AppleScript Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Mac 101: Encode media from Automator or the command line in Lion

by Kelly Hodgkins (Nov 22nd, 2011)

There's an easy way in OS X 10.7 Lion to convert video or audio from one format to another, using a fixed suite of conversion settings. One approach uses Automator and can be launched from the Finder. The other uses the Terminal application and ...

Ask TUAW: AppleScripting coolness

by Justin Esgar (Apr 27th, 2011)

It's Tuesday Wednesday, which means it's time for Ask TUAW Video Edition. We've gotten great comments and questions coming in, and we have been trying to get to them all. Some of them are just too hard to show in a video format such as Ask TUAW, so ...

Sparrow gets AppleScript support, immediately put to use with OmniFocus

by Steven Sande (Feb 15th, 2011)

Sparrow, the sleek new email client for Mac OS X, was updated yesterday to improve speed, fix some minor bugs and add some limited AppleScript support. While the changes might not be apparent to many Sparrow users, they were apparently an ...

AirPrint Hacktivator enables AirPrint for any printer

by Steven Sande (Nov 29th, 2010)

You've updated your iPad and iPhone to iOS 4.2, and you want to print something, ... anything, but that printer hooked up to your Mac doesn't show up in the list of available devices. What can you do to make your iOS user experience complete? As Mike ...

Fixing broken iTunes Automator workflows in iTunes 10

by Michael Rose (Sep 3rd, 2010)

If you depend on Automator workflows for managing music or other tasks in iTunes, the upgrade to version 10 may have come as a bit of a cold shock. Macworld pointed out that most available workflows for iTunes simply would not load with iTunes 10; a ...

Create keyboard shortcuts to jump to Safari 4 tabs directly

by TJ Luoma (May 13th, 2010)

My friend Steve (no, not that Steve) just solved a problem I've had for awhile now: how to jump to a specific tab in Safari using the keyboard. Turns out that it's possible, and it's free, and it works pretty well. What else could you ask for? The ...

Exporting all of your playlist names to a text file

by Sang Tang (Dec 1st, 2009)

The ability to sync albums artists didn't exist prior to iTunes 9.0. My workaround to sync albums was is to create album-based playlists with the following nomenclature: artist - album. This has also made it easy for me to burn CDs of albums, as I ...

Sal Soghoian talks Automator use in education

by Dave Caolo (Nov 13th, 2009)

Total Apps has published a nice guest post from Sal Soghoian, Apple's Production Manager for Automator, intended for teachers. He describes how educators have a limited amount of instruction time with the kids, and even less for maintenance tasks ...

Batch move your playlists to an iTunes folder

by Sang Tang (Oct 22nd, 2009)

Folders, which have been a feature of iTunes since iTunes 5.0, serve as a means to better organize your music. For example, you could create genre- or artist-based folders with corresponding playlists nested within them. But moving playlists into ...

TweetMyMac: Remote control of your Mac via Twitter

by Aron Trimble (Sep 2nd, 2009)

Important safety tip: Please read the instructions for TweetMyMac carefully, especially the part about creating a separate Twitter account for your Mac -- do not use your regular Twitter account, or anyone you follow will be able to control your ...

Skype call recording with bookmarked, mind-mapped notes

by Brett Terpstra (Aug 15th, 2009)

I've been perfecting a very specific efficiency aspect of my workflow: taking notes during Skype calls. I use a Skype-in number as my primary phone number, and -- with permission -- record client calls for future reference. I can't tell you how many ...

Use iCal to tweet automatically

by Aron Trimble (Jul 17th, 2009)

Recently, the question came up of how to automatically "tweet" a birthday message to a friend or loved one on their special day. After thinking on this question for some time I finally came to a solution. As it turns out, intrepid TUAW blogger Dave ...

Lyric fetchin' lovin': how to batch fetch lyrics with GimmeSomeTune and Needle Drop

by Sang Tang (Jul 14th, 2009)

One neat little thing about the iPod and iPhone family of devices is their ability to display lyrics -- supported by all iPod nanos as well as the iPhone/iPod touch, and iPod Classic 5th generation and higher. On the iPhone and iPod touch, lyrics ...

iTunes 101: How to prevent podcasts from spoiling

by Sang Tang (Jul 8th, 2009)

Like milk, podcasts will spoil if left unused for a period period of time -- at least in the mind of iTunes. iTunes will automatically unsubscribe from a podcast that hasn't been listened to within the last 5 updates, and more than 5 days have passed ...

Snow Leopard offers more Automator "purrfection"

by Cory Bohon (Jun 11th, 2009)

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 ...

Mac Automation: Integrating Spotlight searches with your workflows

by Cory Bohon (Mar 30th, 2009)

We've discussed some pretty neat uses for Automator workflows in the past, but did you know you can easily integrate Spotlight searches into your automation workflows? Well, you can, and it might be easier than you think. In this Mac Automation post, ...