Some handy tools from the Community Summit
Posted on November 11, 2012
A few weeks back I had the great privilege of attending the WordPress Community Summit. Rather than renting a hotel room by myself, instead I rented a house with 4 other Community Summit attendees; Ryan Imel, Brad Williams, Brandon Dove and Dre Armeda. Not exactly bad company to keep. We figured staying in the same house would help keep costs down and would also be a lot of fun. What we hadn’t really planned on was some of the great knowledge sharing that took place.
One afternoon while we were hanging out in the house, we started talking about some of the handy tools we all use. As the conversation went on, Ryan had the quick sense to open up a Google doc and start taking notes. Below is the list of handy tools we came up with.
Keep in mind, these lists are definitely not all inclusive. We know there are many other text editors and cool apps out there. But these are the ones that are top of mind that day.
Text editors
Mac Apps
- Alfred – Easily launch applications, sites and perform several other tricks
- CoBook – Amazingly easy and simple CRM tool
- Spirited Away – Hides apps after a set amount of idle time
- Hazel – Simple automation tool for dealing with files
- Total Terminal – Formally called Visor, a system wide hotkey for terminal
- Droplr – Easy screenshot/text file uploader for sharing
- TypeIt4Me – Text expander
Custom Searches for Alfred
- http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/search.php?q={query}
Search the WordPress plugin repo - http://wordpress.org/search/_Reference+{query}
Search wordpress.org for functions, actions, filters, etc - http://demo.studiopress.com/{query}
Quickly load any StudioPress theme demo site
If you’ve got another tool to add to the list, drop it in the comments.
Thanks for sharing these. I'm still (after nearly 2 years) not 100% convinced/converted to the Mac bandwagon, but some of these apps might be worth a view. One of the best I have found is called Divvy from Mizage.com. Available for both Mac and Windows, it makes managing and moving multiple windows around a snap.
TJ, I also use Divvy. Love it! Should definitely have added it to the list. I'll fix that!
That plugin search is handy! Thanks! Here's a couple of my favorite custom Alfred searches... Feed validation: alfredapp://customsearch/Validate%20Feed%20at/feed/ascii/url=http://validator.w3.org/appc/check.cgi?url={query} Use this with the full feed URL to validate an RSS feed. Whois search: alfredapp://customsearch/whois/whois/ascii/url=http://whois.domaintools.com/{query} Use this with just the domain (i.e. no http:// or additional path info) to check the whois record.
Thanks Jason! That whois search is going in to my Alfred app right now!
Search codex function reference http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/{query}
The link for the cobook CRM isn't correct. Guessing you were talking about this? http://www.cobookapp.com/
Great catch, Scott! Updated.