{"id":960,"date":"2020-04-14T14:50:46","date_gmt":"2020-04-14T19:50:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.bear.app\/?p=960"},"modified":"2021-12-17T13:47:10","modified_gmt":"2021-12-17T19:47:10","slug":"tools-for-creating-templates-to-use-in-bear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.bear.app\/2020\/04\/tools-for-creating-templates-to-use-in-bear\/","title":{"rendered":"Tools for creating templates to use in Bear"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Bear users get work done<\/em>. They take notes, write all kinds of prose, organize tasks, and more. For many people, this work involves similar kinds of content\u2014intros for blog posts, a common note taking structure, regular weekly tasks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Templates can be a big help and time saver for this kind of work. While Bear doesn\u2019t have much built in support for templates, there is a variety of template tools that work great in Bear. Let\u2019s explore some, starting with features built into your devices, then a few great third-party apps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shortcuts and Siri Shortcuts<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Apple’s Shortcuts app<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Everyone can probably stand to save time working on their devices, but not everyone is a programmer. Enter Shortcuts<\/a> and Siri Shortcuts<\/a>, features on the iPad and iPhone to automate common tasks and even control them with your voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, let\u2019s say you like to turn web articles into PDFs, save them to Bear notes, and also email the PDF to parents or friends. With Shortcuts, you could create a single action that performs all of those steps, including addressing the email, with just a couple taps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, you could download and play with this very Shortcut<\/a> we created for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
Download demo Shortcut<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

You can edit the Shortcut\u2019s final action to include recipients that should be on every email, or leave it alone to manually add recipients each time you use the Shortcut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Going even further, Bear has a variety of Siri Shortcuts<\/a> that can improve your workflow. You can append new content to a specific note, look up untagged notes, create new notes from other apps, and much more. Add a voice command via Siri Shortcuts<\/a>, and now you\u2019re down to zero taps!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To find Bear’s available Shortcuts, open the Shortcuts app on an iPad or iPhone with Bear installed, create a new Shortcut, then search for Bear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note<\/strong>: Anyone can share Shortcuts they\u2019ve made, just like we did above. To use them, you might have to flip a switch in Settings. If you download a shortcut from galleries like RoutineHub<\/a> or Sharecuts<\/a>, try running it once. Then, head to Settings > Shortcuts<\/strong> and tap Allow Untrusted Shortcuts<\/strong>. Apple requires this step because shortcuts can be pretty powerful, but it isn\u2019t able to review them for safety and privacy. As always, be mindful of where you download Shortcuts, and you should be fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Text snippets on Mac, iPad, and iPhone<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If you aren\u2019t familiar, text snippets are chunks of frequently used text that can be inserted with a simple keyword or trigger. They\u2019re great<\/em> for everything from links you regularly share, to email replies and signatures, and that killer emoji combo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately, your devices have support for basic text snippets built right in, and they work great in Bear. On iPad and iPhone, go to Settings > General > Keyboard > Text Replacement<\/strong>. On a Mac, it\u2019s System Preferences > Keyboard > Text<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
macOS has built-in support for keyboard snippets<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There, you can create your snippets and add triggers. For example, since we often share the link to our Siri Shortcuts doc, we created a snippet to insert that URL anywhere we type b.siri<\/strong>. Typing that will automatically expand the full URL in most apps across all our devices, including in Bear, Tweetbot, email apps, Safari, documents, you name it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our URL creator tool<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We built a tool for creating your own Bear automations. It\u2019s a simple web interface, built on the same x-callback-url standard<\/a> supported by Apple\u2019s Shortcuts and many third-party apps. It requires a basic understanding of how dev tools like this work, but it\u2019s pretty powerful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our URL creator offers a lot of flexibility to automatically create a new note<\/a>, append text<\/a> to an existing note, build custom search actions<\/a>, add timestamps, change Bear\u2019s theme<\/a>, and more<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your automation is then wrapped into a simple URL that you can use in a Bear note, a snippet, or from other apps. Download a sample Bear note that includes examples of a few of these URLs in action. We had to ZIP this for reasons, so we recommend downloading this on a Mac since iOS still isn’t great at handling ZIP files.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
Download sample Bear note<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Powerful paid apps<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The final stop on our automation adventures is the domain of third-party apps like TextExpander, Alfred, and Keyboard Maestro. These are powerful utilities that can enhance a lot of your work across most apps and devices, but we\u2019ll introduce them through the lens of Bear, snippets, and templates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TextExpander for Mac and iOS<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

If the snippet features built into macOS and iOS are like a good cup of coffee in the morning, then TextExpander<\/a> is an entire pot of the good stuff. It\u2019s a feature-full typing utility that goes the extra mile with support for media, custom fields when expanding snippets, multi-line snippets, and even the option to share groups of snippets with others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TextExpander works great<\/em> with Bear (including on iPad and iPhone!). On the Mac, your snippets will just expand in all your notes, thanks to TextExpander running as a utility in the background.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the iPad and iPhone, we added support for TextExpander directly into Bear. Make sure TextExpander for iOS<\/a> is installed and your account is set up, then simply enable support in Bear at Settings > General<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you could use a few example of TextExpander snippets, we created a downloadable pack of simple symbols, links, and emoji you can play with. TextExpander also hosts an official Public Groups<\/a> collection of snippets for all kinds of industries, tasks, and some subtle humor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
Download TextExpander sample snippets<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Alfred for Mac<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Alfred<\/a> is an excellent productivity booster for any Mac. Starting with a simple search box like Spotlight, you can launch apps, create messages, take actions on files, control music, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Customizable hotkeys put a wide variety of tasks at your fingertips, and you can build multi-step workflows or download them from the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alfred includes its own great snippet features which also work in Bear and most other apps. Unlike Apple\u2019s snippets, you can create collections of snippets, include rich text, use multiple lines, and add placeholders for things like the time, date, or whatever is in your clipboard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s powerful stuff, especially combined with Alfred\u2019s vast array of other tools. Note that, like Bear, many of Alfred\u2019s core features are free. To use snippets and some other great tools like a multi-clipboard, file manager, and themes, purchase the Alfred Powerpack<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keyboard Maestro for Mac<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Keyboard Maestro<\/a> is another Mac productivity utility with a focus on enhancing and automating your Mac. The interface for building automations feels like a cross between AppleScript and Automator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keyboard Maestro can replace your Dock and tab-switcher, organize app windows, manipulate text, use hotkeys to open folders and toggle features, automatically quit some apps when one is opened, and much, much more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Snippets are among the huge library of available actions, which can be stacked with other automations. We created one you can try with the Keyboard Maestro free demo<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
Download sample Keyboard Maestro snippet<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

This is a single action that opens Bear, creates a new note, pastes a daily journaling template, then opens other daily work apps like Safari, Reminders, and Podcasts (assuming they\u2019re installed). Customize this action for your own apps or change the keyboard shortcut, and now you\u2019re cooking with automation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Go forth and automate<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We hope this stroll through snippets and automation can help save you time and keystrokes. Reach out to us on Reddit<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, Facebook<\/a>, or directly at bear@shinyfrog.net<\/a> and let us know what you think or if there are other productivity boosters we might be able to include in future posts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Check out some great tools for using templates and automation with Bear, including some demo files to get you started!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":973,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_anchor_podcast":"","jetpack_anchor_episode":"","jetpack_anchor_spotify_show":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[30710022,30710023,1788],"tags":[30710073,30710001,30710002,30710074,30710072],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blog.bear.app\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Bear-templates-banner.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pakp3M-fu","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bear.app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bear.app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bear.app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bear.app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bear.app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=960"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bear.app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":983,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bear.app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960\/revisions\/983"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bear.app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bear.app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bear.app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bear.app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}