A Soulver Shortcut and Drafts Action

2021-04-07    Permalink

I recently noticed that Toolbox Pro had a Calculate with Soulver Shortcuts action, which allows text to be run through the engine that powers the Soulver app. Even better, it’s the version of the engine from Soulver 3, which is currently Mac only, although an iOS version is on the way.

I made a shortcut which makes use of this Toolbox Pro action in Shortcuts to do quick calculations in natural language. It can be run either as a standalone shortcut, in which case it prompts for input, or via a companion action in Drafts. I like having the Drafts option available because I’m used to opening Drafts to jot things down. Using it as a quick calculation scratchpad also feels quite natural. Multiple calculations can be entered on separate lines, and the result for each is appended after an equals sign on the same line. It’s not as powerful as Soulver 3 for iOS will be, but for now it’s useful to have around.