That ended up being easy enough. I took the shortcut I mentioned in the previous message, and edited it to remove the recipient, and I named it “Compose Message.” Now if I start typing “Compose Message” in Raycast, I can select that shortcut, and I get the same popup that I previously got in LaunchBar. I keep the “Show When Run” box checked, and I can do it all in one window. If that box is unchecked, which some might prefer, you first get prompted for a recipient, and then for the content of your message.
Here is what I see in Raycast when typing the name of the shortcut:
This is nice. @Cpenned 's is also good for making it super quick since it defaults to entering text on the message, not the recipient. With their applescript, I have followed instructions (thanks!) and added it to Raycast.
I have then made a global shortcut in Raycast, so Hyper-J runs this.
Sorry—here I meant that you can map the “Search Contacts” built in Raycast action to a keyboard shortcut and then immediately text anyone after searching for their name. So the steps are:
Hit keyboard shortcut to pull up Search Contacts built in action (you have to set your own custom keyboard shortcut).
Type person’s name.
Hit ⌘+m to open an iMessage to that person.
So that’s three steps to message anyone. (you can also invoke any other contact action like “call” etc. this same way)
Because of visual results. Sometimes I like to ping a website, find out the key of a song, see my next events and act on them with the keyboard, geolocate an IP, find an image on Unsplash, see the definition of a word etc.
I can do all of those and see non-structured results in the same Raycast window, without having to leave the current app. That wouldn’t be possible with Alfred’s row-based approach.
I also like the hotkeys discoverability in Raycast, and strive to do the same in my apps
Alfred
Because it’s super snappy! Raycast feels just a bit more sluggish in its UI, not sure why.
File search and acting on files is a lot more intuitive in Alfred, and the default results are tweaked to my needs so I usually don’t even need to activate a workflow. I just ⌘space and search for an app/movie/document/image/contact/bookmark etc.
Also, the new Universal Actions feature really makes this acting on files thing so much more useful.
I am sorry, to be maybe to stupid, to understand that, and I read thru all 46 previous posts, and had a closer look on the Homepage of Raycast, but, can someone expel to me, what I can do with Raycast, that I can’t do with macOS?
I mean, Search for a File?, Start an App?, Set a Shortcut? Run a calendar, a calculator or the Reminder, and so on?!
We who use Alfred, Launchbar, and Raycast * prefer to be able to use the keyboard to do things rather than running a mouse. That’s only one reason but I’ve always thought it was the main one.
One day macOS will finally bundle the Clock app and my Timers for Raycast extension will no longer be of use
But yes, echoing the above, keyboard-centric action is a lot more efficient. Also allows me to more quickly reach scripts, Github issues, etc without having to open up another window/tab/etc.
Thanks! It’s crazy rough on the code side of stuff because I made it in a weekend several years back and haven’t had time to clean it up. Hoping to get to it soon
I suppose one could ask, “why do I need a car when I could just walk everywhere?”. And there are cases where using one’s legs is good enough.
I use Alfred. I also use a program called NeoFinder to catalog my photographs (I’ve been cataloging images for a long time …).
To find an image I can:
Invoke Spotlight.
Type “NeoFinder”. (Or several characters)
Press Enter.
Once NeoFinder launches invoke keyword search.
Type in my keyword.
Press Enter.
Or:
Invoke Alfred.
Type “Neo <keyword>”.
Press Enter.
And that’s just one example.
A different (non Raycast/Alfred/Launchbar/Quicksilver/Butler) example. I got along using just macOS for window management for quite some time. And I still could. But having utilities to do so automagically makes my computing experience that much better.
When I lived in the city we had neighbors who were retired. The walked to the market, to restaurants, to concerts, to the doctor. They had little need for a car (they occasionally rented one). If the tools provided by macOS work for you then that is great. If you find that you could benefit by extending the native OS capabilities, then there are tools available to do so.
You can use, what ever App you want, I don’t question that!
But to stay with your Example, I don’t understand why you use a second car, to drive to the first car, you already have?
CMD+Space + Neo Enter
CMD + F and the Keyword Enter
You skip with your Example, that you have to voke Alfred in the same way, you have to woke NeoFinder.
So the Big Difference is just, that you use a third party app, to do the same you could do with macOS and NeoFinder itself.
There is no advantage in using Alfred for your Example, rather than using the App with the cool hat.
But I didn’t questioned Alfred!
I wanted to know what Raycast can do, what I can’t do with macOS in the same, or even a simpler way!
Choice is always good, and as already written, I don’t want to question the apps someone is using because he want to, or need to.
I just wanted to understand why so many people using Raycast, while I can’t find any advantage of it, in comparison to macOS.
I just want to know what I may be don’t see, that could be an advantage for me, too?
Thanks for the question. These launchers aren’t 100% unique in what they can bring to the macOS experience. Probably 30–40% of the things I use Raycast for I could do in spotlight (sometimes less elegantly, sometimes the same).
But being able to invoke custom scripts and extensions in Raycast gives me 1) quick 2) keyboard access to 3) addition functionality I find useful.
For instance, through my “spotlight” (Raycast), I can hit one keyboard shortcut to:
list all JIRA cases from work and interact with them
list all git repos on my machine
hit a custom endpoint to simultaneously add tasks to a personal task manger, send an email, and update a shared Trello board
Those are a few examples of things I can do with Raycast I can’t do with spotlight.
If you look through the official extensions and the shared community scripts for Raycast, you may find something you’d want to do that you can’t do in Spotlight. If nothing appeals to you, then Spotlight may work great for you.
So these launchers aren’t 100% new features; they’re more like superpowers you can optionally add on top of Spotlight if you find use for them. Does that help?
Type “NeoF” (I have multiple apps that start with the string “Neo”; or type “Neo” and the select NeoFinder)
Press Enter
– wait for NeoFinder to Launch –
CMD-F (it is actually easier as I can just type the keyword in the Quick Search field)
Type Keyword
Press Enter
Alfred:
Alt-Space (how I have Alfred configured)
Type: Neo Keyword //this invokes a workflow which launches NeoFinder and searches for keyword
Press Enter
Alfred and Raycast belong to the same class of apps. Thus my Alfred example has relevance with respect to Raycast. Although there may not be a NeoFinder extension for Raycast. The point is that his is the type of thing you can do with one of these ‘Spotlight replacement’ apps.
Not to my knowledge, but you may be much more skilled than me at Automator. If you download and try Raycast or Alfred or any other launcher and don’t feel they’re useful, then Spotlight will work great for you!
As I said already, I don’t question Alfred.
And I haven’t found anything on the Raycast Extensions yet, I can’t do with Automators. (Of course I just looked at a couple of them, right now)
I even wouldn’t wonder, if Automators would be “running in the Background” of Raycast.
