Nerding out I made a lil apple shortcut to publish any writing

Tags: tinkering, independence, tools

Nerding out with Buttondown’s now-free API

I made a li’l Apple Shortcut to publish any writing to a Buttondown email list, thanks to their API being free now.

Now I can write my blog posts in my writing tool of choice (IA Writer for those who care), publish it, and immediately after send it to my subscribers, rather than a bunch of extra steps or waiting on RSS feeds. This is very unnecessary but very fun and saves me time.

How it works:

1. Set up a email newsletter for free on Buttondown
2. Get your API key from the Settings page, and copy/paste it somewhere
3. Get this shortcut I made
4. Open the shortcut and, when asked, paste in the API key
5. Write something in your Notes app or whatever
6. When you’re happy with what you’ve written, go to the share menu, and choose “Buttondown Draft”
7. It’ll open up your post in the Buttondown editor for you to once-over and then send to your subscribers