Using Launchbar to send tasks to Begin

There are some great apps unique to the iOS environment out there. Begin is one of them. But if you work on the desktop most of the time, you have to pick up your phone and do a few steps to add a new task to be done today in Begin. That’s boring, so I decided to create an Applescript activated via Launchbar to send a Pushover notification with a link to add a task to Begin.

In my latest article, I already explored how to create a workflow between Mac and iOS using Pushover. You gonna need your user token and your API token to keep up with me, so if you don’t know what I’m talking about, please check the previous article for reference.

You can get the AppleScript here, don’t forget to put it in a folder Launchbar indexes and to place your tokens on their respective fields.

on handle_string(q)
    set query to do shell script "/usr/bin/python -c 'import sys, urllib; print urllib.quote(sys.argv[1])' " & quoted form of q
    set action to "beginapp://x-callback-url/addTask?text=" & query
    do shell script "curl -s \\
        -F \"token=ger7we6hip9mer8ilj5irs9yot0Hu5\" \\
        -F \"user=eTh5noo1swip0cIf6oN7Hyg1weg8It\" \\
        -F \"message=\"" & quoted form of q & "\\
        -F \"url=\"" & action & "\\
        -F \"url_title=Import to Begin\" \\
         \"https://api.pushover.net/1/messages.json\""
    open location "x-launchbar:hide"
end handle_string

Try reaching it with Launchbar, if it doesn’t find it, update your index, do some folder-diving and assign an abbreviation to the script. I like “SB”. With the script selected, hit spacebar and you’ll get a field to type in, add your task and voilá, your iPhone will soon lighten up.

After my latest article, you’re probably already exploring your own variations of my Pushover action using different apps, this one just gives another possibility. Besides Begin, there are a few more iOS-exclusive apps you can exploit using this actions, such as Agenda, Finish, Momento, Quotebook and probably a few others out there. I’ll leave it to your imagination and necessity. If you have any doubt or can’t make a workflow actually work, reach me at App.net or Twitter and I’ll help you out as possible.

Oh, also don’t forget to check the service that inspired me: Taskpusher.