Today I posted an update to Proxi. This release could almost be called version 2 given the user interface changes, but I’m calling it version 1.5. Here’s a list of the changes:

• Changes to make Proxi a better Mac OS citizen such as:
• UI changes which fit better with established conventions especially in Leopard.
• Moved ProxiLib.framework into the application itself.
• Moved ProxiCore.bundle and skype.bundle into the application itself.
• Added Application Monitor trigger.
• Reduced startup time and memory usage.
• Added an alert to the Key Press task when selecting a “Press” style stroke.
• Added icons to trigger and task menus.
• Added “game mode” to PowerMate trigger
• PowerMate trigger icons now indicate type of trigger
• Added editing commands to trigger and task menus
• Added Duplicate function for triggers and tasks
• Skype should no longer ask permission to allow Proxi to work with it on every launch.
• Added ability to set Skype mood in Skype task
• Bubble text color now defaults to black.
• Fixed a problem where unknown components in a blueprint could cause data loss.
• Other minor changes and fixes.

If you’ve not heard of Proxi, I could describe it, but I’ve always had trouble summarizing Proxi in a few sentences. Happily Proxi is mentioned in a new book by Rick Ralston called The Designer’s Apprentice: Automating Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign in Adobe Creative Suite 3. Rick provides a great description:

Proxi resembles Automator in both interface and function; however, it differs in two important respects: It includes an automated trigger system that Automator lacks, and it’s geared to system and application events (while Automator is focused more on file processing). With Proxi, you build a set of tasks (like Automator’s workflow) called a Blueprint and assign a trigger to it. Triggers can be time- or event-based and included filters to included or exclude conditions when the trigger fires.

You can grab version 1.5 here.

What I don’t like are some of the editors that seem to have this authority complex. On more than one occasion, I’ve run across these Barney Fife’s threatening to get their bullet out in response to the most trivial things.

My first encounter was in response to an edit I made to Griffin’s wikipedia entry. I had listed the number of employees at 100 assuming an approximate was sufficient. That was immediately reverted by a former employee as he knew there was no way Griffin could have that many employees. The actual number was 94 at the time, so I left it. Whatever. Oh, I see that Griffin’s logo has been deleted now also.

Anyway, yesterday I noticed that Proxi’s entry had been tagged with a deletion proposal. This on account that the article gives no indication of notability or verifiability. You see, I added Proxi after one of my wikipedia browsing sessions having noted that LaunchBar, Butler and of course Quicksilver all had entries so I figured why not. Though I’m the author I tried to leave out any bias and simply provide a short description and information on the current version, etc. I also included links to those applications that I mentioned above. I thought it might be handy for anyone poking around wikipedia looking for Mac OS X automation / launcher sofwtare.

Unclear on exactly what constitutes “notability”, I contacted the person responsible for the proposed deletion seeking clarification and citing Butler, LaunchBar, and Quicksilver as similar articles and rather than a helpful response, I was directed to the articles mentioned in the delete template. You know, the ones that were unclear to me. Not only that, but he thanked me for pointing out those other articles and tagged not only LaunchBar, but Quicksilver for deletion as well! (Sorry about that guys) Clearly this person is not acquainted with Mac software. I can almost understand the decision to delete Proxi, but Quicksilver? Are you serious?

At this point, I’m not sure what I’m going to do about Proxi’s entry, if anything. But it makes me wonder. Of what benefit is it to the users of wikipedia to remove articles just because they don’t live up to someone’s subjective view of notability? Proxi has a small but loyal group of users. I suppose it’s notable to them. I’m sure there are thousands of articles that meet the same criteria. There are guidelines for wikipedia articles, but sometimes I get the impression that the enforcement isn’t much different than this:

I ran across a post on Daring Fireball today which described using a perl script along with ThisService to search Google for selected text and replace that text with a link to first result returned by Google. Very handy, but I wanted to achieve the same functionality using Proxi.

Proxi supports shell script execution, but only as extra values (for now) so that makes it a little trickier. If you don’t care how much trickier, you can skip the rest of this and simply grab the blueprint.

We have to first break down the blueprint into several stages:

• Put the selected text on the clipboard.
• Construct a script using the text we’ve selected. Display the query.
• Execute the script, place the results in the clipboard, paste and display the results.

More specifically:

Stage 0 – A Control-Shift-L Hotkey Monitor trigger starts the ball rolling. It executes two tasks, a Command-C Key Press to initiate a copy, then an AppleScript which waits a short while to allow the clipboard to export after which it asks Proxi to handle an AppleScript trigger named “query stage 1″.

Stage 1 – Is an AppleScript trigger continues the process. This trigger will fire when Proxi is triggered via AppleScript with the correct name. In this case the name it’s looking for is “query stage 1″. The trigger places the contents of the clipboard into a value named “Clipboard” and executes a Screen Message task to display the search term. Next it write our a perl script using the clipboard contents and the Write to File task. Finally, it kicks off the last stage with another AppleScript task named “query stage 2″.

Stage 2 – An AppleScript trigger which matches “query stage 2″. When fired, it executes the perl script we made in Stage 1 and places the results in an extra value named “ScriptResults”. ScriptResults is displayed in a Screen Message task and loaded onto the clipboard using a Load Clipboard task. Finally, Command-V (paste) is simulated to insert the results in place of the selected text.

This is a great little exercise to demonstrate how to construct complex triggers using Proxi. It also demonstrates some of the shortcomings of Proxi that I’d like to address in future revisions. The ability to execute a script as a task and also modify values during task execution would eliminate the need to break this down into three separate triggers. In the meantime, I hope this helped.

The Proxi wiki has a download link as well as additional information on the Insert Link Blueprint.

You can do all of the usual things that Proxi allows you to do with other triggers. Me, I’ve got it spewing out screen messages when stories find their way to the front page. The cool bit: the Digg Monitor let me know that it had been dugg to the front page this morning

You can find out more about the Digg Monitor in the Proxi blog and the digg story: “Monitoring Digg by Proxi“.

PS Yes, the number of diggs in the icon is intentional

So that was the genesis of the idea behind Proxi, the forthcoming software currently in the early stages of beta testing. What I ended up with is an application that allows you to configure these triggers not only using the AirClick and PowerMate, but also such things as key presses, new email, iTunes track changes, incoming Skype calls, speech recognition, RSS feeds, etc., etc. When a trigger is recognized, a task or series of tasks are conditionally executed. These tasks can include such things as simulating a key press, executing an AppleScript, displaying a message on screen, controlling iTunes, iChat, or Skype, launching or activating an application, writing data to a file, and so on.

Of course that’s the just the highlights… perhaps it would be easier to explain if I just tossed out a few screenshots.

AirClick trigger volume up controlling…	…System volume up	PowerMate trigger button controlling…
…iTunes Play/Pause	Letting the Boss know…	…that I’m hard at work
Using speech recognition to control Skype	Adding extra data to a trigger	Adding pre-configured triggers / tasks using the Blueprint browser