I have four text files that I need to monitor throughout the day, kept in Dropbox. I used to use Panic’s Status Board app to see them all at once. Is there an app that I can use to see all of them at once, or alternately, is there a way I can use Keyboard Maestro and [insert your brilliant idea here] to paste them all into one document that I can print each morning? Thanks, Andrew
Do the files only change/get updated once per day – or are they potentially modified more regularly, despite the content/text(?) not changing (i.e. is the file overwritten, but potentially with the same content)?
If there’s no app I can use to see them all at once, then I’m happy to print them once a day, but in truth, they change slightly over the course of the day.
I was asking those questions, to get a sense of the ‘status’ of the files, in trying to think whether KM or Hazel could do what you need. And also to explain your context to others who might have good ideas!
So you have KM? What about Hazel by Noodlesoft?
If you have KM, have you popped up a query at their forums? Lots of people willing to help there, and what you are requesting, shouldn’t be too tricky.
I would think that KM can easily extract the ‘text’ from the files, and parse them into variables to then be passed onto anything else, like a different TextEdit document, that could be set to open at specific times of the day.
You could even have the macro fire repeatedly at set periods, and have it display a system Notification, which might interest you.
But what I’m wondering is whether or not KM would be able to react to changes of/in the document(s)? I haven’t actually explored that side of things before, since I normally have Hazel doing the ‘watching’…
That all said, surely the above is also possible from something inside Terminal/Command line?
Pretty sure a MPU reader will pop up something incredibly slick and easy soon!
It is possible to overlay text on your desktop background using GeekTool. There’s also NerdTool, but it looks abandoned.
GeekTool is a really good suggestion. Thank you.
KM to TextEdit would work. And Hazel would work as the monitor to launch it it too. Thanks, Andrew
I haven’t tried GeekTool, but I find Übersicht pretty useful for this kind of thing. The widget gallery on their site is a good way to get started. You can grab a widget from their gallery and tweak it as needed.
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Waaaaayyyyy cooler suggestion this!! Always wanted to tinker with GeekTool etc. Someday/Maybe!
Came back to post about Übersicht.