Siri, Shortcuts and the rest of the system

Glass Power Tools works with the system's own ways in: Siri, the Shortcuts app, Spotlight, Control Center, Handoff, ssh:// links and, on the Mac, the Finder and the Dock. This page covers each one and what it opens.

Each of them opens what you ask for the way the library's Connect does: signing in and trusting a host key are asked as usual, never skipped. On Vision Pro, a session opened this way gets a window of its own in the room, as it does from the library. A machine that doesn't have the service you asked for says so, and what to do.

Siri and the Shortcuts app#

These phrases work with Siri, in Spotlight, in the Shortcuts app and with the iPhone's Action button, on every device. Name the machine, service, Workgroup or query as the library names it; the example machine here is alpha.

Each of these is also an action in the Shortcuts app, to use in shortcuts of your own: Open Terminal, Open Desktop, Open Service, Open Workgroup, Open Saved Query, Show Machine, Show All Windows, Show Active Connections and What's Open. The Shortcuts app also has these:

• Open in Editor: opens files in the editor. A folder opens as a project.
• New Terminal Window (on Mac): opens a terminal window on this Mac, in a folder when you choose one.
• Send Files to a Machine: see below.

The device's own host (This Mac and the others) isn't offered to Siri, Shortcuts or Spotlight; name another machine.

Send files to a machine#

Send Files to a Machine, in the Shortcuts app, sends files to a folder on a machine in your library, through its Terminal service. Give the folder from the machine's home folder, or as a full path; leave it empty for the home folder itself. Nothing on the machine is replaced: a name that is already taken gets a number. The shortcut says what happened, or why a file didn't arrive. To send from the share sheet on iPhone, iPad and Vision Pro, make a shortcut with this action that takes files, and show it in the share sheet.

On Mac, choose Share ▸ Send to a Machine in any app that shares files. Choose a machine with a Terminal service and, if you like, a folder under its home folder, then Send. Glass Power Tools opens, sends the files the same way, and says what happened. The share panel itself holds no password and connects to nothing.

Find your machines in Spotlight#

Turn on Settings ▸ Privacy ▸ Show Machines in Search to find your machines and Workgroups by name in Spotlight and Siri on this device, and open them from there. It is off by default, because it puts your machines' names in the system's index on this device. Only names and the kinds of service are indexed, never an address, a user name or a credential. Turning it off takes them all out again.

Controls#

Add these controls the way you add any control:

• Open Terminal: a terminal on the machine you choose when you add the control. With no machine chosen, it reads Choose a Machine and opens Active in the library.
• Active Connections: opens Active.
• New Terminal Window (on Mac): a terminal window on this Mac.

On iPhone they go in Control Center, on the Lock Screen and on the Action button; on iPad, in Control Center. On Mac they go in Control Center and the menu bar. Vision Pro has no controls.

Handoff#

The terminal, database or remote desktop in front is offered on your other devices, when they use the same iCloud account and have Handoff on: in the Mac's Dock, in the app switcher on iPhone and iPad, and on Vision Pro where the system offers it. Continuing it connects to the same service there, as Connect does.

A terminal kept in tmux continues in its own tmux session. If a tab on the other device already shows that session, it comes forward; otherwise a terminal there attaches to the session, in the same folder with the same programs running, rather than starting a new one. On a Mac, a session running on that Mac itself comes back in its local tab.

Only the focused pane of a terminal window is offered, and a Mac's local terminals are not offered. What is handed off names the service and its tmux session, and nothing else.

Drag a service into its own window#

On Vision Pro, drag a machine's Terminal or Desktop row out of its details in the library and let go: its window opens where you dropped it, so a machine's terminal and desktop can stand side by side. It connects as Connect does.

On iPad, dragging a Desktop row out opens the desktop in a window beside the library.

ssh:// links#

Glass Power Tools opens ssh:// links on every device. A link to a machine in your library, with the same address and port (and user name, when the link has one), connects to it as saved. Any other link opens the form for a new machine, filled in from the link, for you to check and save. A host key fingerprint in a link is never trusted: you compare the machine's key as usual (see Sign in with keys and trust host keys).

The Finder and the Dock (Mac)#

Right-click a folder or a file in the Finder and choose, under Services:

• New Glass Power Tools Tab Here: a terminal on this Mac in that folder, as a new tab of the terminal window in front, or in a new window when none is open. A file stands for the folder it is in.
• New Glass Power Tools Window Here: the same, in a new terminal window. It is also a Quick Action: under Quick Actions in the right-click menu and in the Finder's preview pane.
• Open in Glass Power Tools: a file opens in the editor; a folder opens as an editor project.

If you don't see them, turn them on in System Settings ▸ Keyboard ▸ Keyboard Shortcuts ▸ Services.

For the same three in every Finder window's toolbar, turn on Glass Power Tools Finder in System Settings ▸ General ▸ Login Items & Extensions ▸ Finder, then in a Finder window choose View ▸ Customize Toolbar… and drag Glass Power Tools into the toolbar.

Also:

• Open With ▸ Glass Power Tools on a folder, or dropping a folder on the app's Dock icon, opens a terminal there. A .command script opened this way runs in a new terminal tab; other files, .sh scripts among them, open in the editor (see Open the Editor).
• The Dock icon's menu has New Terminal Window, then up to eight of your favorite and recent machines. Choosing a machine connects to its terminal, or to its first service when it has no terminal.