Actions process on Mac but not on iOS

Actions - Help & Questions
1

Hi!

Trying to switch to drafts as my daily note keeper thx to unlimited options!
I am trying to use actions to process my daily draft at the end of the day using on my mind action group as a start.

I am noticing that on the mac it processes all the “chunks” correctly (without opening the apps - I am using Day one and Goodtask). On my phone it goes through all the items but only processes the first chunk and stays on cursor in the app. What am I missing to create the same behavior on iOS?

TIA!

2

Does this have to do with using x-callback-urls for actions on iOS? If so, can someone please help post the correct syntax?

3

Can you give me some more details?

You could be on the right track there, but since you configure your own actions you want to run when you process the On My Mind draft, I can’t tell you what’s going wrong right now.

If you can, please share the 2nd script step of the „process on my mind“ action and the actions you’ve configured there.

I am using the actions myself and I have no issues with my configuration.

Also is the processing on the iPhone opening e.g. day one and keeping it open or what is the exact behavior?

4

Sure. here’s the omm action where I’ve changed the actions and the ones that are failing are the day one and the goodtask actions - the script for which are

goodtask3://x-callback-url/add?title=[[draft]] in the template section as the Callback URL in the script for the action and

dayone://post?entry=[[draft]] in the template section as URL steps

And yes, the processing on the iphone opens the app that I selected for action with the first chunk, posts the first chunk to that app and keeps the app open. No problem with obsidian (but i suspect its because I am posting file directly to the file system)

// process chunks in On My Mind

let actionArray = [
// [‘:white_check_mark: Todoist inbox’, ‘INBOX line’s’],
// [‘:inbox_tray: Task & Description’,‘create tasks with description from Draft’],
// [‘:card_index_dividers: Bookmark to DEVONthink’, ‘bookmark to DEVONthink’],
// [‘:keyboard: Day One’, ‘Save in Obsidian Vault’],
// [‘:date: Create Event’, ‘Event in Fantastical’],
[‘1. Obsidian’, ‘Send to Obsidian’],
[‘2. GoodTask’, ‘Smart Add GoodTask’],
[‘3. Day One’, ‘Send to Day One’],
// [‘:clipboard: add to list’, ‘Add to list’],
// [‘4. DayOne Draft’,‘Append DayOne draft’],
[‘’, ‘’],
[‘:wastebasket: trash’, ‘trashChunk’],
[‘:next_track_button: skip’, ‘skipChunk’]
// [‘’, ‘’],
];

// END OF USER DEFINITIONS
// ----------------------------------------------------

5

Thanks,

I tried it with good tasks and can reporduce the issue. Either this is a bug in GoodTask or it is only a premium feature that doesn‘t work in the basic version (not sure if you‘re a paid user).

If you use the callback url step you need to make sure to set the „wait for return“ toggle in the step configuration. Otherwise this will not work. For me the action gets stuck since goodtask never returns to Drafts. If you‘re a subscriber reach out to the GoodTask developer to get this fixed (if it is a bug).

DayOne doesn‘t support the callback url scheme so that‘s why it won’t reopen Drafts after creating the entry.

A solution I found would be to use Shortcuts in between. I tried that for GoodTask and it will work similarly with DayOne - you just need to change the step in the Shortcut.

If you download this action and the shortcut mentioned in the documentation you can use this in your process on my mind action and it will work for multiple tasks.

6

You are amazing. I will try out the things you mentioned.

I don’t think GoodTask has a subscription model but I’ve a paid license if that’s what you mean. Will reach out to that dev regardless

For my understanding, is this expected behavior in iOS because this works on the Mac. And is it because a) I need to use callback URLs on the phone and b) workaround is require because of needing the callback url

I’m surprised also because nobody else seemed to bring it up and wondering if there is a way to use GoodTask and DayOne in the way I’m not

Thanks again for your help

1 Like
7

Yes I was referring to the paid license. I found something mentioned in their forums about it being restricted in the trial on the Mac so i just assumed it could be the same on iOS (since I don’t have a paid license). Maybe you only have to toggle the „wait for response“ in the action step and it’ll work for you but not sure.

On iOS the x-callback-url you’re using for GoodTask should work.
For DayOne I don’t see that the callback URLs are documented so this is expected behavior and you can use the workaround using Shortcuts :blush:

There are as many different workflows as users out there :joy:

1 Like
8

Thank you. I think I almost got this to work last night (may need a tweak or two)

When the actions/shortcuts run, it runs each action separately

  1. So it goes through the drafts — shortcuts — Goodtask loop for each item.
  2. For day one this means that it creates multiple entries

I think what I would like is a single day one entry, multiple Goodtask entries (as is current behavior) and either hidden or single loop that comes back after actions are processed. Will I have to write an action that “collects” all the entries for each app and then processes it? Any ideas or suggestions welcome

9

What you describe is the intended behavior for every chunk in the On My Mind draft it first creates a single draft and then runs the configured actions on them.

I have two ideas regarding your day one issue:

  1. adapt your shortcut: I don’t know your system in day one but maybe you can do something like this: Shortcuts this will first search through your day one entries and append the shortcut input if an entry exists today and create an entry if not (this is not a finished version!)
  2. You could also adapt the action in drafts so that it will append the contents to a temporary draft and in the end of the process on my mind action run another action that posts this temporary draft to day one

I think adapting your shortcut is the easier was but that depends on your journaling system.