Does anyone use the Automator?

Phate · 11 Jul 2007 at 23:08

Hello All,

I remember when the Automator was introduced, but I've never quite got my head around what it can actually be used for.

So my question is.

Does anyone use it?

Is it worth getting into for efficiency?

Would they change it if they could?

Cheers

GraemeUK · 11 Jul 2007 at 23:29

I am very new to OS X and have only had my new mac book for 2 weeks and have no idea what automator could be used for. Would be interested to know though.

iSam · 11 Jul 2007 at 23:34

Use it a lot to organise folders and importing photos into iPhoto and Aperture.

slinxy · 12 Jul 2007 at 07:44

Nope, never had the need for it. possibility more useful in a business environment for thoose boring routine tasks. But like with macros and scheduled tasks in windows I never bothered setting any up or using it.

Deleted member 651465 · 12 Jul 2007 at 08:56

I've played with it, but never used it for a purpose.

Basically, it can do a lot of useful things if you do it right; the process being that you build your workflow in stages, and then it does the repetitive tasks with a single click

Logan09 · 12 Jul 2007 at 20:02

Messed about with it a bit, but only actually used it once. I used it to automatically open torrent files downloaded in safari. Quite helpful not having to double click the downloaded torrent file every time to get it started.

Currently setting it up to sort my downloads, e.g. put pictures into my pictures folder, videos in the movies folder, etc. Quite helpful with stuff like that.

fearby · 12 Jul 2007 at 20:30

Automator rocks!

This is a great little app for performing tasks that would otherwise be time consuming and laborious. It is also great fun. I used it to find and delete files I didn't need and also to change the names of multiple files I had.

It is also fun and you can use it to perform actions upon receiving an email

http://timmargh.net/archive/2005/11/put_your_mac_to_sleep_by_sending.php

Caged · 12 Jul 2007 at 21:52

I set it up on a shared PowerMac (Final Cut machine) to delete files from the desktop and empty the trash, and set it to run on every startup. The end result was a clean system for each user, plus making it was a lot easier than dealing with Windows scripting.

Founder_film · 12 Jul 2007 at 22:56

I have always wanted to use Automator to wake up my MacBook, start iTunes playing and run a slide show of some of my photos so I could use it as a wake up alarm. Would be way better than the beeps from my phone waking me up. I never found actions to wake up the mac so I gave up on the idea

PardonTheWait · 13 Jul 2007 at 00:55

I opened it once, literally years ago, at my old job, and haven't since.

In fact, I may even have imagined the one time I opened it - was it in 10.2.8?
Oh no wait! I opened it once on my Mac Mini too, and went 'ooo' and then closed it again.

tsinc80697 · 13 Jul 2007 at 01:16

I use it to connect to 3 hard drives on seperate windows machines on bootup automatically, about it really!

slinxy · 13 Jul 2007 at 07:22

Logan09 said:
Currently setting it up to sort my downloads, e.g. put pictures into my pictures folder, videos in the movies folder, etc. Quite helpful with stuff like that.

That sound quite useful, as I was talking about this to a few people in the office yesterday. as theres one thing we dont like about os x is that it never defaults to what we belive to be the correct folders, so you have a mixture of file types in every folder.... very messy. any chance in grabing the workflow files to have a look at how you set it up, it will save me time

.

Monkey_Boy1211 · 13 Jul 2007 at 08:40

I've used it to open drives on a windows machine on boot-up. Might try that sorting downloaded files tho, that would be quite useful.

AdWright · 13 Jul 2007 at 11:17

I only just started using it. The most useful script that I have so far is a folder 'dropbox' that will take a photo thumbnail that I have edited, rename it appropriately, upload it to my photoblog via my FTP program, copy it to my backup folder and erase the original. Saves me a couple of minutes per file!

Logan09 · 13 Jul 2007 at 11:55

slinxy said:
That sound quite useful, as I was talking about this to a few people in the office yesterday. as theres one thing we dont like about os x is that it never defaults to what we belive to be the correct folders, so you have a mixture of file types in every folder.... very messy. any chance in grabing the workflow files to have a look at how you set it up, it will save me time .

Yeah sure. Just off to work now, but I'll post them either tonight or tomorrow. Quite simple really.

Jet · 13 Jul 2007 at 13:46

Founder_film said:
I have always wanted to use Automator to wake up my MacBook, start iTunes playing and run a slide show of some of my photos so I could use it as a wake up alarm. Would be way better than the beeps from my phone waking me up. I never found actions to wake up the mac so I gave up on the idea

http://embraceware.com/software/awaken/

Awaken?

Founder_film · 13 Jul 2007 at 17:08

Jet said:
http://embraceware.com/software/awaken/

Awaken?

Nice, thats what I need. Shame its not free

Jet · 13 Jul 2007 at 23:35

Founder_film said:
Nice, thats what I need. Shame its not free

Jeez you're hard to please

http://metaquark.de/aurora/

Aurora is free.

Logan09 · 14 Jul 2007 at 00:35

slinxy said:
That sound quite useful, as I was talking about this to a few people in the office yesterday. as theres one thing we dont like about os x is that it never defaults to what we belive to be the correct folders, so you have a mixture of file types in every folder.... very messy. any chance in grabing the workflow files to have a look at how you set it up, it will save me time .

Ok, I accidentally deleted the workflow, but it's really easy to do. You basically need 2 actions that you can repeat for each different move of files.

1) Add the 'Find Finder Items' action - select where you want it to look for files (e.g. the desktop), and select the type of files you're looking for (e.g. Kind - is - image).

2) Add the 'Move Finder Items' action - simply select where you want to move the items to (e.g. for the images select move to Pictures folder)

Rinse & repeat for as many different types of files you want to move.

See the screenshot below (I just did a quick sample for you):

Now, the important part. You want all this to happen automatically, so when you've created your workflow you need to go to: File - Save as plugin.

Give it a name, and where it says 'plugin for:' you need to select folder actions from the drop-down box, and then select the folder you want to watch (in the example above this would be the desktop) in the 'Attached to folder:' box.

From then on any downloads to the desktop will be automatically moved to your preferred folders.

slinxy · 16 Jul 2007 at 08:23

Thank You Logan09.... I'll look into it tonight

Does anyone use the Automator?

Deleted member 651465

Deleted member 651465