Manton Reece

Running Xcode from Codex

I’ve been doing a lot of work in Codex for the upcoming Inkwell for Mac release. I’m weeks ahead of where I thought I’d be. One small tweak I’ve made to my workflow is to wire up ⌘R to run the project while I’m in Codex.

Codex has its own run action button, which in theory could run xcodebuild or osascript command-line tools, but that didn’t work for me. So I reached for FastScripts instead. I wrote this tiny AppleScript:

tell application "Xcode"
	activate
	run workspace document 1
end tell

Here’s a screenshot of the config in FastScripts:

FastScripts Settings window displaying keyboard shortcuts for various scripts and settings options.

Now when I’m in Codex and it has finished a change, I review the transcript, then hit ⌘R to run my Mac app and test the new thing. If I don’t like it, I’ll ask Codex for changes and run again. Then I can review the code diff and tweak or commit as needed. The keyboard shortcut makes this cycle just a little smoother.

Introducing Inkwell

Today we’re releasing a new RSS feed reader called Inkwell. It’s a companion product to Micro.blog, so you’ll sign in with your existing Micro.blog account.

Inkwell is a special take on RSS. It has many features you’d expect in an RSS reader, but it also adds integration with Micro.blog conversations and text highlighting. While reading a blog post, you can highlight passages to blog about later.

Auto-generated description: A user interface shows a highlighted sentence about a blog anniversary with options labeled New Post and Highlight.

Inkwell is built around three main tabs: Today, Recent, and Fading. Today is for the latest blog posts. Recent is for posts yesterday or the day before. And Fading is for posts up to a week old. After a week, posts fade out of Inkwell, so you’ll never be overwhelmed with unread posts. If you missed them, it’s okay.

Auto-generated description: A screenshot of a blog interface shows recent posts with some faded, including titles and authors like Installing web apps by Adactio.

But Fading also comes with a superpower: Reading Recap. Reading Recap takes all of the blog posts in Fading — some you’ve read and maybe some you’ve skipped or just skimmed — and groups them together by website, summarizing what the recent posts were about. It pulls an interesting quote from one of the blog posts and includes it directly. It adds topics so you can tell at a glance what the blog has been focused on.

Reading Recap helps surface interesting posts in your subscriptions that deserve another look. You can also have Inkwell automatically send the Reading Recap in a weekly email.

Auto-generated description: A website page features a privacy topic about Pixel Envy, with quoted text on Apple's business practices and recent posts listed below.

(There are new costs for us to host Reading Recap, so it and the Fading tab require a Micro.blog Premium subscription.)

I’m excited to announce that a new version of Unread for both iOS and Mac is shipping today with Inkwell sync. Add an Inkwell account to Unread just as you would add Feedbin or other RSS sync services.

Jon Hays has also developed a new app for iOS called Silverleaf. This came together very quickly because Inkwell has an open API. I expect other apps to follow, including the official Inkwell apps.

Inkwell completes the suite of products that make up the Micro.blog platform. For nearly a decade we’ve worked on short-form posts, photo blogs, cross-posting to other social networks, and much more that encourages people to post on their own blogs instead of silos. And now we have long-form reading and discovery, integrated with the unique strengths of Micro.blog.

Can’t wait to hear what everyone thinks. Thank you!

P.S. While I’m working on a new video to introduce Inkwell, you can also watch this video I shared with beta testers. It’s a little out of date but still covers all the basics.