My new favorite utility - a Claude-built python app for turning macOS Preview PDF highlights into a plaintext list

I've asked Claude to build me a few tools, but my new favorite is a macOS droplet that turns macOS Preview PDF highlighted text into a plaintext document like this:

It's written in Python. I used Google Antigravity -- there wasn't much of a prompt. By accident I prematurely submitted something like 'turn every contiguous highlighted text string into a quotes with page number'. It went through some minor revision cycles that simplified the citation reference and added a descriptive header with available metadata. I even made some small changes by hand. (Antigravity burned my free Claude Thinking credits so I started doing more things manually.)

Claude made me a bash script that lets the Python code run as a droplet.

If I open the text file and copy all, then paste into MindNode, I get one quote per node.

I used Claude Thinking with Google Antigravity. I tried Gemini a bit but it is far behind Claude.

I thought about sharing the code for this, but it's ai generated. You could just tell the ai what you want using the above as an example. (The "con-stitutive" is a hard-for-Claude edge case with text wrapping in PDFs.)

Anyway, if anyone wants the code just leave a comment below and I'll put it on my personal web site and add a link here.

Canon BR-E1 remote blinking red when used with Canon Digital Rebel SL2: Bluetooth repairing

My Canon BR-E1 remote was blinking red when I tried to use it with my Canon Digital Rebel (DR) SL2, aka EOS 200D. Perplexity ai answers were all incorrect.

This is a Bluetooth remote. The red blinking is an error code related to pairing. You probably need to repair, though it doesn't hurt tI o change the remote battery.

Forget the web and forget ai, you need the PDF manuals for your SL2 and the BR-E1. But if you can't find them:

1. On Camera: Wireless communication settings.
2. Change Bluetooth function: setting to "remote".
3. If it still doesn't work you need to repair. Choose "Check/clear connection info"
4. Now choose Pairing.
5. On remote press and hold W/T for 3 seconds and release. LED flashes briefly.

Face-name assignment in macOS Photos app is only local, not synchronized to iCloud

Apple's photo management software is a great illustration of Apple's decline.

Anyway, just so you know, the assignment of Face/Pet identification to a Photo is only stored locally. It's not synchronized to iCloud.  I have also read that it does not really work with storage optimized macOS Photos Libraries; the process only works on full res images (might very very slowly work, never really catches up with adding photos).

If your Library is corrupted and you start a new instance from iCloud you lose all the Face ID information (and probably other information). I don't know if full local backup and restore saves the Face identification data.

I could test this because I use macOS Photos with both an optimized and full res Library.

For images that I care about I use a smart album in my full res Library to tag Face identified images with keywords. Those are synchronized.

PS. Bonus bug just discovered today: Photos.app has keywords that don't find any photos using a smart album, but when you delete the keyword you are told there are actually photos that have it.

Sharing with iCloud Links: working around a bug in macOS Sequoia Photos

I don't write many posts about Apple bugs in the modern era. If I did I'd be putting out several every day. I cannot use a modern macOS Apple product without running into yet another bug. Photos is a particularly rich example of the Tim Cook era bugfest.

Today's bug concerns sharing by iCloud Link. This is theoretically the best way to share photos and videos between iCloud users (full res, esp video, full metadata if you are careful), but there's a bug with assigning them to an album (may depend on volume)

Steps:

1. Open iCloud Link via messages
2. See result in Sharing:iCloud Links. Wait until fully downloaded.
3. Drag and drop to an album
4. The images do not appear.

There's something broken in the drag and drop function. Maybe it's fixed in Tahoe, but Tahoe is a typical Tim Cook era product. Broken by both bugs and bad design.

I tried a few things, I'm not sure yet what worked. That included switching to an instance of my Photo Library that is full resolution download. After the usual long delay due to iCloud throttling the images did appear in my Library, but not in the album they were copied too. I could move them from the Library to an album.

Next time I'll try selecting all images, dragging to "Library", then reviewing in "Recently Saved" and copying to an album. If that works I hope I remember to update this post. I think if you try to copy them to an album it looks like it intends to copy (get the warning about adding xxx images); I think even though they don't make to the album they do end up, eventually, in the Library.

I apologize to everyone I ever shared an iCloud Link with.

Tim Cook should have been fired years ago. The stock would be worth less but the company would suck less.