Open specific text document via Siri Shortcuts?

iOS
1

Has anyone figured out how to open a specific text document from the cloud via a siri shortcut? open it up in a way that it is editable? I am happy to use any text app out there. I already have Byword, 1writer, Editorial, Word, Docs, Files, iAWriter, etc. the file could be on Dropbox, iCloud or OneDrive. Doesn’t matter to me.

I want to open a specific txt document living on whichever cloud service it needs to be on via a siri shortcut. I can already append existing txt docs behind the scenes, but I just want to open it and write.

My longhand workaround is in Editorial, create a custom workflow to open a specific text document on dropbox. Then, I can use Siri Shortcuts to run that workflow. which would be nice, but Editorial hasn’t been updated in forever, and doesn’t even support the iphone 10 screen size!

any suggestions appreciated!

1 Like
2

Sure, I’m guessing this can be done with any app that supports an x-callback-url but the first one that came to mind was 1Writer since you mentioned it.

Create a shortcut with two actions:

  1. Define URL
  2. Open URL

My step #1 was this:

onewriter://x-callback-url/open?path=Dropbox%2Ftxt%2Fthoughts.txt

which opens the file ~/Dropbox/txt/thoughts.txt in 1Writer, ready for me to start writing.

3 Likes
3

OMG, that’s freakin fantastic! I would never have thought of that, and I love being in 1writer. Gotta go - have to start updating a bunch of siri shortcuts!
:slight_smile:

4

Cool! Glad to help.

You might want to bookmark this for future reference:

http://x-callback-url.com/apps/

It has links to lots of apps’ x-callback-url documentation.

2 Likes
5

I actually use oneWriter for appending and file creating as well. Even though the Dropbox API is nicer, it means I don’t have to be online to do something basic like adding to my journal or viewing a note. I’ve always hated relying on internet access for things like that.

6

Is it possible to open a file using this shortcut by UUID?

7

1Writer’s URL scheme documentation contains no reference to UUID.

Does 1Writer definitely use UUID? It seems unusual to use a UUID for “file” reference outside of a database. Typically the path to the file is the way to uniquely identify it.