Snow Leopard offers more Automator "purrfection"

If you know me, then you know that I love Automator and scripting things on the Mac. I believe that Automator should be something that everyone can take advantage of, not just the select few that already know how to use it well. That's why I've been working on the TUAW Mac Automation and AppleScript series for over a year now (we're going to have more coming soon, so stay tuned).

I was watching the WWDC '09 keynote, desperately waiting to see if anything new was announced for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard in regards to automation, and specifically Automator.app. Nothing was said at the keynote, but when I looked on the newly updated Snow Leopard page on Apple's site, I was ecstatic. One of the refinements listed was that Mac OS X Services would now be a feature of Automator. Services let you use features of one application while you are inside of another. In the Automator instance, you would be able to use workflows while you are inside of any Mac OS X application that supports the use of Services.

In addition to updating Automator for Services, Apple has also added more starting points for workflows. You can now choose between a standard workflow, application, service, folder action, print plugin, iCal alarm, or an image capture plugin. We will have more information about Automator and Services in Snow Leopard when it launches in September.

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Source: http://www.apple.com/macosx/refinements/

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AppleScript Snow Leopard

If you know me, then you know that I love Automator and scripting things on the Mac. I believe that Automator should be something that...

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Chris

I think Automator is really cool, but I've never quite figured out how to use it. I'm sure I could use it and love it, but I just don't know where to start.

June 11 2009 at 9:36 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

swollengum

Dear Cory

I am trying to learn the automator and work flow. Can i request for your help.
Here is what i want to do.

I have a big ebook library, mostly in PDF and djvu and some other obscure formats. I want to catalogue them all. I have been looking at various softwares like bookpedia and some others. I think bookpedia would suffice my requirements.

Problem i have is that i have to input each individual book one by one by title/author/isbn and then create a link to the actual file.

What i have in mind is a work flow automation or scripting which would scan all the files (lets just say pdf) in a particular directory build up a table or some form of record of the Title, author, isbn, file location etc. Once that record is built pass it to Bookpedia (or may be you can suggest some other application which will work better) which will then bring in all the information from internet and save it for each record. Bookpedia then should be automatically saver the location of the file in the link.

Any chance you have seen something like this or can help with.

With Best Regards

June 11 2009 at 5:49 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

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Cash

I don't know if this is what you are looking for. But Calibre works well for me to organize my ebooks. It's not super good looking but it works much like iTunes and is cross platform.

June 11 2009 at 11:17 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Gjunkie

I love automator too. Can't wait to see what other refinements they've made, but adding services support is huge.

I've got a nifty workflow for turning RSS feeds into audio files for your iPod, check it.

http://blog.robotforest.com/2009/05/03/automator-turn-your-rss-feeds-into-audio/

June 11 2009 at 3:34 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply