Canât wait to listen to this
No Zooom, but you can make a move from anywhere via a Defaults Write:
defaults write -g NSWindowShouldDragOnGesture -bool true
Now, you can move windows by holding
ctrl + cmdand dragging any part of the window (not necessarily the window title).
I really enjoyed this episode. And a lot of interesting insights into how the team at Cultured Code works
Using THINGS 3 with Claude and HERMES Agent:
Great to hear Werner and team are working on an official MCP. For everyone who canât wait, here is how I use it with my agents every dayâŚ
Existing Community Solutions
There is a bunch of (free) community solutions out there. I found thingscloudmcp.com to be the best and most modern fit.
NOTE from the projectâs own landing page (thingscloudmcp .com), which links back to @wbopanâs GitHub repo:
â
Unofficial API â This project uses a reverse-engineered, unofficial API to communicate with Things Cloud. While we have tested it thoroughly, there is always a risk when using unofficial APIs.â
âNot affiliated with Cultured Code. Built through reverse engineering.â
Fork the Github Repo
I use a simple docker hoster like Sliplane.io (Germany based). You can also use railway .com or your own VPS if you can handle the server overhead.
Bonus: Sliplane itself also ships its own separate MCP server for managing your hosting account. I had Claude use that one to provision and configure the container â different MCP, just for the infra side, not for Things.
Connect your agent of choice
Point your Agent to your new MCP.
âHey $AGENT, can you see the new THINGS MCP?â
Use it
Since the API got reverse engineered you can do pretty much everything THINGS can do.
I have my agents Claude and Hermes create and rearrange tasks into projects and areas inside projects.
And even put them in order (something I feel THINGS does not do out of the box unless you work heavily with tags): âHey $AGENT, looking at âProject xâ, what are the top 5 tasks I should do first and in what order to get this project going here?â
Future
With Werner teasing an official MCP I wonder if the communication gets a little faster maybe. I currently experience a lag â I can see the individual tool calls my agents make to get stuff done on THINGS, and I wonder whether the MCP or the LLM is the current bottleneck, and whether an official one could shave a few seconds off each run.
Bug fixed:
Being a Things user myself since 2017, my account has a long history â which turned out to matter: the MCP was writing new tasks with broken (negative) sort indices, and my accountâs age turned out to reveal a bug in the MCP that went unnoticed before. It is now fixed by the maintainer via my PR #17.
I was quite keen to hear about whatâs going on with culturecode and enjoyed this episode. With that, I think some of Stephenâs questions went a bit too far and crossed into the â none of our businessâ zone. Year on year growth, marketing budgets and expenditures⌠Werner handled himself very well.
Iâve been using Things since winning a free copy from TUAW back in 2009, so Iâve been in this ecosystem for a while. I know Iâve never used it to its full capacity, but I also donât have the complaints (collaboration; attachments; long development times) that others have.
The discussion around encryption did come up on the thingsapp subreddit, though. It sounds like a handful of employees have access to our unencrypted text through the sync servers instead of it all being fully encrypted except on the userâs device. Hereâs the page on encryption if anyone wants to tell me I misunderstood something (which is also possible).
Iâm not trying to poo-poo anything, and Iâll stay with Things because Iâm just that far deep, and I rarely include any sensitive information in my notes. This may be something to keep in mind, though.
Great episode. Werner does not do many interviews, and it is exciting that Things will finally have the ability to complete repeating to-doâs early as he mentioned. I have vacillated between OmniFocus and Things (currently in OmniFocus to see if it sticks this timeâ bugs and allâŚI doubt it will, and that I will make it back to Things 3), and CC has stepped it up with some really nice updates since Things 3: Checklists, Markdown, Mail to Things, to name a few. I do wish that they had end-to-end encryption, though.
Could be âwish-castingâ on my part, but Wernerâs tone of voice tells me that a Things 4 may not be too far-off, but I am not holding my breath for that any time soon. They really get the user experience right. Keyboard shortcuts, speed, and their customer support is great, too (not that I need to contact them often).
Looking forward to seeing what Things 3 brings for iOS/iPadOS/macOS 27!
There is a better option, that many of you might already be using: BetterTouchTool has options for this!
It is buried deep in the setting, but there are two options, one to move and one to resize the window under the mouse cursor even without clicking, when holding modifier keys.
First, open the main configuration window from the menu bar icon:
Then, click on the gear icon on the top right, or press cmd+, to open the BetterTouchTool Settings
Now, on the left bar, click on âWindow Snapping & Movingâ, and then, on the top tab bar in the right section, click on âMoving & Resizing Modifier Keysâ:
The bottom section of that pane has the options for âMove windowsâ and âResize windowsâ, and you can select which modifier keys to use for each action
And this is where there are a lot of issues with the economics of software development.
Iâve gotten my money worth of Things 3. I donât mind at all paying for Things 4.
However, I donât have much Iâd really want them to add to Things 4. Iâd prefer they keep it simple and clean as it currently is. If I needed other functionality I wouldnât be using Things.
So how does Culture Code continue to make money as a business? Subscriptions? Bloating (in my view) their software with unnecessary elements? Selling add-on packages?
Whichever way they go there will be âunhappyâ customers.
Now, I havenât listened to the episode yet. Iâm curious what he says regarding remaining independent and unfunded. I hope they can continue that.
Enjoyed this one, both for the insight into Things and its development ethos I try to share, and because I enjoy a pleasant German accent.
The discussion/brief confusion around the word whimsy was a favorite bit because it is rewarding to dig into small words interactions like that button. I might call that an expressive or a delightful element rather than whimsical because it communicates function and state, just masterfully from a motion design perspective.
Iâd also add a third dimension to Wernerâs insight and ability to work out the details, which is to do it consistently over a long period of time. Many otherwise great interaction designers would succumb to urges and change direction rather than stay the course with Things 3.
I enjoyed this episode, after quite a few recent episodes where the assumption that âAI is the answerâ has alienated me.
As I listened, I became interested in how Stephen asked questions of Werner. He managed to get some deeper insights by encouraging real reflection rather than just accepting the first answer but this sometimes felt a little like fishing for the answers he already wanted. This guest handled that graciously and was very clear in what he believed and in giving the answers he wanted to give, even where these did not line up with the accepted.
I thought âwhimsyâ wasnât quite the right word: itâs about obsessive attention to design - every tiny interaction or visual design makes the software better to use - itâs never there for its own sake. I wish more software companies knew that!
The restraint is part of the appeal of Things. Iâve already switched back, lol.
Two features that I would find useful:
â the ability to convert a to-do into a project with a next action right there in the quick entry box on all devices.
â The ability to dictate natural language input like Fantastical (I do understand that âwhenâ date does have this, to some degree).
⌠and if those were the only additions to Things 4, thatâs an instant purchase for me.
Great episode, and it was really nice to get some visibility into Cultured Code. They kind of work in a vacuum without any official community or engagement. I enjoyed hearing about the thought process behind the app and what their vision is and getting confirmation of work on certain features, and getting a peek at whatâs coming.
Also, please do more episodes like this, Iâd like to vote for Shiny Frog next!
Ha! Each are just so excellent.
Been a Things user for years. This made me appreciate the company even more. Theyâre not about the money, but about craftmanship, about building a great product. Thanks guys for the great interview! Iâm happy with the current version, but I would gladly pay for version 4. I hope that Apple will become a bit less greedy under John Ternus and take less on app sales.
Now Iâm curious about the window management app Werner mentioned.
I especially appreciate Cultured Codeâs emphasis on making apps beautiful. As with Werner, I too was initially attracted to the Mac because of its beautiful design, both in the hardware and the operating system.
It was obvious in the early days that PC designers were primarily interested, or maybe only interested, in functionality. The Mac was so different because of its emphasis on beautiful design. And in my opinion, Windows is still primarily interested in functionality and has a pretty face painted on it.
I really donât understand why so many Mac users seem enthralled with downright ugly (often electron) apps. When I first encountered Markdown, it looked to me like a return to MS-DOS days, not a great improvement. I understand the appeal and use Markdown myself for my writing, but I tend to do it in editors that hide the Markdown syntax and present it in a beautiful Mac format.
Enough with the rant. Iâve always appreciated and used Things because it was such a beautiful app that also had the level of functionality that I needed. I only stopped using it a couple of years ago because I started using NotePlan, and NotePlan automatically synced with Apple Reminders.
Now that Iâm using Claude Cowork extensively, and thereâs an MCP that Cultured Code recommends and will soon, hopefully, have one of their own, Iâm thinking Iâll likely switch back to Things again.