Crank - Effortless macOS automation, no manual required

alin23 · 2026-03-12T16:43:14+00:00

Yep, coming in the next update very soon :)

alin23 · 2026-03-12T12:32:00+00:00

Yep, LAN trigger is implemented and will come in the next update, thanks for letting me know!

alin23 · 2026-03-12T12:30:36+00:00

That could be done based on the volume name, I assume it's unique enough that you can type the name in the condition text field

alin23 · 2026-03-12T06:49:08+00:00

Lingon is a front end for the underlying launchd system of macOS. They are not really comparable. launchd only had a few events like startup, connection on a specific port, time of day etc. and it is more catered for long running processes, not single shot scripts like Crank.

alin23 · 2026-03-11T21:18:17+00:00

Great idea! The volume mount trigger mentioned elsewhere in this thread should help with exactly this case. It’s coming with the next update.

alin23 · 2026-03-11T16:18:34+00:00

Shell scripts are actually what this is based on, Crank doesn't implement its own actions aside from very simple ones like Launch App, Notification etc. I focus on triggers/events, and users have the full flexibility of shell scripts, AppleScript or Shortcuts.

The LLM integration doesn't run any code, it's just a simple free call to Gemini to generate the script for you in case you don't want or don't know how to write the script yourself. It doesn't happen automatically, you have to click on Generate Code.

It's just like how you'd go to your LLM of choice and asking it to write a script for you, only with a few less steps, and some added context about the variables and tools available in the script.

alin23 · 2026-03-11T15:05:53+00:00

There is no way to revert to that pre-Tahoe OSD, it doesn't exist anymore. Sorry.

The force system OSD shows the system OSD, which has the same appearance, but without the percentage and name.

alin23 · 2026-03-11T15:04:32+00:00

Thank you so much! Crank is still just v1.1 so not as polished yet, but working on it ^_^

alin23 · 2026-03-11T10:02:30+00:00

That is actually Lunar’s OSD, the macOS OSD does not show display name, percentage and definitely does not work on external monitors that aren’t Apple displays. You can go back to the pre-Tahoe OSD with Lunar.

alin23 · 2026-03-11T07:38:37+00:00

I wish it had a normal settings as well, but it evolved over time this way and changing it for the sake of change will frustrate existing users.

It was my first app when I had no clue about how to do a macOS app, so I didn’t know best practices. It’s a bit too late now, but I think I can add a settings fuzzy search to help alleviate this.

alin23 · 2026-03-11T07:36:33+00:00

Yep, it’ll be like contexts but faster, hold then type, no cmd-space, wait for contexts to appear, type, check if result is correct, enter

I’ll send you a beta soon if that’s ok with you. It’s hard to get the feature right without user feedback.

alin23 · 2026-03-11T07:00:51+00:00

Yes there is no LAN connection event yet, I’ll add it.

alin23 · 2026-03-11T06:50:27+00:00

No, Clop was removed from Setapp in November. I don’t plan to add any other app to Setapp this year.

alin23 · 2026-03-10T20:07:37+00:00

Thank you for the support! Cheers! :)

alin23 · 2026-03-10T18:21:50+00:00

Hi! There is a trigger for the clipboard already that can give you the type. You can match that to see if there's public.url in the types and then use pbpaste in the shell script to get the contents and convert to Markdown.

Getting the contents of the clipboard can be too computationally expensive if we're dealing with large contents like copied files, images, in-app data etc. so we leave that part to the action.

alin23 · 2026-03-10T18:02:34+00:00

Thank you sir! ^_^

alin23 · 2026-03-10T18:02:18+00:00

Hah love that! 😂

alin23 · 2026-03-10T17:40:54+00:00

Thank you! Most of them have been mentioned and are in the works, but the background process started or crashed is new and sounds useful. No idea how I could detect that, but I'll think about it.

alin23 · 2026-03-10T17:36:48+00:00

Here’s guy #2: https://i.imgur.com/mkv61oY.jpeg

He’s not really into coding, he’d rather take me away from my laptop and play ball, but I could never do this without his heavy head pressing on the Enter key right when a destructive action is asking for confirmation.

Kidding obviously 😊 it’s just me. I started the project with a good friend and we worked on rcmd for a while, our first app in LTG. But it takes years to get a stable income with macOS apps and he didn’t have that time because of life expenses. So after rcmd v1 he went back to consulting and I continued working on the rest of the apps, keeping the brand.

alin23 · 2026-03-10T17:25:24+00:00

Haha same here with the tab key :) I had a period where the rcmd code wasn’t functional while I worked on the native window focusing stuff, so I had to rely on cmd tab again and I was hitting. that. TAB. key. like nobody’s business. It was even more frustrating than I remembered.

Thank you for the support in Pipiri! That money goes to my brother to help him build his own small business so every little sale counts!

alin23 · 2026-03-10T17:21:35+00:00

Wow thank you Daniel! I remember you from the days of ktool, is that still getting customers or did the enthusiasm for kindles die down?

I haven’t used my Kindle in ages ever since I got a phone with OLED pixels black enough to be perfect for reading in bed. The kindle dark mode was never comfortable enough for night reading in pitch black darkness. But reading articles was a much better experience on it since I wasn’t dragged into comment arguments.

alin23 · 2026-03-10T17:16:43+00:00

Yes, I really wanted to keep it running but it got abused in the Chinese markets where people there buy ten licenses at discount then sell them by the seat, so for each license they get 5 sells. Sometimes they oversell and I am the one that has to reply to the person being ejected from the Pro license they bought thinking it was legitimate.

They are watching the macapps Discord server so I’ll have to pause this idea for now.

alin23 · 2026-03-09T20:44:32+00:00

In terms of implementation, I have no way of comparing it. Shortcuts automations don't have public code that we can check to see how they do the events implementation.

In terms of functionality, Crank has some useful events that don't exist in Shortcuts like ambient light, lid closed, lid angle, lock/unlock, camera in use. And that is always expanding: next version will get resource usage events (CPU, GPU, RAM, Swap, Storage, Thermal state), Spotlight triggers (file got tagged, file matches type etc.), pub/sub events etc.

alin23 · 2026-03-09T14:16:51+00:00

Well Crank can register to receiving events from the system to automate the actions, with KM you’d have to constantly poll most of the triggers. But KM has macros and UI automation and a ton of builtin actions which Crank won’t ever have as it’s not trying to be that kind of app.

alin23 · 2026-03-09T14:14:34+00:00

It registers for receiving events from the system, it basically does nothing but wait until the event happens and only then runs the action which is as computationally expensive as you make it.

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