Exploring QuicKeys X3 Make a simple backup system

January 2005 Exploring QuicKeys Make a simple backup system (Mac OS X)

The introduction and general description of this tutorial were covered in the January 2005 issue of TRIGGERED. This web page is meant to provide more detailed instructions on how to set up the shortcuts themselves. These instructions assume you are using QuicKeys X3 running on Mac OS X 10.3 or newer.

Part 1: Daily backups

For simplicity's sake we're going to make 5 nearly identical shortcuts for our daily backups, one for each day of the week. We could create one multi-step shortcut that makes use of Decision steps to back up our folders to a different location each day, but if you have several folders to back up, this would quickly become a rather large and cumbersome shortcut.

As a prerequisite for creating these automated backup shortcuts you need to decide which folders you want to back up, and you need to determine a location to which these folders will be copied. A file server is an ideal backup destination, a removable hard drive works well too, and a second internal hard drive or partition is pretty safe for all but the theft or destruction of your computer. At worst, but still worth doing, is backing up to a second location on your current hard drive. While this does nothing for you in case of a hard drive crash, it does provide redundancy in the case of accidental data deletion.

I'm going to describe setting up shortcuts that save to a shared network drive as it is slightly more involved than saving to a drive physically attached or inside your computer. Let's get started by creating Monday's backup shortcut:

1. Decide which folders you want to back up, and decide exactly where you want to copy those folders.

2. Create 5 new folders in the backup destination location and name them Backup Monday, Backup Tuesday, Backup Wednesday, Backup Thursday, Backup Friday.

3. Bring QuicKeys to the front and press Command+N to create a new shortcut. This shortcut should have a default hot key trigger scoped to All Applications and should have zero steps initially.

4. Hit Command+R to rename this shortcut, call it "Daily Backup Monday".

5. Let's set the trigger right away... Make sure the scope is set to All Applications and then change the trigger type from "hot key" to "day & time". Uncheck all but the Monday box and set an appropriate time for this backup to be triggered. I set mine to 5:30PM to ensure it will not interfere with my typical work hours.
Note: If your computer is set to deep sleep after a period of inactivity you will need to make sure that deep sleep does not occur before your backup shortcut is to be triggered. Deep sleep prevents QuicKeys' timed triggers from operating.

On to the shortcut steps: If you are backing up your files to a network volume you may want to set up your shortcut to first mount that volume then do the file copy. Steps 6 and 7 cover this option; if you are backing up locally to an internal or external attached hard drive you can skip to step 8.

6. (Skip this step if you will be copying your files to a local drive or a network volume which is always mounted) In QuicKeys, go to the Create menu and select Network > Servers. This will create your first step; select the type of server you are connecting to and fill out the required fields to connect and log in.

7. (Skip this step if you will be copying your files to a local drive or a network volume which is always mounted) Go back to the Create menu and select QuicKeys > Pause to create a second shortcut step. Estimate how much time it takes your system to mount the desired network volume and enter that as the pause duration.

8. Now we designate which files get copied to the Backup Monday folder you created in your backup location. Go to the Create menu and select Files > Manage Files. In the resulting shortcut step, ensure the Action popup is set to "Copy".
Note: The "Wait for action to finish" checkbox tells QuicKeys to stop on this step and not proceed to the next until the file copy has finished. I would recommend unchecking this box to allow QuicKeys to continue on with other steps and even other shortcuts while the file copy is under way.

9. In the Finder, locate a folder you want to back up then drag and drop it onto the Target Item well.

10. In the Finder, drag and drop your Backup Monday folder onto the Destination Folder well.

11. Put a mark in the "Replace Existing Files" checkbox. If you don't check it you'll only get one week's worth of backups before this shortcut begins failing due to not being able to overwrite the files backed up the prior week.

12. That's it. QuicKeys will now back up that particular folder to the Backup Monday folder every Monday at 5:30PM. If you want to add more folders to this shortcut, just select your Manage Files step and hit Command+C to copy it and Command+V to paste it, duplicating the step. Drag and drop a new folder for backup onto the Target Item well in the step you just created. Repeat as necessary until you have all desired folders set up in your backup shortcut.
Note: Make sure you check your backup locations frequently to ensure the file copies are actually happening!

If you want to back up these exact same folders every day of the week all you need to do is add more days to the original trigger.

13. Click on the Edit Trigger area (to the right of "day & time") to bring up the Day & Time trigger window.

14. Check the box for any day of the week you'd like to have this shortcut run.

15. Add more day & time triggers as needed. You may also want to add a Menu trigger and/or a hot key trigger so you can manually trigger the backup event if you are leaving the office early and want to shut down your machine before the designated backup time.

Part 2: Weekly backups

The idea behind weeklies is to back up larger chunks of data or less frequently changed files that you may not feel the need to duplicate on a daily basis. Weekly backups are set up much like the daily backups. You may not feel the need to do weeklies but you may still find the trigger technique used here useful in some other way.

Part 2 of this tutorial has prerequisites similar to those of Part 1. You need to figure out which folders you want to back up weekly and where you want them copied. Once this is decided, create folders in the backup location named Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, and Week 5. You also need to decide which day of the week you want this backup to occur, and at what time of day.

Additionally consider that we don't want to overwrite our weekly backup every week but instead want a separate copy for each week of the month. We'll need to build 5 separate shortcuts each being triggered only in the proper week to achieve this.

1. Bring QuicKeys to the front and hit Command+N to create a new shortcut. Rename the shortcut "Weekly Backup 1" and save it.

2. Ensure the scope of this shortcut is set to "All Applications" and change the Trigger Type to "day & time". Uncheck all but the Friday box (for example) and set an appropriate time for this backup to be triggered. I set mine to 5:40PM to ensure it will not interfere with my daily backup on Fridays.

3. Since we only want this backup to occur on the first Friday of the month, we need to restrict this trigger. As it stands this trigger will fire every Friday. Click on the green (+) Add Trigger button to add a second trigger. Change the Trigger Type to "time range".
Note: The time range trigger type is not a stand-alone trigger and must be combined with another trigger to have any effect. In essence, when any other trigger fires in the presence of a grouped time range trigger, that time range trigger checks to make sure that its conditions are met before allowing the shortcut to execute.

4. This being the shortcut to run on the first Friday of every month we want to restrict it to firing only if the current date is from the 1st to the 7th of the month. Enter "1" in the From: Day: field and enter "7" in the To: Day: field and close the time range window. (Don't bother unchecking the Week Days checkboxes since the real trigger is set to fire only on Fridays anyway.)

5. For the time range trigger to actually modify our day & time trigger we need to group the two triggers. This is done by clicking on the blue [+] Group with preceding trigger button. You should end up with a trigger section that looks like this:

6. This trigger is ready to go, now you just have to go to the Create menu and select Files > Manage Files, and set up as many file copy steps as needed just like you did for the daily backup shortcuts.

You'll need to create 4 more shortcuts with similar triggers to complete your weekly backup project. It's easiest to go to the QuicKeys main editor window and duplicate your Weekly Backup 1 shortcut 4 times once you have finished it. Then just edit the time range trigger so that Week 2 covers days 8 through 14, week 3 covers days 15 through 21, week 4 covers days 22 through 28, and week 5 covers days 29 through 31.

Part 3: Adding an "Are you sure?" dialog

"What if I'm working late?"

Shortcuts working on timers are great, but since our schedules are not set in stone there are times when you may find a timed triggered shortcut interfering with your work. If you want to reduce this annoyance you can simply add an "Are you sure?" dialog step to your shortcut. This step will be the first in the shortcut and will put up a dialog asking you if you are sure you want QuicKeys to take over. If you are there to answer you can hit Okay to continue or you can Cancel it so that you can continue working uninterrupted. If you are not at your desk when this dialog window appears a 10 second countdown timer will expire and the shortcut will proceed.

1. Open the potentially offending shortcut and go to the Create menu to choose QuicKeys > Message. This will add a Message step to your shortcut, you will want to drag and drop this shortcut step up to the top so it becomes step number one.

2. Turn on the checkboxes for Display message in window, Display cancel button, and Continue automatically after xx seconds. I typically use 10 seconds as my time-out setting.

3. Add a message to the text field so QuicKeys can tell you what it is about to do.

4. Check the Speak message box if you want that message spoken aloud.

5. When you use a Message step in your shortcuts you will almost always want to set the Step Results to "Stop shortcut" on failure rather than leave it at "Stop shortcut and notify me". If you cancel a shortcut playback through a Message step like this, QuicKeys considers the step as having failed, which is just fine but we don't want an alert popping up telling us a step has failed when we intentionally cancelled playback. So click on one of the Step Results buttons in the bottom right corner of this step. This will open the Inspector window.

6. Choose "Stop shortcut" for the Step Failure results.

This "Are you sure?" Message step technique can be used in any situation where you may want to be able to manually abort a timed shortcut when it fires. It can also be used as a first step of any particularly "dangerous" or disruptive shortcuts you might accidentally trigger with a hot key. A slip of the fingers which would normally launch a 500 step shortcut could instead ask you nicely before taking over your machine for the next 10 minutes.

There are backups and there are backups

I really can't over state the importance of backing up valued data. QuicKeys can help by removing the need to copy files by hand. This saves you time and ensures that the backups actually get done. But while QuicKeys is an effective way to keep a few sets of backed up data, failsafe backup solutions require dedicated software and hardware. Don't take chances with your irreplaceable data!