The Mac app¶

The Mac app is Daf in a proper Mac window, with Daf's own menus, today's minutes in the menu bar, "Save to Daf" in the share menu, and the Safari extension inside it. The page in the window is the same live site as in a browser, so everything in these docs works the same there. What the app adds is the part of a Mac app a web page can't be. It runs on macOS 13 or newer, and you build it from the repository (see Install).

The window¶

The window looks like Readwise Reader's Mac app: a plain title bar with the traffic lights and "Daf", in the page's own color, which follows the theme, Paper and Black included. You can drag the window from any empty part of a top bar, and double-click to zoom it. It remembers its size and place.

Only Daf loads in the window. Any other link opens in your browser, obsidian:// links open in Obsidian, and Daf's own files, like a PDF as printed, open in a window of their own. When the window is minimized, hidden or covered, the page knows it's hidden, so it never counts minutes nobody read.

The sidebar is the page's, the Mac way (see The sidebar): Today, Review, Library with its kinds, Books, Feed with its folders and Highlights, then what I've pinned, then Search (⌘K), Stats and Preferences at the bottom. A kind of the Library (Articles, Videos and the rest) has Inbox, Later and Archive at the top of its list.

⌘ and the button at the top left show and hide it. When it shows, it's full or mini (just the icons): View → Sidebar picks which, and so does Settings → General, along with the pins, which Daf keeps for every device. The Mac remembers how I left it. Opening something to read leaves it where it is, since the list stays beside the article anyway. For nothing but the page, there's Focus Mode.

Reading¶

An article's toolbar has Themes & Settings (Aa), Listen, Save to Library for something from the Feed, Done, the … menu and the Notebook. The … menu has the rest: the Shortlist, Read Later, the original, Focus Mode, the next or previous one in the list, and so on. The time left sits quietly under the text.

A book opens the way Apple Books does it: two pages side by side when the window is wide, the title in the middle of the toolbar, and Contents, Aa, Search, Bookmark and … beside it. Contents and search slide over the pages from the left, and the notebook, the book's details and Ask from the right; a click beside them puts them away. The footer fades once I've turned a page and comes back when the pointer goes near it.

Themes & Settings is the same for both: two A buttons for smaller and bigger, Pages or Scroll for a book, six looks (Daf, Paper and E-ink for the day; Dusk, Night and Black for the night), Auto, Light or Dark, and under them the typeface and the spacing, the line width and justifying. A day look while it's dark switches to light, and a night look while it's light to dark. All Themes… opens Settings → Appearance.

In a window the toolbars stay where they are, the way a Mac window keeps its toolbar. In full screen the toolbar hides until the pointer goes to the top of the screen, so the page goes right to the top. For nothing but the page, there's Focus Mode.

Focus mode¶

Focus Mode (⇧⌘F, in the … menu, F in a book and Shift F in an article) puts what you're reading on the whole screen, as the page's does: the window goes full screen, the sidebar and the list go, the side panels close, and the menu bar and the toolbar hide until the pointer goes to the top of the screen. The same again, or Esc, leaves it.

Videos, reels and podcasts¶

A YouTube video, a reel and a podcast episode play in the Mac's own player above the transcript, the same as on the page (see Videos and podcasts). A reel stands up, or keeps its own shape when it's square or wide. An episode starts where I last stopped, in Daf or in AntennaPod, and has −15 and +30 (← and →), the speed, its chapters and Clip 30s. P plays and pauses, and the episode shows in Now Playing, so the keyboard's media keys and Control Center work too. Podcasts in the sidebar has what I listened to lately, my clips and my shows.

Settings → Connections has Instagram, where Sign In to Instagram… opens Instagram's own sign-in in a window that keeps nothing on the Mac and hands the sign-in to Daf, and AniList, for the manga tracker.

With no connection¶

The app keeps its OWN copy of Daf on the Mac, which means it opens and works with no connection at all, on a plane or when the server is down. While it's online it saves Daf's screens and fonts, your lists, the articles you're reading with their pictures and the books you're reading, and it only fetches a file again when it changes. When Daf doesn't answer, the window moves to that copy on the same page, and what you do there (your place, highlights, notes) waits and goes to Daf when it's back. The app looks for Daf every 30 seconds and when the Mac wakes, and then goes back to the live site by itself, which is also where videos play.

You can keep more for the road, like on the phone. An article's ⋯ menu and a book's menu have Keep on this device, and a manga series has a download button on each volume, so whatever you pick opens with no connection too, PDFs as printed included. Daf → Settings… → With no connection shows how much is on the Mac and when it last updated, with Update Now. Anything nothing needs any more goes by itself after three weeks, so the copy doesn't keep growing.

The menus¶

Every menu item calls the same command as the page's own buttons, and items that don't apply where you are are greyed out.

Daf: Settings… (⌘,), Reading Goals… and Safari Extension….
File: New Window (⌘N), Add to Daf… (⌘O), Save a Link… (⇧⌘S), Log Paper Minutes… (⇧⌘P) and Export Highlights… (⇧⌘E).
View: Today ⌘1, Review ⌘2, Library ⌘3, Feed ⌘4, Highlights ⌘5, Books ⌘6 and Stats ⌘7, then Shortlist, Torah, Paper Pages, Hide Sidebar (⌃⌘S), Contents, Side Panel, Typography, zoom, Reload Page (⌘R), full screen and Focus Mode (⇧⌘F).
Go: Back (⌘[), Forward (⌘]) and Search (⌘K).
Reader: Highlight, Highlight with a Note, Bookmark This Page, Listen, Add to Shortlist, Tags…, Delete, Next and Previous, and Next in the List and Previous in the List.
Help: Keyboard Shortcuts and Send Feedback….

The page hears every key first, so Daf's single-letter keys (h, n, b, j and k, the arrows in a book) work exactly as in a browser, and typing an "h" in a note stays an "h".

The menu bar shows today's minutes, "38′", and "60′ ✓" once the hour is done. Click it for the ring with "38 of 60 minutes today · Year 30, day N", the day's highlight with its book, and Open Daf, Review, Save a Link…, Log Paper Minutes… and Settings…. It checks every five minutes while the Mac is awake, on wake, and when you open it, and with no connection it shows what it last knew, greyed after twenty minutes.

Save to Daf¶

"Save to Daf" is in the share menu of Safari, Zen and any app that shares a link, and the link goes to the Library, with "Saved" in the menu bar. If it doesn't show up, turn it on in System Settings → General → Login Items & Extensions → Sharing (on macOS 13, Privacy & Security → Extensions → Sharing).

Two links work from anywhere on the Mac, which makes them good for Shortcuts: daf://save?url=…&title=… saves a link, and daf://go/review (or any other page) opens Daf there.

Safari¶

The browser extension's Safari version comes inside the app, so there's nothing to download and no token to paste. Open Daf → Safari Extension…, tick Daf in Safari's extensions, and allow it on every website. Each account on the Mac connects its own, so setting it up in a second account doesn't disconnect the first. See The browser extension for what it does.

Settings¶

Daf → Settings… has the address of your Daf, Connect This Mac, which gives the menu bar and "Save to Daf" a device token of their own, the menu bar switch, and Open at login, where Daf starts quietly in the menu bar without a window. Preferences → Account in the page lists the Mac as "Daf for Mac", with Disconnect.

Notifications¶

If a feed is set to Notify me of new posts (in the Feed's sources, see The Feed and the Library), the Mac app shows a notification for each new post, and clicking it opens the post in Daf. It looks for new posts with the menu bar's five-minute check.

Basically, the Mac app is the web app with a real window and the minutes in sight all day. If you only install one of the apps, I'd make it this one if you work at a Mac, and the Android app if your phone is where the distractions are.