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- inactive, on 12/18/2007, -5/+28Automator is a great app. Apple should show off these sorts of things in their ads. Things that make computing easier. Not slamming MS.
- inkswamp, on 12/18/2007, -1/+15Right, because calm rationality and a desire to inform have long been the hallmarks of successful ad campaigns.
Face it. People respond to the entertainment value when it comes to commercials. Apple's just doing what every other advertiser does. - absolutzombie, on 12/19/2007, -0/+9I've got actions that resize images, add a watermark, run a photoshop action for adjusting levels, optimizing the filesize for the web and saving to a new directory. I can choose a few directories, tell it to run, and go get some tea. I have lesser used actions to create optimized web photo galleries, and automatically upload them, and generate a formatted e-mail to send to clients. I used to use another one that would wrap pictures, html templates, and text together to make a formatted eBay ad - complete with ftp upload to my server - all I had to do was sign into ebay and copypaste my description code.
Automator is super handy, and a great time-saver for repetitive stuff. - Boondoggle, on 12/18/2007, -2/+11This sounds like something you read someplace and didn't quite understand.
- eatrains, on 12/19/2007, -1/+10Automator is nothing like the Task Manager. The Task Manager on Windows would be like Activity Monitor on Mac OS X.
- inactive, on 12/18/2007, -1/+8Even though I've had a Mac for a few months I've never used Automator... I don't really get how it'd be useful for me :( Like, what are some good applications of it?
- bbardlbradd, on 12/19/2007, -0/+7Automator in Tiger is great. Automator in Leopard though is not so great.
In Tiger you can make a Finder plug-in that allows you to rename a bunch of files @ once. Like if you had a bunch of pictures of something, like trees, you could round them all up and right click on one, and select the plug-in under automator and a dialog window would pop up and ask you what you wanted to name them, and you could enter anything, like "tree", and it would rename them like "tree 001, tree 002, tree 003, etc..." until it renamed them all to that format...
In Leopard though, this is broken. When you enter a name, like "tree" it doesn't carry the string in the process, and instead just names them all without it (like "001, 002, 003, etc...").
So make a fuss so it'll get some attention. - iSkylla, on 12/18/2007, -0/+6Dugg for a great program. This is definitely one of the best applications that OSX offers.
- Chirp08, on 12/18/2007, -0/+5repeating a process on multiple images such as cropping/compressing is probably the most common
- inkswamp, on 12/19/2007, -0/+5Boy, these theories about these ads are getting pretty convoluted.
Anyway, I use Windows and Mac equally and agree with much of what is said in those ads. It's being exaggerated for effect. - Boondoggle, on 12/18/2007, -0/+4That is because a windows machine is a much needed extension of so many small penises.
- inkswamp, on 12/19/2007, -0/+4I wrote one that takes a folder full of files, converts them to PDFs and uploads them to a specific location. You can do a lot with Automator, but as some others have pointed out, there's a learning curve involved.
- antitab, on 12/19/2007, -0/+4What? Activity Monitor is the OS X analog of Task Manager. There's nothing like Automator on Windows.
- Boondoggle, on 12/18/2007, -0/+3I use it to tag a file name with the current date and move it to a folder, among other things.
Add spotlight comments.. etc.
Call applescripts or shell scripts... the list goes on. - inkswamp, on 12/18/2007, -2/+5I said nothing about lying. Apple's playing down to the lowest common denominator an ad can offer: entertainment. But if you're referring to casting a competitor as a bumbling idiot or coming up short in important ways, then that has been done many, many times and it's hardly lying. Apple's not the first, but it sure seems to stir up the hornet's nest when they say something snide about Windows. It's interesting because I haven't seen one person utter a single word about the Alltel ads running that depict the other wireless service providers are bumbling, goofy-looking nerds. Same basic premise as Apple's ads, but nowhere do I see any outcry.
- yabos, on 12/19/2007, -0/+2You're still wrong
- consumer4beta, on 12/19/2007, -0/+2This is the killer app of OS X, made me switch eventually....absolutely time-saving...for Windows, there seem to be Automise (www.vsoft.com) and ScriptAhead (ScriptAhead.com) that are a little bit similar, but then VBScript/WSH isn't itself as easy as AppleScript. Vista's Task Scheduler is also decent at automatically firing tasks based on event-based triggers but doesn't come close to actually automizing the task.
- rickcarson, on 12/19/2007, -0/+2Damn. i was sure that with my two word witty retort I'd capture the hearts, minds, and diggs of hundreds of diggoids. Looks like the algorithm needs more work. Bugger. And I was really hoping to automate it, too. ;-)
- inactive, on 12/19/2007, -0/+2You can make a Mac wake up automatically. Go to System Preferences > Energy Saver > Schedule... and then you get this pleasant box: http://i13.tinypic.com/7x8gmk8.png
- jkoke, on 12/19/2007, -0/+2Yes. They do, and I think that's kind of the point. Sometimes he doesn't want DVDs to automatically launch DVD player, and sometimes he does, so he wrote a quick action that offers him the choice.
- peterinjapan, on 12/19/2007, -0/+2yes, I scoffed at Automator, being a pretty heavy Applescriptor. But I found some things that the Watch Actions can record that are eerily convenient, like, setting the keyboard shortcuts of every program to what I need them to be on all the Macs I work with. Great stuff.
- inkswamp, on 12/19/2007, -2/+4Another ad. Some of you take these ads really seriously, don't you?
- da5id, on 12/19/2007, -0/+1I love writing code. It's why I bought my computer -- why make it do all the work.
- Hayl, on 12/19/2007, -4/+5Utterly useless article with hardly any detailed information... more of a general overview and nothing that any mildly intelligent person couldn't figure out out on their own.
- yabos, on 12/19/2007, -0/+1That's kind of tough to do in a 30 second commercial. If you can think of a way to show the power of creating an Automator script in 30 seconds that can convey what's actually happening in a way that everyone can understand, who also has never heard of automator, then post it here.
- Boondoggle, on 12/19/2007, -0/+1you need to re-parse that sentence through your logic filters.
- krakelohm, on 12/19/2007, -0/+1What were you expecting with a description like "A super-quick intro to Automator where you build a simple action"
- xike, on 12/19/2007, -0/+1I wish there was a power user mode that allowed multiple inputs to actions. I often want to have files navigate through a series of actions, but also want it to ask me what to name them, where to move them, etc. Allowing branches would be nice. (see: Quartz Composer)
- DanaG, on 12/19/2007, -0/+1The closest analogy may be a graphical shell script generator on steriods, for whatever you need to generate a shell script for in OS X.
- 5xSTUN, on 12/19/2007, -0/+1Where I work I'm required to sign in and out via email. It's a hassle, so I created an Automator script that automatically creates an outgoing message from my work account in Mail.app and sends it with a single mouseclick. At the end of the day, I use a similar script that signs me out, waits a few seconds, and then quits Mail.app for me.
- Boondoggle, on 12/19/2007, -1/+2Wow you're like a total retard, only not funny!
- rickcarson, on 12/19/2007, -0/+1No, because if you have, say for instance, a car ad where you say "Buy this Ford! Look at all the bikinis you'll get!" then when Joe Digg sees this, he will think "but I drive a Ford, where are the bikinis man?" and his utility will decrease.
We take actions (such as purchases) based on our emotions, and then use logic to justify them afterwards. (Yes, this applies even to you, El Dorkoroni in your mom's basement) Hence ads that are aimed at giving you logical reasons to buy product X, are aimed at re-assuring people that they have made the correct purchase after the fact. Whereas ads that appeal to emotion (e.g. lust) are intended to pave the way to the initial purchase. - mathcreative, on 12/29/2008, -0/+1wow never saw throught that!
- rickcarson, on 12/19/2007, -0/+1I run a shell script nightly. I find that I can just tab to terminal, do a single up arrow, and then hit return and get the same result.
What I'd _like_ is for the system to wake itself up and do it automatically at a set time each (working day) night if I'm on holiday.
However I've found that on the 1% of occasions where something goes wrong, e.g. one of the files is corrupt, or the net is down etc. there is no substitute for eyeballing it.
If you can write me an automator script that will walk upstairs and reboot my modem, and then if that doesn't work ring up my ISP and abuse _their_ automated help system, then you will have my respect and admiration. - REBELinBLUE, on 12/19/2007, -0/+1I use it along with folder actions to automatically convert video files (using VisualHub) as they are placed in a certain folder (which I have transmission set up to move completed torrents to) to mpeg4. I could if I wanted then have it tag them using Atomic Parsley and then import the files into iTunes (although I haven't bothered with that as I'm too lazy to figure out how to do it).
- Ireland, on 12/19/2007, -0/+1"Automator is a great app. Apple should show off these sorts of things in their ads."
I am glad they don't listen to you. A thing Automator means nothing to the average job. - beerbarron, on 12/19/2007, -0/+1I've made a great lil morning alarm system, that checks my mail, and starts iTunes. Export the app, then get iCal to start it at a certain time :)
- Boondoggle, on 12/19/2007, -0/+1funny thing is not everyone has $600 to blow on Photoshop, or the need to boot a huge app just to do some crop/resizing.
- inactive, on 12/19/2007, -0/+1And let that be a lesson to you. Don't think different like sheep, think..... for yourself !
- Boondoggle, on 12/19/2007, -0/+1This can also be configured in the system preferences. It is a pretty silly thing to write an automator script for.
- da5id, on 12/19/2007, -0/+1First, let me get my tongue out of my cheek.
- Boondoggle, on 12/19/2007, -0/+1You can do this.
For specific actions you can select "show action when run" and in many cases a dialog box opens asking for input. I use that to tag multiple files with custom spotlight comments for example. - Boondoggle, on 12/19/2007, -0/+1Unfortunately they're not doing it well enough, as you seem to still be full of *****.
- inactive, on 12/19/2007, -1/+1I just use photoshop to automate things like that... Batch renaming?
- Boondoggle, on 12/19/2007, -2/+2Oh so you're not a retard then? Splain to me how task scheduler will crop my files, rename them with today's date convert them to secure PDFs and upload them to a web page?
- inactive, on 12/19/2007, -2/+1Now if Apple would only get rid of unified menus, we would be golden.
- Virgule, on 12/19/2007, -3/+2I made an Ask For Play DVD: "Ask For Comfirmation" then "Launch Application: DVD Player: if I hit Yes. Saved that as an application and setup the 'CDs & DVDs' pref panel to run this app when I insert a video DVD.
Come on Mac Diggers, share you Automator creations here. Brainstorming 'ought to bring great fruits.. - rlthomas, on 12/19/2007, -1/+0Hint, go to college. Only temp agencies do this.
- ariez84, on 12/19/2007, -2/+1I meant Task Scheduler. Not Task Manager. doh
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