Bunch Release Notes

Recently Updated Documentation

bunch-files/frontmatter +- Δ
./changelog ++++++ Δ

See documentation history

1.4.16 (177): Add Arc browser prefix (arc:) for browser-specific url launching; Account for changes in the way Visual Studio Code identifies itself when quitting; Clicking a bunch with modifier keys, e.g. Cmd-Click to edit, wasn’t working

1.4.13 (173): Failure to recognize a shell script as a binary and then removing the binary from the command

1.4.12 (172): Recognize multi-word shortcut names; Refreshing bunches lost open state; Failure to load Bunches on first launch; Heredoc shell scripts crashing Bunch

1.4.12 (168): Bunch remembering to open Bunches that were actually closed before exit

1.4.12 (168): Bunch remembering to open Bunches that were actually closed before exit

1.4.12 (167): Crash with displaying a script command window when output is empty; First Bunch open after launch has long delay when Parallel launching is disabled; Interpret /usr/bin/env shebang even when external script is executable

1.4.11 (166): (hide desktop) command not functioning; Programatically opening System Preferences is broken on Ventura. Best I can currently do is open System Settings, but can’t focus a pane (e.g. Notifications). Keeping an eye on this.; Bunch didn’t recognize symlinks for Bunch folders; Switching between Bunch folders would cause all Bunches to show up in a “Bunches” submenu

1.4.10 (163): Bunch didn’t recognize symlinks for Bunch folders; Switching between Bunch folders would cause all Bunches to show up in a “Bunches” submenu

1.4.10 (163): AppleScript commands to copy or save a new Bunch with running apps; Added canary and firefoxdev as browser prefixes; Target specific Chrome profiles using chrome[Profile Name]:http://...; (shortcut NAME) command for running macOS Shortcuts; Fixed variable assignment using shell script heredoc syntax; The (shortcut) command now accepts input and outputs any response for use in variables; Attempt to fix issue where spaces in Bunch directory path caused menu issues or were unable to be selected in the dropdown; Newline character in (shortcut) input; Replace global variables before processing frontmatter conditionals

1.4.9 (148): /opt/homebrew/bin is now included in the default path for M1 users using shell scripting; Allow closing all Finder windows with XX (and on close with !!Finder)

1.4.8 (143): Variable keys passed from URL handler were running into case sensitivity issues; When launching or quitting a tag, %\tag was not ignoring the action on close; Don’t inherit tags when nesting Bunches; Variables defined in a snippet call file line work with conditional logic within the snippet; Allow retries when sending AppleScript commands for things like; Ensure relaunch of Finder after hiding/showing desktop icons; Modifier key mismatch in Select Editor tooltip

1.4.7 (139): Variable keys passed from URL handler were running into case sensitivity issues

1.4.7 (139): Variable keys passed from URL handler were running into case sensitivity issues

1.4.6: (quit everything except …) command to quit all running Dock apps (with an optional exception list) (documentation); “file PATH contains” logic condition to check file contents for text string; “file PATH exists” logic condition; “title prefix” frontmatter applies a string before the Bunch, or all affected Bunches if used in @tag/folder.frontmatter; “ignore if/unless” frontmatter can control whether a Bunch displays in the menu. Accepts UUID or any logic condition recognized by Bunch; “schedule if/unless” now accepts any logic condition. Instead of a trigger file like it had, use file TRIGGER_FILE exists.; Fix an error with opening files in apps called by bundle identifier; Long directory names breaking preference window layout (#148); Calling “toggle” via URL handler not respecting single bunch mode (#149); Crash when completing script with error on Bunch close (#152)

1.4.5: Fancy new icon design by Felippe van Eekhout; Add “Untagged” submenu to tags menu; Refresh all browsers AppleScript command; Add “Untagged” submenu to tags menu; Heredoc support for shell commands; Snippet syntax support for script lines ($ <file#fragment); Heredoc support for variable assignments; Snippet syntax support for variable assignment (var = <file#fragment); Submenu with bunches listed by tag; AppleScript “open/close/toggle/list bunches tagged”; URL handler for open/close/toggle commands accepts “tag=X” as optional replacement for “bunch=X”; Move tag menus into section of main menu instead of Tags submenu; Allow (display) and ~delay syntax for heredoc scripts; Move tag menus into section of main menu instead of Tags submenu; Variable placeholders no longer require removing spaces from variable names; Better truncation of long script paths/names in running scripts menu; Don’t register var_name = ${old_var} as a shell script assignment; Remove “tag:” key from folder frontmatter; Action buttons on script error dialogs not opening Bunch Log; Remove single and double quotes from ends of frontmatter values

1.4.4: Create menus from YAML, JSON, text, or executable script files (Documentation); Better replacement of variable placeholders that are populated mid-stream; Rewrite of Do Not Disturb handling on Big Sur and later; Improved variable (re)assignment inside of conditional logic blocks; Fix case sensitivity when replacing variable placeholders

1.4.3: Reversible commands not reversing when closing a bunch; Do Not Disturb not disabling; If Bunches are open when changing the “Toggle Bunches” preference to OFF, register them as closed so they can be opened again; If a Bunch is open when it’s changed to toggles: false, reset its open state so it can be opened again; If a multiple choice dialog sets a variable in an opens-only Bunch, reset the variable after opening so the dialog appears again next time

1.4.1: Allow variable placeholders in “run before/after” frontmatter scripts; Allow Coherence X apps to function properly if referred to by bundle identifier (e.g. com.BZG.CoherenceMyApp); Remove superfluous log statements; Empty comment lines stopping processing

1.4.0 (β110): Attempt to quit an app even if it’s not immediately located among running apps; Don’t convert app name to value of localizedName property, fixes issues with iTerm. Trying too hard is detrimental, apparently.; Don’t automatically quit Finder if included in a Bunch

1.4.0 (β109): Allow !!!Triple Negative to quit an app when closing a Bunch without launching on open; space:all parameter for (display) command to cause a display window to join all spaces; Special handling for “FileMaker Pro 18 Advanced”; Switch to using mdfind as backup app locator; Convert some Info-level log messages to Debug-level for cleaner log output

1.4.0 (β108): Frontmatter keys for running scripts before/after opening a Bunch, and before/after closing; Variables can hold values with newlines; Perform pre-defined transformations on variable values (url encode, shell escape, raw newlines, newlines for typed strings); Percent encode newlines; Do some translating on built-in frontmatter keys to allow for some variations in syntax; URL encoding of variables now encodes question marks and other symbols not allowed in URL paths; Limit length of info logging messages to 50 characters; Process variable assignments in document order; Process variable assignment dialogs inline with other variables, allowing dynamically-assigned variables to be used in dialogs; Remove Bunch-specific frontmatter keys from variables passed to Waiting Snippets; Prevent backslash escapes from disappearing from values during variable assignment; Don’t change case when logging commands; Make variables available prior to processing shell script variable assignments

1.4.0 (β107): Breaking change: fragment ID syntax no longer accepts a single dash before the square brackets, must have at least 2 or use a different symbol; Everything after closing square bracket in fragment id lines is ignored; Whitespace is allowed anywhere in a fragment id line, as long as the first character is one of the accepted divider symbols (#->=); Fragment id divider syntax now accepts > and = as divider lines; Better searching for apps NSWorkspace doesn’t recognize as apps by name; If Bunch Item type is Unknown, consider it an app name that wasn’t found and make an attempt to launch it anyway; if VarName condition with no operator will return true if VarName is defined and contains ANY content other than false or no.; Make if VarName conditions case insensitive; Process snippets within conditions

1.4.0 (β105): Walk back change to force-hiding apps before @focus lines

1.4.0 (β104): Add AppName syntax to indicate an app should activate/foreground on launch. By default apps now won’t activate, unless they’re receiving keystrokes; (hide/show menu bar) command; Allow #clear as window background color; Use better async app launch method on 10.15+; Slightly more reliable hiding and focusing of apps, including forcing any apps before an @focus line to launch hidden (previously just relied on activateHidingOthers); Better formatting of long scripts in Running Scripts menu; Allow setting actual window background color for (display) windows; A Bunch with no frontmatter or non-comment items in the Bunch folder was causing the entire menu to be empty; Remove Bunch default keys from frontmatter when inherited by child Bunches (launched by another Bunch); (input source) command now performs all actions on main thread (crasher)

1.4.0 (β103): Allow #clear as a background color for Quick Look display windows; Allow migration of Bunch Beta prefs back to stable channel; Add (hide menu bar) command

1.4.0 (β102): Variables set in parent Bunch are now available to Waiting Snippets; Allow HTML display command to handle non-HTTP url schemes; Fixes for Example Bunch

1.4.0 (β101): Special handling for Visual Studio Code when attempting to quit the app; (input source XXX) command to switch keyboard input source; Change “Clear Checkmarks” shortcut to Control-Option-Command-R; Don’t trigger screen commands on wake from sleep if parent Bunch isn’t open; Create checkbox dialogs to handle optional launching of multiple apps/snippets in one dialog; Present dialogs in the order they’re listed in the Bunch

1.4.0 (β99): Running an AppleScript file with a * line wasn’t actually running anything

1.4.0 (β98): If/Else logic parsing; Allow direct key = value variable assignment in snippets.; Direct variable assignments are parsed before snippets are loaded; If/then blocks can set/change variables before next block is processed; All Snippets (including Waiting Snippets) inherit their parent’s frontmatter so variables carry forward; Allow global variable assignments that persist across launches and are available in all Bunches; Don’t parse = in URLs as a variable assignment; Notification issue when assigning a variable with an AppleScript and the script fails; from script variable assignments becoming empty; Allow spaces and underscores in var = $ script assignments; Variable placeholders don’t have to be lowercased to match; If processing a script as AppleScript fails, attempt to execute as shell script (JXA scripts executed with * script items return error); Allow arguments to be passed when assigning variables with script results; Don’t strip underscores from variable keys in key_name = $"Query" assignments; Bug with running AppleScript commands in serial execution

1.4.0 (β93): Reduce error messages in log (move to debug level); Handle 2 and 3-character app names (sorry VLC)

1.4.0 (β92): Handle edge case where running applications includes an app that doesn’t return an app name; Error checking for string manipulation functions

1.4.0 (β91): Url handler method for opening Preference pane in the GUI (x-bunch://prefs); Add user agent setting to HTML display windows to allow forcing Desktop or Mobile views regardless of window size (ua:desktop); Fully activate an app when @focusing it; Update all internal links to point to bunchapp.co; Replace deprecated preference storage methods; Spelling error in preferences (Thanks Jay); Directly close preference view rather than relying on a notification

1.4.0 (β88): Only run interactive dialogs to assign a variable if the variable isn’t already defined (allow frontmatter to override dialogs); Remove “Working” highlight on menu item after 10 seconds as a fallback; Crash caused by (notify) command

1.4.0 (β87): Double trimming brackets on on-quit commands; Edge case where canceling a multiple choice dialog left Bunch with an empty string

1.4.0 (β86): Stop stripping underscores from variable names. Why did I think that was a good idea? I forget.; Assigning variables from dialogs when no frontmatter has previously been defined; Null logging when frontmatter wasn’t changed; Don’t let a Bunch quit itself in Single Bunch Mode when forced open from the menu

1.4.0 (β85): Subfolder name appearing in menu item titles; URL handler calling open or close wasn’t ignoring current state

1.4.0 (β84): get preference [key] AppleScript command for retrieving various preference settings; list open bunches AppleScript command to list only open Bunches; list bunches returns an AppleScript list instead of a string; Remove some frivolous debug logging statements. It’s the economy.; 10 second timeout for actions in sequential execution mode. The economy again.; When calling other Bunches via Bunches or handlers, allow matching subfolder and Bunch by display titles or any combination of title and display title; Allow Bunches with the same name in different subfolders; Include subfolder in log identifier; All Bunch name matching is case insensitive; Code refactoring to do a better job of catching bugs early

1.4.0 (β83): !X syntax for inserting pauses in key commands and typed strings; (display) command accepts chrome:none for windows with no title bar or buttons; Force apps to foreground before sending key combos; Pause Bunch item processing while sending key commands for better consistency; Bring all windows to foreground when Unhiding All Windows; Automatically resolve tildes (~) in shell command arguments to user’s home directory; Waiting Snippet waits for up to 10 seconds for presence of main window before considering an app launched.

1.4.0 (β82): Display and screen command, UUID matching for selective scheduling, various fixes; (display) command parameters can now be in any order. This involved some changes to the syntax, please see the documentation.; New (screen) command for creating a full-screen, solid color window with optional transparency for hiding all windows below it. See docs for usage.; Support for schedule if and schedule unless frontmatter for excluding Macs from scheduling based on trigger file or UUID; startup frontmatter can be one or more UUIDs to start only on matching Macs; startup unless frontmatter can be one or more UUIDs; Copy UUID button in preferences for use with schedule if, schedule unless, and startup; Bunches can be organized in subfolders, which will create submenus in the main Bunch menu; Allow folder.frontmatter to set properties of submenu; Allow folder.frontmatter to pass keys to all Bunches in a subfolder; Rename Save to Done in Preferences; More complete emoji handling; Add keyboard shortcut for Open Log (⇧⌘L); Wait for Bunch commands and script items when executing sequentially; Regression in schedule handling; Fixes for changing Bunch Folder preferences and storing recents

1.4.0 (β80): If a background color is set for a display text file but no foreground, pick a contrasting color; If a background color is specified for text or HTML display windows, change the window to dark mode appearance if the color is less than 50% brightness; Enable edit menu commands (copy/paste/etc.) in display commands windows; Don’t cut top off scrolling quick look previews; Allow text preview/file watching of any file with a text mime-type, not just .txt and .log; Ensure all window updates happen on the main thread; Quick Look windows via display command set to wallpaper level were empty

1.4.0 (β80): Set variables with script results; Remove option to run in Dock

1.4.0 (β79): Extra .01s delay when sending key combos to improve app responsiveness in some cases; Complete refactoring to make “Bunch Items” their own custom object; Move what can be truly executed in the background from async on main thread to a background thread; Give Quick Look previews in display command their own positionable window; Window titles for text and html display windows; Attempt to fix Preference layout on 10.13; Open-only Bunches not launching

1.4.0 (β78): Quick fix to clean up some debug logging

1.4.0 (β77): Major overhaul of shell command runner; Task monitors for shell scripts launched by a Bunch; (display) command for positionable floating windows containing local HTML, web sites, text or log files, or other file types as Quick Look previews; Specify multiple days/times in scheduling frontmatter, e.g. open on: M W F 8am, T Th 10am; Assign a global keyboard shortcut for opening Bunch menu in menu bar mode; Assign keyboard shortcuts for each Bunch using shortcut: frontmatter; More keyboard shortcuts for internal commands; Make default keyboard shortcuts for opening Bunches single numbers without modifiers (like ⌘); Use ${variables} inside of Bunches (like you would in Snippets), populated by frontmatter keys or manually when calling a Bunch from a Bunch. Documentation; ignores state: frontmatter to allow open bunches to reopen, closed bunches to re-close; Command-Option click to force close (menu bar mode); Command-Shift click to force open (menu bar mode); Header on Bunch menu shows what action modifier key clicks will perform (menu bar mode); Remove “Close Items In” menu in menu bar mode in favor of Command-Option click; menu divider frontmatter key that adds a menu separator before or after the Bunch in the menu` the Bunch in the menu; Allow sending global keyboard shortcuts (not tied to specific app); URL handler reveal method; URL handler edit method; URL handler can now match display titles as defined in frontmatter (case insensitive, emoji insensitive) when specifying Bunches; Add Accessibility Permission screen to startup splash; Add Accessibility Permission button to preferences with observer for current state; Persist NSTask for caffeinate command (awake) so it can be terminated without killall; Default Bunch Editor preference to TextEdit so there’s something assigned during setup; Add Hide/Unhide All Windows option in menu bar mode; Set default notification style to Alerts automatically; “Working” state for status bar item (yellow), toggled for long-running scripts, when waiting for input or counting down to scheduled open/close; Rename “Set” to “Add” in Bunch Folder preferences; Gentler watching of Bunch folder for changes, more thorough refresh; Light up status item (green) to notify that changes have been detected in the Bunch folder; Notifications Preferences shortcuts in preferences; Default to menu bar application, show Dock if preferred; Reduce transparency on preference window to improve legibility; Better image/text contrast for Welcome splash and Preferences; file watchers not deallocating; Don’t make preference window float above all other windows if running in Dock mode; allow Bunch main menu to appear when run in Dock Mode; Remove notification and stop timer when countdown clicked; F1-F12 not working as {keyboard combos}; Process variables before importing snippets so that placeholders can be used for snippet fragments (<snippet#${fragmentvar}); Keyboard focus for popups buttons and text fields in interactive dialogs; Scheduled open/close being invalidated after opening; Allow keyboard focus for popup buttons and text fields in interactive dialogs; Shell scripts in sequential mode fully wait for previous task to complete; Close Items in wouldn’t close if the Bunch wasn’t open, now forces

1.4.0 (β75): Fix for preferences not being dismissed

1.4.0 (β74): Added welcome splash sequence; Added a Preference pane; Added new formats for comments, // and block comments /* ... */; Allow comments on same line as Bunch items; Fixed infinite loop if referenced snippet file is not found; Accept more Unicode characters in key combo strings (↩, ␣, ⎋, etc.); Slow down automated typing by a couple milliseconds/key stroke; “Bunch Editor” preference; Allow Command-Clicking an app in the menu to open it in an editor; You can now assign variables on the fly using dialogs (text, popup button); Add % for Hyper key as a modifier key in key combo strings; Activate all windows of target app before sending keystrokes; Bear with me… if a Bunch opens another Bunch when it closes, don’t quit apps that the other Bunch opens anyway; Run all keystroke sequences on main thread, improved reliability and no crashes; Multiple issues affecting marking Bunches open/closed in the controller; Do a full close of open Bunches (including re-opening !closed Bunches) when switching in Single Bunch Mode; Handling of !!Bunch.bunch launch-on-close; Default url handler x-success delay to 1 instead of 5; Allow multiple files (comma separated) when calling snippet url handler; Allow fragments to be called per file in url snippet handler using hashes (encoded as %23); Descriptive titles for URL Handler calls in log; Watch from file: frontmatter files and automatically refresh the Bunch when changed; URL handler for open, close, and toggle allows multiple target Bunches separated by comma; Allow url handler to set arbitrary frontmatter keys using query string; Bunches with schedules now have tooltips on hover showing next open/close time; Fixed Raw URL handler not processing raw text; Ignore frontmatter lines with empty key or value; Fixed scheduled dates in logs off by 15 seconds; Various glitches with Bunch scheduling; Close Items In… menu not working; Fix for delayed launches in parallel Bunches (~5)

1.4.0 (β72): Complete rewrite of keystroke functionality for macOS 10.15+

1.4.0 (β71): Fixed @Focused apps failing to quit

1.4.0 (β70): You can now type strings within key combo syntax by surrounding with double quotes, e.g. {@n (tab)3 "typing an email\\n\\n-Brett" @$d}; More interactivity with multiple-choice dialogs and snippet branching; Restored missing “Launch Items in Parallel” preference

1.4.0 (β69): Better handling of Accessibility permissions requests; (stay awake) command to keep Mac awake while a Bunch is open (or for a set period of time , e.g. (stay awake 60)) [documentation]; Fixed menu ordering for real; toggles: false frontmatter key to only allow a Bunch to open, never close, not affecting the state of apps it contains or the menu. [documentation]; quits apps: always frontmatter key to allow a Bunch to quit apps even if they’re open in other Bunches [documentation]; “Quit Apps Open in Other Bunches” preference, global version of quits apps: always frontmatter [documentation]; If app can’t be activated, send a launch signal; Better “close all windows” handling for XX lines; If natural language interval has no s, m, h, or d, assume seconds (e.g. (sleep 120) assumes (sleep 120s)); For real fixed menu ordering

1.4.0 (β68): Syntax for opening Finder windows in tabs; single bunch mode: ignore frontmatter key to exclude a Bunch from be affected by Single Bunch Mode; Menu ordering fixed; Force dialogs to remain above other app’s windows; Fix hang when hiding all apps

1.4.0 (β67): “New Bunch With Open Apps” command; Option to execute Bunch items in parallel (all at once); “Recent Bunch Folders” in Preferences submenu; Better log messages for shell script errors; Move initial Bunch Folder location to ~/Documents/Bunches; Change wording of menu item from “Quit Apps In…” to “Close Items in…”; Changed “No” button in Optional Snippets dialog to “Cancel” so Escape key works; Offer relaunch dialog if log detail level is changed; Sort preferences in Bunch menu in Dock mode; %{} variable placeholder url encodes replacement; $BUNCH_PHASE environment variable for shell scripts to determine whether the Bunch is opening or closing; Improved: shell script parsing and execution; Fixed: Users couldn’t set log level to Debug; Offer “relaunch” dialog if log level is changed; ?"Optional Snippet" queries now work with on-close !<Snippets too; Repeating syntax for key commands {@n (right)10}; Ask the user if they want to close open Bunches when switching to a new Bunch folder

1.4.0 (β66): Allow frontmatter from script to wait for input, allowing scripts with dialogs; Only run frontmatter from script when opening, not when pre-loading tasks; Allow startup frontmatter to accept value of ask, offer yes/no dialog before loading; Better error handling for recursive nesting (Bunchception)

1.4.0 (β65): Sort menu by display title (ignoring emoji); “menu order” frontmatter to force menu display order

1.4.0 (β62): Don’t lowercase notify command text

1.4.0 (β61): Introduced frontmatter; Change menu display title with frontmatter; Set arbitrary snippet variables with frontmatter; “from script” and “from file” allow dynamic frontmatter; Mark a Bunch as a startup bunch with frontmatter; Schedule bunches to open and close at specified days and times using frontmatter; Tag search for files to open; Full Spotlight search for files to open; Launch files in their default app by using “Default” as app name; (notify) command to trigger notification center; (sleep) commands (sleep, sleep display, sleep screensaver); Indent snippets 4 spaces/1 tab to have them wait for all apps in the Bunch to launch or quit; < snippets can have a delay ~5; !< snippets will run on close; !< snippets can have a delay ~5; « Embedded snippets; Bunch Log with customizable log levels; Detect shebang and execute appropriate binary for non-executable shell scripts; Attempt at smarter app hiding; Update example Bunch; New features for the Bunch CLI, including “load as snippet” and interactive Bunch URL; Smarter shell script loading, better script shebang handling, binary detection; Documentation updates

1.3.6: Preference option to restore previously open Bunches when launching; Close launched Bunches when closing Bunch; Use !Name.bunch to close a bunch within a Bunch; Avoid infinite loops when opening/closing Bunches within Bunches (a Bunch can’t call itself)

1.3.5: New snippet url method (see docs); New x-success and x-delay parameters for all URL methods; New AppleScript method run snippet to mirror url handler; Allow default values for variables (${var:default}); Don’t freak out if variable placeholders are included in snippets but values are not provided when importing

1.3.4: Bugfix release

1.3.3: Launch Bunches on startup with *.startup files; On/Off images for Bunches in menu bar mode; Allow Bunches to be launched like applications; If a Bunch is launched by another Bunch, affect its check mark; Keyboard shortcuts in menu bar menu; Snippet files not found when they absolutely do exist; Better handling if a fragment isn’t matched; When a Bunch causes errors, gracefully ignore and continue processing other bunches

1.3.2: Update help links to new mini-site

1.3.1: Handle Do Not Disturb commands on Big Sur; Add syntax for confirm dialog when loading snippets, e.g. <test.snippet ?"Load this snippet?"; Allow Option-click on checked Bunch to clear check mark; AppleScript command “process text” to process raw Bunch commands

1.3.0: Fix for delayed apps not quitting on close

1.2.9: Better at maintaining “open” check marks; Reduce delay when storing and changing wallpaper; Add option to delay a launch or command with ~X at the end of line; Big Sur Dock Icon

1.2.8: add (audio mute) and (audio unmute) commands; allow separate input/output muting and volume commands; improved method for setting output volume

1.2.7: Allow !! to launch apps when closing a Bunch; Better error handling for unreadable Bunch files; Allow sections in snippets that can be called individually

1.2.6: New audio commands for switching inputs, outputs, and setting volume

1.2.5: Fix for issues when changing Bunch Folder preference

1.2.4: Add Microsoft Edge to browser-specific url options

1.2.3: Allow URLs to be opened in a specific browser.

1.2.2: Change escape codes for up and down from “\\p” and “\\n” to “\\u” and “\\d”; Add \\h delete, \\a home, \\e end escape codes; Allow leading and trailing space for [ typed string ] commands; Allow system key names in key commands, e.g. {@up}; Allow Unicode characters for arrow keys, e.g. {@↑}; Allow hyphenated long-form commands, e.g. {opt-left opt-left cmd-shift-up}; Make about panel appear in foreground when running in menu bar mode

1.2.1: (wallpaper [path]) command to specify desktop images

1.2.0: Ability to import “snippets” with variables for repeatable bunch actions

1.1.9: $BUNCH_DND environment variable for shell scripts, shows current Do Not Disturb state; $BUNCH_DOCK environment variable for shell scripts, shows current Dock visibility; $BUNCH_DESKTOP_ICONS environment variable for shell scripts, shows whether Desktop icons are visible

1.1.8: Send key commands using {@~w} in app file params; Type key sequences using [type this out] in app file params; Improve hiding all apps (@@)

1.1.7: New commands dark mode and dark mode off; Optimizations and fixes

1.1.6: Run commands when closing a Bunch: !(hide dock); Dock positioning commands: !(dock [left|right|bottom]); Launch At Login preference handling; Fixes Dock show/hide commands being reversed

1.1.5: Better reporting for Workflow errors; More dependable implementation for “@@” (hide all apps)

1.1.4: Fix for AppleScript “Corrupted Dictionary” errors

1.1.3: AppleScript improvements that will be invisible to the naked eye. Or really any end user.; Donate button twice in the menu bar version. Nobody needs that much prodding. I mean, you’re going to pitch in or you’re not, right?

1.1.2: Bunch can be automated with AppleScript; URL method setPrefs to change certain preferences from script; Bind bunch menu item states to a property so they’re always up-to-date

1.1.1: Additional environment variables for shell scripts; Updated Example.bunch with all the latest goodness; A script line (*&$) preceded by ! will only run that script when closing the Bunch; Status item submenu with Check For Updates (and Donate)

1.1.0: Preferences->”Run in Menu Bar” option; Preferences->”Launch at Login” option

1.0.10: Use & workflowname to run automator workflows; Use $ shell command to run shell scripts/commands; Menu command to clear check marks in toggle/single bunch mode (force launched Bunches to launch again); Url method raw for directly loading any Bunch-formatted file or directly passing bunch commands as a string; (dnd on) and (dnd off) commands for Do Not Disturb; Watch bunch folder for changes and refresh automatically; Opening or closing a Bunch via url command now toggles launched state in Dock menu when Toggle Bunches is active

1.0.9: Add close method to url handler; Add toggle method to url handler; Allow url handler methods to toggle Bunch state in Dock Menu; Show an alert when commands fail to make it easier to diagnose and fix Bunches; Add LaunchBar, Alfred, and CLI scripts to documentation

1.0.8: Add percent (%) before app name to ignore it when closing a Bunch; Add XX as a filename to close all windows for the app\; Desktop icons commands: (hide desktop) and (show desktop)

1.0.7: Toggle Bunches mode, check mark opened Bunches, click check marked Bunch to close; Single Bunch Mode; Quit Apps in Bunch… submenu; Bunch commands (hide dock) (show dock)

1.0.6: @@ alone on a line will hide all apps

1.0.5: New URL handler x-bunch:; Ability to change location of Bunches folder

1.0.4: Allow URL schemes (in addition to HTTP); Test if app is running or hidden before launching, hiding, quitting; Use NSWorkspace instead of AppleScript where possible; Allow _ suffix to hide app (experimental)

1.0.3: Add @focus syntax; Add *AppleScript syntax

1.0.2: Improve launch speed; Allow ![app name] to quit an app; Build for older macOS versions; Sort Bunches alphabetically in Dock menu

1.0.1: Remove cruft from app menus; Add “Show Bunches in Finder” to Dock and File menus

Bunch Release Notes

Backtrack