Shortcuts help & discussion

[jdechko]

Anyone able to get dropbox files from the file picker?

I’m using the “Get File” action. It shows my top level folder, but when I try to drill down, the action just returns the folder.

 

[CMoore515]

Is there any way to auto compose a tweet with Shortcuts yet?

 

[fredericroumi]

First off I have to say I’m a total newbie at this! All I was able to create so far is a shortcut that copies text I frequently use on my clipboard hahaha

I’m trying to step it up a notch and create a shortcut that would automatically send me a text every day (exact time doesn’t matter) of a random photo in a given folder...Anyone able to help out?

 

[BugeyeSTI]

No, as far as I know, Shortcuts is all about initiating automated events from your input (saying a Siri command, or tapping a widget, home screen icon or share extension). It doesn’t do automation from external events like plugging in, location, etc.
[doublepost=1537264683][/doublepost]Noticing some weird bugs here and there.

For example, in the gallery there is a Calculate Bill shortcut. It doesn’t work properly for me.It asks me for the bill total, I enter 50, then it immediately says my tip should be 2,500

It looks like there should be a step to ask me the percentage but it doesn’t seem to be configured correctly and it seems like some of the steps they use aren’t available for me to try and fix it either? Bit weird really.

What I found with the tip calculator, you have to input the bill total as a decimal so for fifty dollars you have to input 50.00 then it works perfectly..

 

[Tha Professor]

Thanks for this thread. In Shortcuts (and Workflow before it) I can get the contents of a web page via the Get Details of Safari Web Page action. I can then feed this to a Send Email action.

But this fetches the full HTML version of the web page. I want the Reader Mode version. How can I get this?

I used "Get Diffbot Article from webpage" action and it worked, unfortunately, I cannot get mail to attach the text instead of pasting it into the body, so it would be accepted by Send to Kindle...
[doublepost=1538034607][/doublepost]Anyone knows how to get unique values from a list?

I would like to simulate "Heavy Rotation" which is too buried in the Music App. - get the most played music from last month, get the albums they are from and show a list to choose from... I can only get list of songs, which makes it kinda pointless for album plays :-(

 

[Qique]

I'm so sorry for asking a N00B question but I'm able to make new workflows or copy and then edit existing workflow, but I'm not able to rename them.... When I go into the edit mode and select the one to be renamed, there's no edit icon (pencil) appearing in the top-right corner.... What am I doing wrong here? Thanks in advance for your support!

 

[gwhizkids]

Wondering if anyone else has encountered this problem: various apps of mine are updating and supposedly adding Siri shortcuts. But when I look in the Shortcuts app, I can’t find actions for any of those apps. It doesn’t seem to be registering their new actions with the Shortcuts app somehow. Has anyone else seen this or have ideas? By the way I’m on the iOS 12.1 beta. Thanks for help!

You need to go to the app itself, usually in the app’s settings. I suspect this is because some apps have several shortcuts, not all of which you may want to use. So rather than clutter up the Shortcuts app with all those undesired possibilities, you can pick the ones you want to appear.

Apple really is risking the long-term viability of this platform if they don’t start communicating about it better. People will become frustrated and move on quickly, never to re-engage.

 

[adrianlondon]

Does anyone know what language translation system Siri usually uses? When I simply ask Siri to translate something, she does a pretty decent job. When I do the same in a shortcut (which states it uses the Microsoft translation engine) it's often total rubbish. Even the same phrase - great direct via Siri, wrong when run in a shortcut (despite both accurately transcribing my spoken English).

 

[stoplis]

Really disappointed with the Apple Music integration. All the Music steps only work for songs in your library. The prebuilt “Play Album of Currently Playing” doesn’t work. I edited it to work by adding “Play music” at the start (fixes the get currently playing) and changing “Find Music” to “Search iTunes Store” and then adding a “Clear up next” and adding “Add to up next”.
I normally create a playlist for an album I want to listen to so tried to use this as a base to create a playlist with the results with the artist and album title in the playlist name. But all it does is leave a blank playlist.

Working Current Album: https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/38aec42946f242a1ad564d97843ebc91

 

[BrianBaughn]

I assume that Apple will update this page to reflect the move from "Workflow" to "Shortcuts" but it's a pretty good manual: https://help.apple.com/workflow/

 

[theman510]

Is it possible to copy a shortcut and "paste" it within another shortcut?

 

[Weaselboy]

You need to go to the app itself, usually in the app’s settings.

So are we looking for a "enable shortcuts" setting... then they show up in the Shortcuts app?

 

[gwhizkids]

So are we looking for a "enable shortcuts" setting... then they show up in the Shortcuts app?

To use Camera+ 2 as an example, if you go to the apps own onboard settings (not the ones in the iOS Settings app), there is a menu for Siri Shortcuts. Select that and you get a menu of available shortcuts. You hit the plus sign (just like you do for Siri suggested shortcuts in the Siri settings) and the shortcut will be available for use via Siri or as an action in Shortcuts.

This is far from intuitive. I can understand the Shortcuts app being a bit inaccessible without some programming or scripting experience, but the way of employing these end user Shortcuts really need to be better communicated.

 

[Weaselboy]

Gotcha... thanks so much for the explanation. You are correct, this is certainly not intuitive.

 

[gwhizkids]

So are we looking for a "enable shortcuts" setting... then they show up in the Shortcuts app?

And to be clear: enabling a particular action for Shortcuts in an app only makes that action available under Apps in the Shortcuts Actions menu
[doublepost=1538060907][/doublepost]

I assume that Apple will update this page to reflect the move from "Workflow" to "Shortcuts" but it's a pretty good manual: https://help.apple.com/workflow/

It is, but it is a pain to navigate from a mobile device. Make it a single PDF file, Apple!
[doublepost=1538061011][/doublepost]

Is it possible to copy a shortcut and "paste" it within another shortcut?

You can run a shortcut from within another shortcut. I think that effectively gives you the same thing. Cleaner too!

 

[Jessica Lares]

Anyone knows how to get unique values from a list?

I would like to simulate "Heavy Rotation" which is too buried in the Music App. - get the most played music from last month, get the albums they are from and show a list to choose from... I can only get list of songs, which makes it kinda pointless for album plays :-(

To get the unique albums:

Use an empty list, then set a variable name. Then find your music based on the criteria you want, get the album name, and set a variable name for that (like Albums).



Then, you want to get the Albums variable, add a "Repeat with Each".

There, you want to get your original empty list's variable and then add an "If" action under it.

Your If is setup so the Input is "Contains", and your value is "Repeat Item" from that list just above your keyboard. You're not going to have anything before the Otherwise section. Under that, you want a text action with the "Repeat Item" variable. and then you want to add that to the empty list's variable.

Below that, you should see End If, then End Repeat.



And then you'd again get the variable of the list, add choose from list, find music where Album is Chosen Item, and then play music.

I'm so sorry for asking a N00B question but I'm able to make new workflows or copy and then edit existing workflow, but I'm not able to rename them.... When I go into the edit mode and select the one to be renamed, there's no edit icon (pencil) appearing in the top-right corner.... What am I doing wrong here? Thanks in advance for your support!

3D Touch the shortcut, pull up, and there's going to be "Rename" at the top of the list. If you don't have a device that has it, you need to go inside of the shortcut, and it's the first setting after tapping the toggle button at the far right.

 

[adrianlondon]

So are we looking for a "enable shortcuts" setting... then they show up in the Shortcuts app?

Yep. I think some apps even have granularity such that it collects potential shortcuts and you can select which to enable.

I assume this entire palaver is for privacy reasons. In effect, the relevant app is now collecting stats on how you interact with it and sending those for use in the Shortcuts app.

 

[gwhizkids]

To get the unique albums:

Use an empty list, then set a variable name. Then find your music based on the criteria you want, get the album name, and set a variable name for that (like Albums).

Then, you want to get the Albums variable, add a "Repeat with Each".

There, you want to get your original empty list's variable and then add an "If" action under it.

Your If is setup so the Input is "Contains", and your value is "Repeat Item" from that list just above your keyboard. You're not going to have anything before the Otherwise section. Under that, you want a text action with the "Repeat Item" variable. and then you want to add that to the empty list's variable.

Below that, you should see End If, then End Repeat.

And then you'd again get the variable of the list, add choose from list, find music where Album is Chosen Item, and then play music.



3D Touch the shortcut, pull up, and there's going to be "Rename" at the top of the list. If you don't have a device that has it, you need to go inside of the shortcut, and it's the first setting after tapping the toggle button at the far right.

Just a suggestion Might be more effective if you could use screenshots. Trying to follow along textually is not easy... (and realize that you might not be in a position to do that)

 

[theman510]

And to be clear: enabling a particular action for Shortcuts in an app only makes that action available under Apps in the Shortcuts Actions menu
[doublepost=1538060907][/doublepost]
It is, but it is a pain to navigate from a mobile device. Make it a single PDF file, Apple!
[doublepost=1538061011][/doublepost]
You can run a shortcut from within another shortcut. I think that effectively gives you the same thing. Cleaner too!

Having trouble finding out how to run a shortcut from within another. I see the ability to add “favorites” but have no idea how to mark one of my shortcuts as a favorite?
[doublepost=1538188475][/doublepost]

Having trouble finding out how to run a shortcut from within another. I see the ability to add “favorites” but have no idea how to mark one of my shortcuts as a favorite?

Edit: never mind. Figured it out.

 

[Acronym]

If I use the command “get my shortcuts>choose from list>generate QR Code> it should generate a QR Code of that selected shortcut? I’ve seen a shortcut sharing shortcut that just shares them all in one zip file, but I thought it’d be nice to have people be able Tovar’s pick and choose?

I guess it would also be possible to just have them choose from the list (select multiple option) could enable the shortcut to only add the selected shortcuts to the shared zip file? Have I got any of this wrong?

 

[Jessica Lares]

Anyone else's iTunes search action broken and giving errors? I don't know if it's the Shortcuts app or my iOS settings in general.

 

[gwhizkids]

Anyone else's iTunes search action broken and giving errors? I don't know if it's the Shortcuts app or my iOS settings in general.

View attachment 793129

This is working for me. I added a Quick Look action after the iTunes Search action and got actual results and no error message.

 

[Acronym]

Meant to quote my originals question above, but any thoughts? (See above, on my iPhone right now) My wife doesn’t have iOS 12 so I cannot test my theory, the addiction to the first question also would be whether a QR Code could be generated for multiple selected shortcuts you want to share?

 

[gwhizkids]

Meant to quote my originals question above, but any thoughts? (See above, on my iPhone right now) My wife doesn’t have iOS 12 so I cannot test my theory, the addiction to the first question also would be whether a QR Code could be generated for multiple selected shortcuts you want to share?

You don’t need iOS 12 to run the Shortcuts app.

 

[Acronym]

You don’t need iOS 12 to run the Shortcuts app.

That much I didn’t know, thought it was iOS 12 specific. Either way my wife won’t bother with shortcuts, she doesn’t see the use/point of it.