was, the person who’s laptop I set this up on also wanted to push and hold for a second to mute the whole system. This works, but when the powermate is set to pause itunes when you push once, and mute the system when you push and hold, it first pauses itunes and then mutes when you go to push and hold it.
Use the Store Value task on the presss and hold to set some value to 1 and then change your normal press to an on release and check (via filter and extra value) to see if this value is not 1. You can clear the value on any initial press. Hope this helps.
May 2nd, 2006 at 10:12 am
I was wondering whether there was any plan to support the Apple remotes (that ship with the MacIntel iMac and MacBook Pro) as triggers in Proxi??
We’ll see what we can do.
September 21st, 2007 at 11:50 pm
Why didnt Griffin think of this ? -.-
http://proxi.griffintechnology.com/wiki/index.php/FrontRow_PowerMate_Control