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by bytesandbots 1628 days ago
Shortcuts is my favourite new thing in ios. I only wish there was some way to get screen time data. I have never installed these endless scrolling apps in the first place, but I find myself using the mobile web version more and more. The data is there within screen time but no reliable way to read that from API or shortcuts. The app time limits are not in steps so I find them insufficient as a barrier.
1 comments
criddell 1628 days ago
What's the best way to learn Shortcuts? I've made a couple of ultra-simple things, but get stuck with anything slightly more complex.

For example, I have a spreadsheet where I want to log my workouts. I have a shortcut that opens numbers and adds a blank row and that was easy to make. But now I want to add the current date in column A of the new row and I've never been able to figure that one out.

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nefitty 1628 days ago
With some of this stuff there's specifications that can be obtuse. It takes some research to discover what iOS expects an input to look like.

For your shortcut, without knowing the specific step you're stuck at, first get the current date. You'll then want to format the date using the Calender->Format Date block, setting the custom format to what you need based on these rules: https://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-datetime-970915

I don't have Numbers, but maybe figuring out A1 spreadsheet notation might help.

My general tips: use a whiteboard or a notebook to sketch out your pipeline, study other people's Shortcuts to learn new tricks, use the alert and exit blocks to debug stuff and finally, make sure you're coercing/casting data into types that Shortcuts can use (Scripting->Get Type will help).

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