MoodBlast icon

Getting The Most Out Of MoodBlast

MoodBlast has a lot of advanced features, some that happen in the background, and some that you have to know about to take advantage of. Getting good with keyboard navigation can help make your MoodBlast experience more pleasant, and learning the symbols and keywords can help you take advantage of all of my sweat and tears. In the lower lefthand corner of the blast panel, there's a shortcut icon. Try it out.

Jazz Fingers

CommandHotkeyDescription
Open WindowUser-DefinedYou choose your own hotkey in the preference panel (launched by clicking the nurse, typing ⌘, or from the dropdown menu in the menubar). Remember that while MoodBlast is running, the hotkey is system-wide. Choose one that won't override an important key combination in another program. You can use modifier keys and most combinations will work.
Open History⌘↓Pressing Command-down arrow will open the Mood History. You can select from previous moods by using the arrow keys. Using the enter key or space will fill the input field with your selection.
Open Preferences⌘,When the MoodBlast panel is open, command-comma will open the preferences panel. It will leave your current string in the MoodBlast panel alone, and will let you change your settings and strings as necessary before sending your text.
CancelThe escape key will clear out any text your typing, and if the entry field is empty it will close the MoodBlast panel. If the preferences window is open, it will close that as well. You can basically get out of any MoodBlast action by hitting escape. Be warned, though, that there is no "Cancel" once you've sent a blast. You're text is headed for the rest of the world, so watch your fingers on that enter key.
SendReturn, when pressed at any point in the MoodBlast panel, will send the current text to the currently selected services. If pressed in the test panel, it will apply any changes in the test panel to the blast panel and will send them on a subsequent press.
Service Selection[a,i,s,t,j,y,f,u]If you tab out of the input field, you can then use the first letter of each service to toggle its checkbox. [a]dium, [s]kype, [y]appd, [f]acebook, etc. Tumblr is triggered by "U", since "T" was taken by Twitter...
Quit MoodBlast⌘QIf the MoodBlast window is in the foreground, and if you can see it, it should be, pressing command-Q will quit the program, removing it from the menubar and from memory (or dock if you've set that in the preferences). To ensure that you don't quit your current foreground app instead, you may want to hit your MoodBlast hotkey prior to hitting ⌘Q. The shortcut won't work if the Preference panel is open, in which case you'd have to press escape (cancel) or enter (save) first.
Test Blast⌘TOnce you've typed a string, you can test it with command-T. This will open a drawer and show you the processed result of any !bang-words, %variables, etc. Focus doesn't leave the input window, so if you like what you see, you can just press enter to send.
Select All Services⌘⇧AQuickly select all available clients with command-shift-A. MoodBlast will generally only send to the ones you have running at the time.
Deselect All⌘⇧DCommand-shift-D will deselect all clients.
Save Current Service Set⌘⇧SCommand-shift-S will save the currently selected set of chat clients and web services for later restoration. If you have a modus operandi when updating that you occasionally stray from, this is a good way to get back to it.
Restore Saved Set⌘⇧RCommand-shift-R will restore the last saved set of services.

Making Edits

If you run a test on a blast (⌘-T), the panel showing the processed blast is editable. Click on the mood message in the panel and make changes, then press Enter. The edited blast will be restored to the blast panel and a subsequent press of Enter will send the blast.


Saving Time

MoodBlast maintains a list of recent "moods". This isn't so handy for Twitter, Jaiku, Tumblr, and Facebook, but can be a timesaver for your chat clients. If you repeatedly leave a message like "@away Going for lunch", it'd be nice to have it in the menu for quick picking. A dropdown of recent moods is available with ⌘-↓. You can also save time by entering default strings for chat clients in the statuses panel. For example, if you set a default string of "Out to lunch" for a status called lunch, then typing @lunch will set the enabled chat clients mood to "Out to lunch" and not send anything to the online services. Further, you can set a default status for blasts, so that if you set an away, the first blast you send when you get back defaults to your default status, which would probably be something like @here.


Facebook specialties

Facebook statuses are reported with the prefix "Username is...". This makes a lot of strings that would be set as chat moods sound peculiar in the Facebook world. You can compensate for this using Facebook addition and substraction syntax in MoodBlast. Using square brackets preceded by a plus (+) or minus (-) symbol will, respectively, send the enclosed string only to Facebook or to everything but Facebook. For example, "-[I'm] feeling a little devious" will send "I'm feeling a little devious" to all other services, but will send "feeling a little devious" to Facebook. Using "+[feeling lazy.] There's no point in fighting it." will send "There's no point in fighting it." to other services and Facebook will show "Brett Terpstra is feeling lazy. There's no point in fighting it." The + and - formats can be combined in one string, allowing even for completely different strings to be sent to Facebook vs. all other services. The addition and subtraction syntax can also enclose % and ! functions. "-[It's %t and I'm eating] +[seriously enjoying] a PB&J" results in "It's 5:08pm and I'm eating a PB&J" for Twitter, Jaiku, etc. and "Brett Terpstra is seriously enjoying a PB&J" for Facebook.

New addition: Shortened facebook notation =[x|y], where x is for facebook and y is for everything else. This can be used in addition to +[] and -[], but only one of each type per string. (=[quickly|I'm madly] preparing to -[leave] +[skip] town.)


Tumblr specialties

Tumblr has several special features, most of which are automatic. Posting a YouTube link will automatically turn it into an embedded video on Tumblr while sending a shortened link to everything else. There is a Tumblr option in the preference panel to shorten links. If it's selected, any links sent to Tumblr will be shortened. The text that precedes the link in the blast will become the title of the link (hotlinked) and any text that follows the link will become the description. In a video post, text before the YouTube link is combined with text following the link, split by a line break, and becomes the caption of the video.


Jaiku specialties

Jaiku locations can be specified along with a status. You can set different locations and then tag them along with your blast by including the associated status. You can set up an @keyword and leave the chat clients blank, filling in only the location, and use that @keyword to send a location without affecting your chat status.

You can also enable and disable Jaiku channel support in the Passwords pane of the preferences panel (⌘,). This feature will look for #ChannelName at the beginning of your blast (or following an @keyword), remove it from the blast and send it only to Jaiku.


On-the-fly Service Overrides

Using the carat followed by the shortcut keys (terminated by a space) for any or all of the available services will temporarily override the service checkboxes for the current blast. For example, "^afu @gone Getting some Thai food for lunch" would send a gone status to Adium and set the message "Getting some Thai food for lunch" in Adium, Facebook and Tumblr. If the characters between the carat and the next space contain anything other than a shortcut for a service, the entire grouping will be ignored and sent as part of your blast.


@keywords

@keywords are optional. You can send them alone or at the beginning or end of a string. The keywords are easily edited in the preferences, but here’s the default set and what they do in each of the available chat clients. If you have a chat client selected for updating but it’s not open, no changes will be sent to it. Also, direct responses on the online services are enabled now, so if you type an @ symbol followed by any string that MoodBlast doesn't recognize as an internal status, it will be sent on. Each status can have a Jaiku location and default chat mood assigned to it. If a status is used and Jaiku is enabled, the Jaiku location will be set along with the mood string that is sent. Default chat moods are set in the chat clients if no mood is specified with the @keyword. Default chat moods are not sent to web services. They can contain %strings and !bang-words.


Adium iChat Skype
@gone offline offline OFFLINE
@away away away AWAY
@here available available ONLINE
@busy away away NA
@hidden invisible away INVISIBLE
@goaway away away DND

%strings

%strings are little template variables that are replaced in your string. They are %t (time), %w (weekday), %m (month) and %y (year). Using the syntax %t+x where x is an integer representing minutes will increment the time by that number of minutes. So you could say “back at %t+60″ to give the time in one hour. You can set the format for time display, which carries over into weather variables that include the time, in the "Strings" preference panel. This includes various formatting options for the display of the am/pm suffix, as well as 24 hour time.


!bang-words

Bang-words (that’s what I’m calling them) do other neat tricks. Bang-words can be used in combination with an @keyword or by themselves. In some cases, bang-words are altered by the text that comes directly before them (and after any @keywords).
Bang WordDescription
!blankClears out your status message in all chat clients and in Facebook (sending nothing to Twitter, Jaiku, Tumblr, or Facebook).
!xxxxxWhere xxxxx is a 5 digit US Zip Code. Sends the weather for a US city to all selected clients. See below for more options.
!weather[c|f]The weather keyword, followed by a City, Country style search string will give you international weather. Adding “c” or “f” to the end of the !weather bang-word will change to Fahrenheit or Celsius in the results. Adding +[1-9] will give you a forecast for that many days ahead (1 being today). See below for more options.
!itunewill send your current iTunes track. While there is a default prefix, the words before !itune will determine the prefix for the string. “Rocking out to !itune” will result in “Rocking out to Sheena is a Punk Rocker by The Ramones”. There is also extended support for classical selections, and it should do a pretty good job of determining composers and performers on well-labeled tracks.
!call!call [numbertocall] will use Skype to make a phone call. This can be combined with an @keyword and mood message sent to all selected clients. The number or user name to call must be surrounded by square brackets ([]).
!ytfav!ytfav will grab your last favorited video on YouTube and post it as a link. The link is shortened for most services, but sent as an embedded video link to Tumblr. !ytfav can be preceded by a custom prefix which will have the title of the video appended to it. The username for YouTube commands is set in the Passwords tab of the preference panel.
!ytup!ytup functions similarly to !ytfav, but will send your most recently uploaded video.

Weather

!xxxxx (replacing xxxxx with a 5 digit US zip code) will send the current weather in a string. You can define the format and included variables for the weather string in the "Weather" preference panel. You can also define a default prefix, such as “Right now in”, that precedes the weather string in the output. However, this can be overridden on the fly by typing words before the !xxxxx keyword. Typing “Roasting in !weather” will output “Roasting in Winona, MN:…”. This trick applies to all of the weather bang-words and !itune.

!weather allows more flexibility and is the successor to !xxxxx. Typing just !weather will load the weather for the default location specified in the config section of the script. Optionally, you can append a “c” or an “f” to specify Celsius or Fahrenheit, overriding the default set in the config. But the flexibility comes into play when you follow !weather with a search string. Typing a city and state/country after the !weather bang-word will find the location code and gather the weather info for that location. As mentioned above, this can be prepended with a custom prefix, and the string format can be edited in the preferences.

!weather+[1-9] will give you a forecast in the same manner, allowing for search strings and temperature unit specification. Typing "!weatherc+3 Paris, France" will give you a forecast for Paris, in Celsius, three days ahead. The forecasts start at 1, which is the outlook for the current day.


Music

!itune will insert your current track. You can edit the template for the track listing, as well as the default prefix, in the config. The prefix can be overridden on the fly in the same fashion as the weather bang-words. This is nice because you don’t always want to just be “Listening to” your music. You could be “Rocking out to” or “Mellowing to” just by typing the words followed by !itune (Rocking out to !itune). As always, you can optionally include an @keyword with that (@here Rocking out to !itune).

Classical music support is built in, but doesn't allow for the same customization. Test your strings and see how they look before sending them.


Calling

!call will load up your contacts in Skype. Following !call with a fully qualified number (including country code) or a Skype user name will immediately call that number. This can be preceded or followed by an @keyword to set your status while you make the call, and a mood message after the number will be used to set your status on selected clients and services. Example string: “@away !call [+15554935555] Making yet another call”.


Applescript

MoodBlast supports one command which essentially gives access to all of its functionality: "blast". In an Applescript just use the command tell app "MoodBlast2" to blast "^asitjyf Your current mood". Any of the ^overrides, Facebook specialties, Jaiku Channel support, etc. can all be used in the blast.