{"id":59,"date":"2018-06-26T16:27:35","date_gmt":"2018-06-26T15:27:35","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2021-12-17T13:47:18","modified_gmt":"2021-12-17T19:47:18","slug":"bear-tools-built-by-the-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.bear.app\/2018\/06\/bear-tools-built-by-the-community\/","title":{"rendered":"Bear tools built by the community"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the past year and a half, Bear has grown in amazing ways<\/a>. One of them is our stellar community, which has built some great tools that work with Bear. We\u2019d like to thank everyone who has built something (or is in the process!), and highlight some of these tools that might be useful in your day-to-day use of Bear.<\/p>\n

We should note: these tools are built by third parties, not us. We\u2019ve tried some of them, but we don\u2019t control any of them. You should probably back up<\/a> or export<\/a> your notes before you start experimenting.<\/p>\n

Getting started<\/h2>\n

Many of these Bear tools are built for iOS and require Workflow<\/a>, the excellent automation app that Apple recently acquired. If you need a primer on the what and how of Workflow, iMore has a good \u2018getting started\u2019 article<\/a>. The Mac tools are built to work with utilities like Automator and Keyboard Maestro<\/a> (more on that below).<\/p>\n

Apple is building Workflow\u2019s tools into iOS and Siri, and in the fall will (re)introduce it as Shortcuts in iOS 12<\/a>. As far as we know, all of Workflow\u2019s features will be present in Shortcuts, including a few new tricks.<\/p>\n

A good place to start trying some Bear tools is the Bear Power Pack<\/a> directory on GitHub. If you\u2019re curious about how these actually work: workflows generally harness the iOS x-callback-url protocol. It\u2019s an under-the-hood system that allows many apps, including Bear<\/a>, to trigger features and automatically exchange information.<\/p>\n

Check out an example of the multi-step workflow below, which can create a photo journal in Bear. It allows you to pick an image from the Photos app, then Workflow creates a new Bear note with the image, the location it was shot, links to Apple and Google Maps, and nested tags<\/a> with the month and date of the photo\u200a\u2014\u200aall from just two taps.<\/p>\n

An example of the \u201cPhoto Journal\u201d workflow for Bear, for which you simply select a photo. It then creates a new Bear note with that photo, adds location text and links, and applies nested journal tags for the year and\u00a0month.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To get your gears turning, here are some highlights from the Bear Power Pack:<\/p>\n