Browse Dan’s Tutorials through a Shortcut

Dan Wassink 0:01
In this video, we’re going to take a look at how we can browse my site dance tutorials through a shortcut. I’m also going to show you how it works and how you can modify it, you will also find a link to where you can download it to your device. So you can download it to your Mac, your iPad and iPhone, it does work across all the different devices. Let’s first see how this shortcut is used. We’re going to look at this on my Mac. First, let’s go to my Mac.

Now I’m in my shortcuts app here and you’re going to see I have a shortcut here called browse Dan’s tutorials. When I select this or run this shortcut, what I can do is I can select which links or which Pages I want to view in Safari, or my favorite browser, Safari being my favorite browser. So let’s go ahead and run it and see how this works. I click on the play button here, we have a window that pops up and we can see I can browse the latest lessons, I can browse upcoming events. And then I can also view the latest Apple news from various sites such as Apple insider or Daring Fireball. What I’m going to do is go and browse upcoming events. So now I just select upcoming events.

And then I click on Done. When I do that this shortcode is going out to my site, and it’s finding all of the upcoming events. From here, what I do is I select which ones I want to view. So I want to view the WWDC event, I want to view the Ask Me Anything that’s coming up. And let’s go with this ask me anything. So I just selected three of those events. Now when I click on done here, what it’s going to do is open up those events and Safari in separate tabs. So we can see I have my different events here. Let’s see what this looks like on the iPad and iPhone. Let’s go over to my iPad and iPhone. And let’s first look at it on the iPad. Again, when I swipe up, you’re gonna see I have browse Dan’s tutorials. So now I just run it, we can see I can browse the latest lessons, browse upcoming events, as well as view the latest Apple news.

Let’s go and browse the latest lessons selected, it’s now grabbing the latest lessons. And then from here, what I’m able to do is select which ones I want to view. So let’s just go and select a few of these, we can see we’re adding a checkmark here. And then when I tap on Done, it’s going to open up those three lessons in separate tabs on my iPad. So now I can browse through those different lessons. If we go to the iPhone, again, basically the same way, I just go to Browse Dan’s tutorials, we’re going to view the latest Apple news here. Now it’s grabbing some news that my site is aggregating from various sites. And then I tap on the ones I want to read. I tap on Done, and it’s going to open up those in the respective sites, I do need to allow it to open up those other sites. So now here we can see it’s opening up Apple Insider. And if I swipe over, there’s Apple Insider. There’s six colors. So it opened up those different articles in the different sites.

So that’s what the shortcut does. Now let’s take a look at how it works. We’re going to look at this on the Mac, but it basically works the same way on the iPad and iPhone. Let’s go back over to my Mac. And then what we do is we go down to browse Dan’s tutorials, I double click on it to open it up. And from here, what we’re able to do is see all of the different steps or actions, and shortcuts, the steps are called actions. So the first thing it does is it allows me to choose from a menu, that’s that menu that pops up. Here, I can change what is shown in that menu. Maybe I have a typo in there, I want to say it in a different way, all I have to do is just select what I want to change here and change it.

So that’s what it is displaying. Now each one of these items here is linked to an RSS feed. So when I go over to browse latest lessons here, this is linked to an RSS feed not to get too nerdy but an RSS feed is what we’re able to do is pull information from a website. This is how basically podcasts work through RSS feeds. So with this first item here, this first menu item, what it’s going to do when I selected is pull all of the articles from this RSS feed. This is all of my latest lessons. If I were to select view the latest Apple news, what it would do is it would go down to this RSS feed here and pull off the latest articles. So not to get too complicated, but basically what it is doing is is displaying a menu when you select it, it is linking what you select to an RSS feed. So it’s just linking that. The next thing we need to do is we need to pull that information. So now this shortcut knows where that information is.

This, but what do we want to do with it? We want to pull it. Well, how many items do we want to pull? How do we want to have it sorted. So when I swipe up here, you’re gonna see that it is going to get 10 items from those RSS feeds, whichever one I selected. So if I wanted to change it to 20 items, or five items, I could just click on this and change that. So now it’s going to get those 10 items. And next thing we can do is we can set how it is sorted how it is displayed. So it is sorted by publish date. And the order is the latest first, so it’s going to have the latest articles up towards the top. So we’ve selected which items we want. The shortcut went and got the link for that item that we selected, then it pulls that RSS feed. And now what it does is it sorts it.

The next thing we need to do is we need to choose which ones we want to read. So here’s where the action is choose from the different articles, so it’s displaying the different articles. Now what we need to do is we need to choose them. When I click on show more, what I’m able to do is set A to select multiple, this is how I can select more than one article. If I don’t want to have it select multiple, maybe I only want to have you select one item, all you have to do is just deselect that, I can also set it to select all initially, so it’s going to select all of them initially. And then I have text in here, which articles and events would you like to open.

So now we’ve selected what we want to see, the shortcut then went and associated what we want to see with its respective RSS feed link. The shortcut, then went and got the 10 items from that RSS feed and went and sorted it, we’ve selected what we want to view, the last step is to open it up. So now what it’s going to do is open up the chosen item, or chosen items, because we’ve selected or we possibly selected more than one. So that’s basically how this works. If you wanted to change this, maybe you have some websites that you’d like to view, all you really have to do is just go and change the wording here, you can go and change the RSS feeds. To find out if a site has an RSS feed, all you have to do is just search for RSS feed validator just search for in Google and then you’ll see various options or various sites where they can validate an RSS feed. Once you get that RSS feed that link, you just have to put it into the respective spot here. So if I select Browse the latest lessons, I need to go in the first one here. If I select Browse upcoming events, I need the RSS feed for that. So if I were to change this to Washington Post, the first one is Washington Post, I would find the RSS feed for Washington Post. And then I would put that RSS feed here. Now let’s go with CNN.

I need to put CNN in here for the text. And then I need to find the RSS feed for CNN. And again, just Google RSS feed for CNN and you should be able to find it. Not all websites have RSS feeds, but most of them do. If I wanted to go with the New York Times for the third one, I would go in YT here, and then I could find the RSS feed for the New York Times. So that’s the first step. How many items do you want to get from those different RSS feeds? I would probably just leave it at the default 10. How do you want to have it sorted? The latest first that sounds good. And then you choose from the articles. You don’t have to make any changes here. And then you just open it up.

It’ll open it up in Safari in different tabs. So that’s basically how this works. Once you break it down, you can see it’s not that difficult. We just need to change some verbiage and find some RSS feeds a little bit nerdy but not too bad. So now how do we add this to our different devices, so we have easy access to it? Well, if I wanted to add this to my menu bar on the Mac, maybe I want to access this every morning, what I would do is I would go over to this shortcuts settings here, I click on these three horizontal lines. And then I pin it to the menu bar. Once it’s pinned to the menu bar, I can close this. Let’s go ahead and close the shortcuts app. And now all I have to do is just go up to the menu bar here. And you’re gonna see I can browse dance tutorials, select it, and I can select what I want to read.

Then with the iPad and iPhone, what I can do is I can add it to my home screen. So now I go back over to my shortcuts app. And then what we do is we view the details of the shortcut. So I tap on these three dots here. We go over to this shortcut settings, and I can go and add it to the home screen. Same thing with the iPhone. We go over to our shortcuts app. We added the shortcut. And then we go over to our settings for the shortcut, and I can go and add it to the home screen. So that’s basically what the shortcut does, how it works and how you can modify it for your own sites. Now below, I do have a link to where you can download this shortcut for your own use, you do not have to modify it, all you have to do is just open up your shortcuts app and you can run it. The first thing that you’ll want to do though, is make sure that you can accept shortcuts from untrusted people on the Mac, what we need to do is go to our shortcuts preferences.

So I’m going to close the shortcut here. And then I’m in the shortcuts app, we need to be in the shortcuts app. And then we go over to our Preferences. Under preferences, what you’re going to see, under General is private sharing, we need to make sure that this is turned on. When this is turned on, you will be able to download and install this shortcut from my site. Now what about the iPad and iPhone? Well, let’s go find out. Let’s go over to my iPad and iPhone on the iPad and iPhone. While we do is we go over to our settings app. And then we find shortcuts on the left, I’m looking at my iPad here, you’re gonna see I have shortcuts here. And we want to make sure that private sharing here is turned on. Same thing with the iPhone, I just go over to my settings app.

I swipe up until I find shortcuts. And again, you’re gonna see I have private sharing, we want to make sure that that is turned on. Once you have that turned on, you can download this shortcut. Once you’ve downloaded it, you’ll find it in your shortcuts app. From there, what you’re able to do is modify you can go and change it, you can duplicate it, so you can keep mine and modify it and play around with it for your own sites. The only tricky part is going to be the RSS feeds you have to find an RSS feed for the site that you want to use. But it’s a great starter shortcut to see what you can do with it. Once you have it all set where you want. What you can do is you can add it to your home screen on the iPad and iPhone and then you can also add it to your menu bar on the Mac. So that’s a shortcut for browsing my site as well as how it works and how you can modify for your own liking. If you have any questions about it, feel free to reach out and ask me. So that’s how you can browse Dan’s tutorials through a shortcut on the Mac, iPad and iPhone