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40 Comments
- defectDS, on 10/12/2007, -2/+29It's also great for downloading certain *images* from certain *online galleries* all at once. ;)
Try it.
Get Specific URL's > Get image from given URL's > Download URL's.
:D - john608, on 10/12/2007, -1/+17Been using this for a while on my Mac - can't live without it. What a great tool
- NicP, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15There is already a convert to pdf script in LibraryScriptsPrinting Scripts
- jpt62089, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14Because I guess not many people use it when it is one of the most usefull tools in OS X ;)
- MrCoke, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8i used mac osx for the first time a week ago, within 1 hour of using the os i knew what it did, its self explanitory, especially for diggers which are technical people who would know this.
- MikeSD34, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I didn't use it much, till I went looking for something nice and simple I could use to download the WebKit nightlies. It was much simpler than I thought it would be, must have taken me MAYBE two minutes to put something together, without any real prior experience.
- nicklinus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6yea automator is pretty cool. if you want to know more macbreak has a episode about it.
- MoofTheStoof, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Automator is GUI piping. If that doesn't get you excited, you're not really a geek. The reason it's being brought up is that a large percent of the mac community doesn't fully realize what has been handed to them. I was ready to give up the Mac OS for Linux years ago, but the promise of OS X kept me in the community, then made me glad I stayed. Automator is one of those tools that makes me REALLY glad I stuck it out.
- mikev, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6There are so many topic like this, but they are all right. Even though Automator is kind of slow (even on my iMac G5), it has done a ton for me. I've got it to simplify the screenshot taking process for me...taking screenshot, uploading to FTP, generating BBCode, opening Safari to new post at [x] forum.
Automator ftw! - mecki78, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Automator is pretty useless. It is way too limited. E.g. every module can have only one output and one input. We tried to put Automator into our own software, but it turned out to be useless for users. Our documents consist out of images and text, but there is no way to have text coming from one source and images from another one. So you can only have an action that creates documents out of images or out of text, but you still have to provide the other one manually after that. And whatever people are doing with Automator can easily be done with a few lines of shell script, much faster, much more efficient and much more flexible. E.g. a backup script, just a few lines of code (3-4) and you are done. Now make it schedule via lunchd and you won't even use to use iCal to have it work automatically.
The idea sounded so great when Apple announced Automator a year ago. We thought about all the possibilities. But at that time we thought there will be much more modules, each with multi-input, multi-output, that can be combined together in a totally flexible way. A nice dream, but not what Apple finally shipped.
I think it's pretty cheap of people here to vote down any negative comment about Automator. Search on Google, the majority of people in the world write in their blogs that it is useless and those who disagree either have very, very, very limited tasks or never really tried to use it for anything bigger. - starmanjones, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3its taken sometime for power users to find it and start making use of it. the number of automator actions for lots of appllications has reached a point where the applescript people have created a base of actions that make it possible for anybody to take the far flung parts and put them together into little appliactions. i suspect that in the near future there will be explosion of applications created for Macs with it that it will seem like a revolution. i'm going to use it to make an application that will go through your bookmarks... snatch all the words from a webpage... index them and use words to decide what catagory a bookmark should be in... and move them there. they are a bit kludgy but with processors so fast these days kludge isn't necessarily a bad thing. especially if lets non programmers create applications.
- titlesaysitall, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I have an Automator plug in setup in iCal so everyday at 12:00 A.M. it gets the latest pic from Nasa and sets it as my desktop background and copy the picture to my picture's folder.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I like it, at first i never used it, then before some itunes updates, i used it to rename tracks and artists in specific formats (works great for that) very useful tool
- FluffyArmada, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I have an automator script that downloads NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day, and a scipt that downloads the days Frazz comic. I use cron to run them both automagically at 5:00am. :)
http://static.flickr.com/45/177452597_d1b1f073ef_b.jpg - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I agree 100% as I had the same experience. OS X just makes sense and does an extremely good job of staying out of your way.
- Angostura, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I wrote one that alerted me whenever a new file landed in my dashboard widget folder. It was handy when there was talk of stealth rogue widgets. That's about i though.
Oh, it's nice for telling you when someone has updated a networked folder too - FluffyArmada, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2You might need Applescript for that, depending on what you're actually trying to do, but Applescipt is pretty easy to learn, even though I'd prefer to learn bash, which is more applicable in more places.
- whitesaint, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2great program for tiger, priceless when working with tedious tasks
- Aggaman, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2"Change type of images" will work to change any image to a PDF.
Otherwise the aforementioned script. - avatarpalin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I found it really useful but still a bit hard to get going. The Mac-break podcast has some really good tutorials on how to get started on that, and now i find I am doing some pretty cool stuff... if anything it can build a pretty cool syncing script with my external Hdd..
I give it a pretty solid 7/10 - Nathan07, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Plus you can work scripts into an Automater workflow.
- FluffyArmada, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1That's the thing though, it *is* designed for very simple tasks.
- Angostura, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I agree. It's not much use for me untiil there are simple conditionals. IF, THEN.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Quoting the article:
> I had decided for the second time to try to learn a little about Automator
> as part of my resolve to do things on the Mac this year that I have never
> done before.
Speaking of things I've never done before, what are these "Folder Actions" all about? I understand the concept (a script is executed when a file is added to a particular folder) but I've never had any inclination to look into this feature.
Is anyone using the Folder Actions for anything interesting? - Kypt, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3It's a nice addition but it is NOT perfect, it does have its limitations
- hab136, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The thing is, there are a lot more people that can use dialogs and radio boxes than can write script. Yes, bash or AppleScript is much more powerful. C++ is even more powerful, but with power comes complexity. The initial learning curve of even interpreted scripting language has turned many regular people off. Is my 60-year old mother going to write shell script, ever? No. She might use Automator, and be overjoyed. Some people may even use Automator, realize what they could do if they just learned some script, and progress. Very few simply make the leap into scripting, compared to the millions that just email and surf the web since everything else is "too hard" or "for geeks".
- The_Decryptor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I have one (FolderOrg) to organise my download folder, it puts downloads under a folder with the current date.
Works well with Safari (because safari appends a custom extension until it's done), but not with Firefox (Firefox creates the file, then updates it, but it can't track when the file gets moved) - rhettmaxwell, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I didn't really get it at first until someone mentioned it was like unix pipes, then the lightbulb went off. Automator is awesome, and its easy to write actions for. I wrote a simple action that can be used to batch convert movies to other formats. http://qtexportaction.sourceforge.net
- 03RubinM, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Automator can pretty nice depending on what you do. I have an automator script that runs some basic photoshop image enhancements, and resizes the images. It's a nice way to save doing a repetitive task, though it has some limitations.
- ub3rgeek, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1how do i make automator look in a folder to see if the url its downloading is allready there?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Not so terrible techtalk from googleplex
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4244579625536637061 - avatarpalin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1and some Firefox extensions do an even better job *grin*
- tychop, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Upgrading to 10.4.7 removed all my folder actions ...... Does anyone else experienced the same prob?
- lowmagnet, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Yeah or you could do 'curl -O http://site/path/to/pics/picname[1-numberofpics].jpg' and not waste your time on all that fancy scripting.
- UnnDunn, on 10/12/2007, -6/+2I've used it a number of times. It seems somewhat limited.
- Rndm_Tngnt, on 10/12/2007, -8/+3Man, I'd like to, but I really can't be arsed.
- kettlechips, on 10/12/2007, -12/+2I tried to make an Automator script to convert a batch of files to PDF but it wasn't possible. Crippleware I say.
- zwerdlds, on 10/12/2007, -16/+3Indeed, a full-blown programing language is what most people need. Java is good enough for most people, I suggest taking a course on it or simply teaching yourself - it's not that complicated.
- Trevino, on 10/12/2007, -16/+2Buried, why are you telling us about a self explanatory feature in a operating system that was released at least a year ago?
- subcomandante, on 10/12/2007, -31/+1You're a tool.
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