Automator !

[Ric]

Well has anyone found any 'interesting' uses for Automator ?

Let us know and post them here !

 

[Ric]

One to start you off...

This just does an entire grab off my laptop screen, resizes it to half my original size then resaves it as a JPG - you are left with one file on you desktop 'screenGrab.jpg'.

If you run it more than once the files get suffixed...screenGrab.1.jpg...screenGrab.2.jpg etc

Please only post 'Workflow' 'wfl' files, so that everyone can see what your 'Automator' does !

I have attached Workflow as a archive (zip) file, at the minute you can not upload 'Workflow files' directly so you will have to either 'archive them' or 'stuff them (sit or sitx)'

 

[Ric]

Best thing to do, create an "Archiver"...this is drag and drop, change the 'workflow' to be an Application in Automator...

...then just drag and drop your file on to create a nice zip archive...

 

[Ric]

Here's another use of Automator, or "Otto" as he should be called !

When I boot up my Mac I always open Safari and check out certain websites,

now I use "Otto" to do it for me...this works with 10.4.1 (Tiger tested only!)

I have the "Safari Tabs Automator App" placed in to my Startup items so whenever the Mac boots, it open Safari gets the web pages that I want to view and then places them into tabs, tabs preferences must be set in Safari.

This is sourced from the Apple website. With a few bits of my own added in...

Change the links to whatever you want, (of course you can leave the mac-help one in if you want !)

 

[Ric]

If you are on a page that is displaying thumbnail images---but these images are linked to other (highres) images, then this 'workflow will download the highres images for you.

This was written in relation to a query on the Apple Support website...


Test Page Here


Ric

 

[unipax9]

Here's another use of Automator, or "Otto" as he should be called !

When I boot up my Mac I always open Safari and check out certain websites,

now I use "Otto" to do it for me...this works with 10.4.1 (Tiger tested only!)

I have the "Safari Tabs Automator App" placed in to my Startup items so whenever the Mac boots, it open Safari gets the web pages that I want to view and then places them into tabs, tabs preferences must be set in Safari.

This is sourced from the Apple website. With a few bits of my own added in...

Change the links to whatever you want, (of course you can leave the mac-help one in if you want !)

I'm a novice with Automator. This Safari Tab Automator is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for so I tried your Source Code download. When I run it as a file or as te app, it still opens up new windows for each URL. I have tried it with "Enable tabbed browsing" only and also with "Select new tabs as they are created" in Safari. It opens new windows anyway.

I am running OS 10.4.3 with Safari 2.0.2.

Any ideas on what I'm doing wrong?

 

[Ric]

Hi there, since that was written,

Automator has been updates to version 2, I'll have to double check that it works as expected...

can you just double check the settings in Safari it should look like below...

Then I just use an AppleScript as below...

--Open this script in a new Script Editor window.

tell application "Safari"
activate
open location "https://www.mac-help.com"
open location "http://www.bbc.co.uk"
open location "http://www.apple.com"
end tell


Alter the URL's to your own and then save it as an Application, then when you double click it all the URL's will get opened as tabs...

...if you want you can add it into your login items so that they get opened when the computer boots.

regards

Ric

 

[unipax9]

Thanks for the quick response. I forgot to mention that I did get an error message:

NSReceiver EvaluationScriptError: 4

After checking all the recommended settings and revising a few, I tried it again and got the same error. By itself, the script works just fine.

 

[Ric]

oops...you need GUI Scripting turned on and it doesn't mention that any where !

To turn on GUI Scripting, have a read here.

This will get rid of the error that you were getting !

regards

Ric