keyboard-maestro

Getting plaintext into Anki fields on macOS: An update

A few years ago, I wrote about my problems with HTML in Anki fields. If you check out that previous post you’ll get the backstory about my objection. The gist is this: If you copy something from the web, Anki tries to maintain the formatting. Basically it just pastes the HTML off the clipboard. Supposedly, Anki offers to strip the formatting with Shift-paste, but I’ve point out to the developer specific examples where this fails.

sterilize-ng: a command-line URL sterilizer

Introducing sterilize-ng [GitHub link] - a URL sterilizer made to work flexibily on the command line. Background The surveillance capitalist economy is built on the relentless tracking of users. Imagine going about town running errands but everywhere you go, someone is quietly following you. When you pop into the grocery, they examine your receipt. They look into the bags to see what you bought. Then they hop in the car with you and keep careful records of where you go, how fast you drive, whom you talk with on the phone.

Using Perl in Keyboard Maestro macros

One of the things that I love about Keyboard Maestro is the ability to chain together disparate technologies to achieve some automation goal on macOS. In most of my previous posts about Keyboard Maestro macros, I’ve used Python or shell scripts, but I decided to draw on some decades-old experience with Perl to do a little text processing for a specific need. Background I want this text from Wiktionary: to look like this:

A Keyboard Maestro macro to edit Anki sound file

Often when I import a pronunciation file into Anki, from Forvo for example, the volume isn’t quite right or there’s a lot of background noise; and I want to edit the sound file. How? The solution for me, as it often the case is a Keyboard Maestro macro. Prerequisites Keyboard Maestro - if you are a macOS power user and don’t have KM, then your missing on a lot. Audacity - the multi-platform FOSS audio editor Outline of the approach Since Keyboard Maestro won’t know the path to our file in Anki’s collection.

Generating HTML from Markdown in Anki fields

I write in Markdown because it’s much easier to keep the flow of writing going without taking my hands off the keyboard. I also like to write content in Anki cards in Markdown. Over the years there have been various ways in of supporting this through add-ons: The venerable Power Format Pack was great but no longer supports Anki 2.1, so it became useless. Auto Markdown worked for a while but as of Anki version 2.