Mac OS X's Automator: I learned it by watching you!

The "I learned it from watching you" kid grew up to be a pretty kick-ass musician (and carpenter)! No joke: check it out: http://tinyurl.com/yzo73go

I was just trying to create an automator application to do the same task I do every week.

Here's what I am trying to do:
- When I drag and drop a folder, it should read all file names in the folder
- Execute the following commands

ssh user@server.com
Password
upload-engine file1.txt
upload-engine file2.txt
upload-engine file3.txt

Till all files have been uploaded...


How do I do this??

Note: upload-engine is a terminal command on the server that does a specific task with the file, so I have to use that command, not just upload.

Too bad Automator can't handle deleting the stupid default Microsoft News Server entry in Entourage 2008, at least under 10.5.

Look, right now I am using Automator in a massive way, well at least on a massive amount of data the actual tasks are fairly simple.

This might surprise people but from extensive testing it is hands down the fastest thing out there (compared to commerical software). Eg: rename 30,000 files sequentially, 10 seconds. Scale and rotate an image, .44seconds vs 3.5 seconds in a Photoshop batch. Most software won't even make it through loading them all into it's requester with that many files.

I reduced my convert time from 17 days to 2 days from not using Photoshop.

But there are issues. It crashes, well I think the app it's calling crashes. The log is bad that it gives no information in detail. Scaling is far worse than rotating. It can be quite frustrating to use, poor help, poor decriptions and no examples.

It also batches files through the workflow, so everything scales and then everything rotates. If you thought you might colour label each file after it was done no luck, it will colour them all at once and if it dies through the workflow none are coloured.

There are sites, Automator world is one. Not all addin actions work though and some are actually AppleScript apps called by the action. Some are PPC code.

As for watch me do, great, once, and then if you wanted it loop get ready for pain. It is really unreliable to loop a watch me do. I have had some success by editing the code it creates to strip it clean but still not reliable.

So Automator is a double edged sword, both awesome and frustrating with the occassional broken. It is not shall we say a shining light for "it just works"

a word of advice, get folder contents is critical if you are batching through folders.

Anyway to conclude, the resource available online is average at best, a lot of searching and a lot of trial and error. But if you are doing massive volumes of a task it is quite likely going to save plenty over any other solution even including the trial and error time.

I'm effectively using it right now to make a 90min 1080HD film. I will be posting video work flows along with the film demonstrating Automator at it's best.

Consider... It is 8 times faster tha Photoshop at basic image processing tasks. It renames, oh maybe 60 times faster at renaming than specialized software, maybe even up to 120 times faster.

Watch Me Do is a great idea. But it just doesn't work.

Love the reference. Unforgettable.

I remember that commercial! Wow, that was a few years ago. The beginning of the "war on drugs".

I've always been curious about Automator, yet never got into learning it. Anyone have recommendations on how to learn how to use it? Any websites with video tutorials showIng how to get started?

Also, Automator has such a great icon, but what's the story with the tube it's holding?!