automator

I stumbled across Veritrope while researching some OmniFocus AppleScript-ing. It has a number of generally useful scripts. It's chock full of examples, tips and resources of all kinds.  

Back in January I posted about a workflow for automatic processing of DVD's. This is really handy if you are processing a bunch of home movies from DVD to an AppleTV friendly format (or any other format). I've updated my settings (and corrected a typo) from that post. I like the look of strict anamorphic video better on one of my videos so it was easy to simply modify the Automator workflow.

Hazel by Noodlesoft is a really fantastic little helper application. It's really what folder actions should have been. It's the rare example of how Apple missed the target and an independent developer really nailed it. I'm going to skip the Hazel tutorial and get right to the main show. I wanted a system for ripping DVD's of all kinds. Typically this is a manual process where I rip a disk image to my harddrive and then extract the video at the appropriate resolution.

I tend to listen to Podcasts (one of the best is MacBreak Weekly) while I work. But when my wife starts talking to me from the other room, I have to stop what I’m doing to navigate to iTunes just to click Pause. It finally reached a level of annoyance that made me fired up Script Editor and throw together a little script to do it for me. This is just about as simple an Apple Script as you can get:

Here's a quick Automator script to pull all of the image links in the frontmost Safari window into iPhoto. I use this when I stumble across a web page with great photos I want to add to my gallery. Notice that what this script does is download to the desktop and then import to iPhoto. After completion, it deletes the originals from the desktop. This way I am sure to get the full resolution images rather than the lower resolution web thumb nails Technorati Tags: Apple, Automator, iPhoto, Mac, Productivity, Programming, Tip, Trick

I use a lot of Applescript when I use my Mac. I’ve learned quite a bit about the language over the years. Needless to say that it makes me a little snobby about using Automator. For the most part, I hate automator because it is so limited. What it has is pretty much all you get to do. However, once in awhile I gain an added appreciation for its simplicity. Here is an Automator “script” that takes a screenshot and then places the screen shot in my blog photos library within iPhoto.