Monarch Extensions

This was previously “Support for raycast extensions”. OP (@hummingbirdmoth): “This would cover a lot of current requests and attract substantial interest from existing raycast users.” Developer response Monarch will be featuring its own unique extensions ecosystem. After doing research on a couple open source projects, unfortunately supporting Raycast extensions directly presents unique challenges to Monarch that it doesn’t to similar projects. Besides that, it also presents limitations to Monarch’s extension platform design that just don’t make sense to replicate simply for the ability to port over extensions that would actually be easier to build with Monarch’s API anyway. Simply porting extensions also runs the risk of setting the expectation that because other launchers do something a certain way that Monarch will do it that way, and as we’ve seen with recent releases from v0.8+ this is not going to be the case. To be clear I fully expect that Monarch’s Extensions platform will go further and be more powerful than Raycast’s or Alfred’s. I can’t say too much right this moment, but I’ve been thinking on this for quite some time and so far I’ve been able to do things that I was unaware a Mac app could do. It just doesn’t make sense to withhold this power for the sake of parity with tools we intend to surpass.

Monarch AI

Add the ability to use ChatGPT, GPT4, or other LLMs directly within Monarch

Snippets

Alfred has snippets, it's like TextExpander: small pieces of text get expanded into full phrases, or even whole scripts get executed.

Things 3 support

Similar to the Apple reminders support, can we get support for Things 3? In particular, the ability to show upcoming/timed tasks in the main window.

Add Spotify Mode

A way to change shortcut icons in monarch

Currently, the shortcuts app doesn't allow you to have custom icons for different shortcuts. It would be nice if Monarch would allow us to change the default icon of a shortcut that gets shown in the launcher itself. Possibly the use of cmd + e could open a separate editing menu(not editing in the shortcuts app, but there could be a button in the said menu that opens the shortcut app) this is where the icon could be changed with other things. If cmd + e should still open the shortcuts app to change the functionality then I would like to propose the use of (cntrl + e) or (cmd + shift + e) to go into said editing menu(to change the icon and things). This change would allow better customization of the launcher and would make it easier to recognize shortcuts. This is what the icon looks like right now for any shortcut from the shortcuts app:

Clean keyboard function

You call the function, you keyboard is locked and a monarch stays on top of everything where you can click in a button to unlock

Monarch for Windows

Sometime after Monarch v0.9 releases, it will be time to start looking at support for Windows 10 and 11. This will be prioritized based on how much need there is across the Monarch user base and those who would be using Monarch but do not own a Mac.

Browser Tab Search

I understand that via bookmark search, Monarch keeps track of opened tabs. On the other hand, I would like to simply search through my open tabs (I tend to have a lot of them sometimes) via a quick search in Monarch.

Rank or Weight categories of results

I’d like to be able to weight up or down particular categories of results from within monarch. For example, if I type the prefix “ch” right now, every contact with ch in their name shows up and Chrome doesn’t. I know you have a short alias gc for Google Chrome. Another example, if I prefix “sl”, an old grad school acquaintance with a last name starting with Sl comes up before Slack. If I type the letter “y”, various browser bookmarks show up first. I understand you’re applying some kind of heuristic so that recently chosen items come up higher, and that’s good, but in general it’d be nice to be able to tell Monarch “apps should count for more, contacts and bookmarks should count for less”.

Support Apple Music Control, for example, random play, pause.

wifi, bluetooth, sound output switch function

Simple timer, countdown, and notification reminder after the countdown is completed.

Being able to export superlinks so that they can be shared

A similar thing to the way Apple Shortcuts can be exported and imported. This would allow people to easily share their custom-made superlinks and would personally allow me to provide a more hassle-free setup for shortcuts found in this repo: https://github.com/UnknownCrafts/Regent/tree/main

Ability to consume apis

Same concept as with smart links but with api's

Next calendar event preview

Just like you have added support for managing reminders in Monarch, please add support for showing the next event in the control bar. Even better would be to have a quick action to join the meeting link provided in the location field of the event.

reminder exclude completed item

Shortcut Keys

The main thing I’m looking for is a way to bind applications to hotkeys. I use Ctrl+1 for my terminal etc. and the effect on my productivity is ridiculous. I don’t even have to see the window come up to focus and start typing.

Viewer support

It would be great if there was a viewer support (like in Finder and LaunchBar) to quickly preview a file. With the file selected, pressing a spacebar could open a preview of a document, play a music file or play a movie.

License Key Management

This is the ability to manage Monarch license keys for your devices yourself. It will be done through the Monarch website: https://monarchlauncher.com

Finding files/folder

I use the "find" prefix within alfred alot, to find certain folders or files on my system, would love to have the same functionality here.

Kill Process

Similar to force quit

Brew

Would be nice to install and update from Brew

Custom abbreviations for apps

Right now Monarch supports abbreviations like gc for Chrome and vsc for Visual Studio Code, as you note in your manual. I would like to be able to define a custom abbreviation for any arbitrary app. This can use the Superlink interface or a new interface.

Contacts should have photos

Right now if a contact comes up in your search, it’s a default symbol icon. I add photos to all my contacts because especially with people I don’t know well with common first names, it’s a helpful way to remember their last name and ensure I’m talking to the right person. I don’t know if contacts . app allows serializing the photos, but I’d hope it does. If not, I’d still like the ability to manually add a photo within Monarch.

Find inside files.

When searching for files there should be possible to find inside them. With a prefix or not.

Being able to run/save shell commands like superlinks

Superlinks as they exist right now are kind of limiting since they can only take in a URL and they have to open an application to pass the URL to. As a workaround for this, we have been able to use the Apple shortcuts app, thanks to Monarch being able to detect individual shortcuts, but this workflow is bad for UX for some commands like the capture timer command (https://github.com/UnknownCrafts/Regent/tree/main/Screenshot%20Utilities#capture-timer) as it opens up the shortcuts app (this is due to how apple shortcuts handle the request that comes via the URL scheme) and takes away the focus from whatever the user wants to capture on the screen, so far I haven’t been able to iron out this issue by just using superlinks. I would like for the custom shell commands menu to still have things in common with superlinks, basically everything minus the “Match check” and “Open with” sections in superlinks, plus bigger text boxes(in height) so that it can be easier to format the shell commands. These shell commands probably won’t faze out the use of the shortcuts app but will help to provide a way better UX, as the shortcuts app won’t have to open up and steal focus. If you don’t want to clutter the root search any further then maybe superlinks could contain the option to save shell commands, the menu would just strip away two sections (“Open With” and “Match Check”).

Persist quick note without file

Sometimes we just want a quick note to be taken, without persisting it to a file. so if possible I would like to be able to when I enter the Note Mode, to have the last text that I inserted there, to be persisted without the need to create a file, this way the next time I open it I can just empty it and save something new, or even decide to create the file for that.

External Drives

Not sure if this is a feature or not, but I currently use Raycast and enjoy it but there is one feature that I desperately want that Raycast, nor the original Spotlight do properly. I want to be able to search for files and folders both on my local machine and on connected drives (USB or network via smb protocol).

Case Converter Functionality

I use this Alfred workflow all the time and it would be awesome to see something similar natively built into Monarch to allow me to easily change the case of copied text: https://alfred.app/workflows/dfay/case-converter/