That said, it\u2019s not that I\u2019m against vibe coding. On the contrary, I\u2019m not. The issue is that it promises a lot, and that promise doesn\u2019t hold up \u2014 something a guy recently discovered<\/a> after buying into the idea and creating a SaaS with Cursor, an AI-powered editor that claimed to built its software with \u201czero hand written code,\u201d only to go public in a panic two days later. \u201cguys, I\u2019m under attack\u2026 random thing are (sic) happening.\u201d<\/p>\n In just two days, vibe coding can turn into a real bad trip.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Writing about technology sometimes puts me in an awkward spot. I can write in English, but not code; and when I write about code in English, it leads some people to mistakenly assume that I know how to write code.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know how to code. I understand a bit of logic and can do simple things, like tweaking the layout of this site by fiddling with simple languages like HTML and CSS, and even dabbling superficially with JavaScript and PHP. I don’t get much beyond that. It\u2019s a shame. There are plenty of tasks in everyday life that, if I knew the basics of an accessible language like Python or Go, I might be able to create.<\/p>\n That\u2019s why I really like Apple\u2019s Shortcuts app. It\u2019s an easy automation tool for the uninitiated yet powerful for those in the know \u2014 in other words, it’s for people like me.<\/p>\n I have about a dozen shortcuts that I use daily on my computer to speed up repetitive tasks.<\/p>\n The oldest and most-used shortcut converts text written in Markdown (a markup language for formatting text) into HTML (another markup language, the universal language of the web, read by browsers).<\/p>\n Before diving into Shortcuts, I used a couple of shell scripts built on pandoc. They work, of course. The advantage of Shortcuts is a more flexible workflow. Instead of copying the text, opening the terminal, and running the command, I set up a keyboard shortcut in Shortcuts (how meta is that?): I select the text, press Command + Shift + D<\/kbd>, and ta-da!, my converted HTML text goes straight to the clipboard.<\/p>\n Another neat trick that I find really useful: Command + Shift + X<\/kbd> counts the words and characters of the selected text.<\/p>\n As you can see in the screenshot above, these shortcuts are simple \u2014 they\u2019re built visually by dragging blocks (\u201cactions,\u201d as Apple calls them) into a logical sequence.<\/p>\n The real power of Shortcuts comes through when dealing with more complex tasks. For instance, running shell scripts within a shortcut.<\/p>\n One I\u2019ve been using compresses (or \u201cminifies\u201d) the theme\u2019s stylesheet for my WordPress, Portuguese-written blog, which helps the site load faster at the expense of code readability. To get the best of both worlds, I keep a normal file ( For a long time, I used a web app to do this. It wasn\u2019t the most time \u2014 consuming process, but it could be faster.<\/p>\n I discovered a package called Minify<\/a> that does the job in the terminal. After installing it, I created a shortcut to enjoy the benefits of Shortcuts, like having an option in the context menu and in macOS’s Spotlight.<\/p>\n I also have one that downloads videos from sites like YouTube with the help of yt-dlp<\/a>. It\u2019s much better than using those ad-riddled sites.<\/p>\n My latest adventure was accessing the Buttondown API via Shortcuts\u2014a concept that came to me after reading the post \u201cHow (and Why) Non-Technical People Should Learn to Use an API.\u201d<\/a> (Hey, that\u2019s me!)<\/p>\n Whenever someone becomes a paying subscriber to my pt_BR blog, I add a tag to their record in Buttondown so they receive a welcome message with subscription instructions and start getting subscriber-exclusive emails.<\/p>\n You can probably guess what I did, right? Instead of logging onto the site, searching for the new subscriber\u2019s email, and manually tagging them clicking around with my mouse, I just run the shortcut and answer a few questions \u2014 what\u2019s the email? What tags should be added? What\u2019s their name? The subscription amount? The payment method?<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n![\"Screenshot](\"https:\/\/manualdousuario.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/atalho-markdown-html.png\")
style.css<\/code>) and then minify it (style.min.css<\/code>) before sending it back to the server.<\/p>\n![\"Shortcut](\"https:\/\/manualdousuario.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/atalho-buttondown-api.png\")