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In Automator, each task is called an action, and you can link multiple actions together to form a workflow.. Chapter 2: Automator Overview Action Input/Output Values In an Automator wor

Chapter 1:

Introduction

What You Need to Get Started

For the first section of this book, you won’t need much

to get started, other than a basic familiarity with Mac

OS X and a copy of Mac OS X 10.4 or higher Since Automator interacts with existing applications on your machine, you should also be comfortable using at least the core applications that are installed with Mac OS X, such as iTunes, iPhoto, Mail, and Address Book

The second section of this book focuses on development and assumes that you have at least some prior experience developing software for the Mac OS

X platform You should have some familiarity with Xcode and Interface Builder, Apple’s free software development tools You should also have a basic knowledge of AppleScript and Objective-C

Brief introductions to both of these languages will be provided at the beginning of the developer section

of the book However, you may wish to consult more in-depth resources as well Sal Soghoian

and Bill Cheeseman's AppleScript 1-2-3 (Peachpit Press) serves as an excellent training guide for any developer interested in learning AppleScript For an introduction to programming, check out Stephen G

Kochan's excellent Programming in Objective-C (Sams Publishing)

Software Utilized in this Book

The following specific software versions were used during the creation of this book:

4 Mac OS X version 10.4

4 Automator version 1.0

4 Interface Builder version 2.5 (for developers)

4 Xcode version 2.0 (for developers)

If you are using older versions of this software, please

be aware that some or all of the functionality discussed may not be available to you If you are using newer versions of this software, then you should be aware that certain aspects of the software might differ slightly between versions Regardless of the software versions you are using, it is always recommended to conduct testing of any sample code prior to usage, as minor adjustments may be required, due to changes in terminology between versions

In addition to the specific software listed above, the examples in this book will make use of various Apple applications in order to construct Automator workflows If your system software is up to date, then you probably won’t need to be concerned about the specific versions of these applications, although there could possibly be differences in behavior between versions

Chapter 1:

Introduction

Example Code

All of the examples and sample code included in this

book can be found in a directory named Automator Examples, which is included in your purchased eBook

download Nested inside of this directory are sub-directories, named for the chapter to which the example files apply Please note that not all chapters will have

example files in the Automator Examples collection.

Move the Automator Examples directory to a

convenient location on your hard disk, from which you can view and edit the files

What’s Next

The next chapter begins the first section of the book, and is geared primarily toward users We will begin discussing the Automator application itself in greater detail, and discuss its features and benefits We will also look at some examples of the types of workflows that can be made more efficient with the use of Automator If you are a developer, you may still want to review the chapters in this section in order to become familiar with the Automator application

Section 1

13

Using Automator

Chapter 2 Automator Overview

14

utomator’s purpose is simple – to automate the time consuming, repetitive, manual tasks that plague our lives on a daily basis Automator is easy to configure and highly customizable With Automator, there’s no need to wait for your favorite applications to implement macros or other scripting devices, and there is no need for custom programming Automator gives you

complete control over your workflow and puts you in

the driver’s seat

Automator is installed in the Applications folder

with Mac OS X, versions10.4 and higher It is easily distinguishable by its icon, which, appropriately enough, looks like a robot See figure 2.1

Figure 2.1 The Automator Icon

Benefits of Automator

As with any type of automation, there are a number of benefits that come from using Automator A primary benefit of Automator is that its user-friendly interface makes automation simple for the average user The

key here is average user With Automator, it doesn’t

take a rocket scientist to build an automated workflow

By putting such an easy-to-use tool directly into the hands of the average user, Apple ensures that virtually

everyone is capable of implementing automation into

their daily routines

Automation can actually reduce stress That’s right, you read that correctly Automation reduces stress By removing the same old repetitive, boring tasks from your workload, you will feel a renewed sense of energy and motivation, as you will become free to focus on things that you actually enjoy, like graphic design, photography, and more

Another benefit of automation is a reduction in user errors No matter what we might like to think, we all

do make mistakes from time to time On the computer, these mistakes are often as simple as entering an

Chapter 2:

Automator

Overview

incorrect file name, accidentally deleting something, moving something into the wrong folder, etc However,

by automating manual tasks, you can eliminate the possibility of user errors occurring when those tasks are performed A properly configured automated workflow will not make mistakes It will perform consistently and accurately day in and day out, like a robot

In addition, since an automated process can interact directly with the computer, it eliminates the time that would have been necessary during manual processing for things like moving and clicking the mouse, pressing keys on the keyboard, mulling over what to do next

The result is a much faster workflow, which can allow you to accomplish a lot more in the same amount of time, or possibly in even less time Depending on how automation is implemented, it may even be possible for your processes to run unattended, allowing you to trigger it while you are at lunch, or when you leave your computer at the end of the day

Increased accuracy, efficiency, and quality are all some

of the benefits of automation As you begin to use Automator, you will encounter these benefits first hand, and, once you do, you will wonder how you ever functioned without Automator

How Does Automator Work?

Automator works by interacting with existing files, folders, and applications on your computer, or by interacting with the operating system itself When using Automator, you first select the applications or types of processes that you want to automate, and then you specify the tasks that you want to perform within those applications or processes

In Automator, each task is called an action, and you can link multiple actions together to form a workflow The workflow you create may then be triggered from within Automator, or it may be saved and triggered outside of Automator in a number of ways Once triggered, the actions within the workflow will process sequentially

Automator Actions

Most Automator actions are designed to perform

a single specific task, such as writing text to a file, opening a URL, or copying files from one location

to another Because of this, actions may be linked together sequentially to form a larger, multi-part, automated process

When you begin planning an automated workflow, think of the tasks that you would normally need

to perform manually You might step through the sequence manually, and outline each step as you go Think of each of these steps as a single Automator action When you build your workflow in Automator, you will assemble these actions together to form a complete workflow

Chapter 2:

Automator

Overview

Action Input/Output Values

In an Automator workflow, each action has the ability to pass information along to the next action

in the sequence Likewise, actions can also receive information from the previous action in the sequence

For example, you may build a workflow that retrieves

a list of files from a folder, compresses the files into

an archive, and attaches the archive to a new email message A workflow of this nature might consist of three separate Automator actions (see Figure 2.2)

4 The first action retrieves a list of files within a specified folder, then passes that list on to the next action

Figure 2.2 Automator Action Interaction

4 The second action takes a list of files as input, then compresses the files into a single archive The location of the compressed archive is output to the next action

4 The third and final action would tell Mail to create

a new email message and attach the archive, which was received as input from the second action, to that message

Information passed between actions can take on a variety of forms Some actions may pass file and folder paths to the next action, some may pass text, some may pass email messages The type of information input

or output by an action will depend on the task that the

Chapter 2:

Automator

Overview

action is performing

Since many actions are designed to process the information that is passed to them by the previous action, when you link actions together to form a workflow, you will need to make sure that each action passes the appropriate type of information to the next action in the sequence For example, an action that will compress files into an archive will only be able to accept file paths from the previous action in the workflow sequence Passing the wrong type of information to the action would produce an error We will discuss this further when we begin building a workflow

An action might take one type of information as input,

and output a different type For example, the Download URLs action, included with Automator, will accept a list

of URLs from a previous action as its input, and output the file paths of the downloaded files to the next action

in the sequence Some actions may be configured to

serve as conversion actions, whose purpose is only to

convert information from one type to another, to be processed by the next action in the sequence Other actions will perform a task, and then simply pass the output of the previous action through to the next action

in the workflow sequence

In some cases, actions may also be configured to ignore the output of the previous action in a workflow This

is sometimes necessary, as we will see when we begin constructing workflows

Action Settings

As we will discuss in detail in a future chapter, when you build a workflow, you will also specify settings for many of the actions in a workflow The settings that you specify will control how the action behaves when it

is triggered in the workflow

For example, using the scenario we discussed earlier for sending compressed files in an email, the compression action in the workflow would need to be configured to know where to save the compressed files This action might be configured to save the compressed files to

a specific folder, such as the Desktop, every time the workflow is run

In some cases, you may not want to specify the settings for an action when you configure the workflow

Instead, you may want to give more control to the user, and allow the user to specify the settings when the workflow is triggered Many actions offer this ability, and can be configured to display settings to the user during processing For example, using the compression example again, you could configure the action to

prompt the user to specify the output folder for the compressed files each time the action is triggered Some actions that will perform a single, very basic task may not require settings to be specified at all For example, Automator includes an iTunes action for updating a connected iPod This action does not require any settings to be specified It will simply update any connected iPod, using iTunes

Chapter 2:

Automator

Overview

Application Interaction

The applications with which Automator can interact depend entirely on the actions you have installed on your computer Fortunately, Apple includes hundreds

of actions to get you started The actions that are installed with Mac OS X cover most of the core Apple applications, including Address Book, the Finder, iPhoto, iTunes, Mail, and Safari, among others Apple also provides actions for interacting directly with the operating system and files on the system

It’s probably fairly safe to assume that you also use applications other than the ones Apple provides to you

If you do, then you’re not out of luck either Third-party Automator actions for a variety of applications are available from a number of developers Since Automator is still new (at least at the time this book was written), the list of third-party actions may be small at the onset However, the number of third-party actions

is sure to grow quickly For a comprehensive up to date list of third-party Automator actions, visit Apple’s Mac OS X download website at

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/, or check out http://www.automatoractions.com

Limitations of Automator

Like most applications, Automator does have some limitations, which are worth covering

First, there is a possibility that, in some cases, actions cannot be developed for certain applications If you encounter this situation, it is because the developer of the application has not provided the necessary “hooks,”

allowing developers to create actions that interact with that particular application

If you learn of an application that does not support Automator action interaction, contact the application’s developer to suggest that such support be

implemented A developer can implement Automator action support in two main ways The developer can make the application AppleScriptable, which can allow for even greater automation possibilities, or the developer can implement a public API (Application Program Interface, a way for programmers to hook into

a third-part application).

Another limitation of Automator is that, while it can

be used to automate a large number of tasks, it cannot

be used to create really complex automated processes When you configure an Automator workflow to trigger specific actions, those actions will execute in the exact order that they have been configured, one right after the other A workflow cannot include any logic to take

a different course of action if a certain situation occurs during processing

In addition, because actions in a workflow trigger

in sequence, each action can only receive as input the output of the previous action An action has no knowledge of the output values of other actions in the workflow This can put some limitations on the ability

to pass information around throughout the workflow Because of this, you probably wouldn’t use Automator

to do something extremely complex, such as building

Chapter 2:

Automator

Overview

a two thousand page catalog of products for your company in QuarkXPress, using data from FileMaker Pro In order to achieve complex automation like this, you would probably want to use something like AppleScript instead AppleScript powers much of the behind-the-scenes functionality of Automator, and is a more appropriate fit for more complex automation

An AppleScript can be written to perform just about any task imaginable on the Mac, and can include all the logic your unique scenario could possibly require

Though relatively simple to learn in comparison to other languages, AppleScript does have a much larger learning curve than that of Automator

To learn more about AppleScript, check out Sal

Soghoian and Bill Cheeseman’s AppleScript 1-2-3

(Peachpit Press)

What’s Next

Now that we have learned a little bit about how Automator works, it is time to get started actually using

it In the next chapter, we will explore various aspects

of Automator’s interface Once you understand the interface, we can begin to implement some example workflows, helping you to take advantage of this awesome technology

Section 2

87

Developing for Automator