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'Automator' sounds cool!
- Thread starter oaxaca
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I played with it at a friends house. I just got to see of couple of minutes of it, but it seem cool. I can't see a real good time to use this though. Maybe I just have to play with it more.
I don't think I'll have a use for it but I'm sure I'll play with Automator. I'm guessing that I'll find a use for it anyway. I'm most excited about Dashboard and Spotlight. I've seen screenshots of Mail and that looks cool too. I'm hoping for a huge speed gain also.
I'm still not quite sure what to think of it. From the looks of it it's kinda of like AppleScript with a GUI? Or a Photoshop batch? And it looks like it's dependent on an application's library, like AppleScript. So Automator is only as good as the library it's tapping into. Someone correct me if I'm wrong!
What I'd REALLY like to see is macro-like features that are completely independent of a program's library, like being able to do a mouse click given certain coordinates, or keyboard commands, stuff that you could apply to ANY program and not just ones where the developer has created a library for it.
What I'd REALLY like to see is macro-like features that are completely independent of a program's library, like being able to do a mouse click given certain coordinates, or keyboard commands, stuff that you could apply to ANY program and not just ones where the developer has created a library for it.
I could see using automator every now and then but not much. Does anyone know if it expandable beyond the standard Apple settings?
Hemingray said:
Yes you are wrong. You can use your own AppleScripts with Automator and you can download AppleScripts from others to use in Automator too. The really cool thing about Automator is that you can save your lineup of AppleScripts that does a series of actions and you can post it on the web for others to download. The series of actions that ends up creating a huge action that are created in Automator is called a Workflow. As people develop Workflows more and more will be available on the Apple web site for download (as will dashboard Widgets).
I agree with you about having a better automation development coding other than AppleScripts. I would like to be able to use keyboard shortcuts and mouse clicks in a workflow. Maybe someone will figure out how to do these things with AppleScripts though and Apple will post the Workflows on there download web page. Maybe I'm hoping for too much.
I like the concept though. Maybe this will convince others to change the way programming is done and maybe others will pick up on the concept of doing programs using plain english instead of complex coding languages for simple programs. Hey, maybe we can all become programmers!!
Folks let's not confuse Automator with Applescript Studio which "is" a GUI over Applescript.
Automator is an API that will enable apps to automate using Applescript, Shell Scripts and possibly other methods. It actually compiles C++ code for the actions according to eWeek mag. I'm thinking it's going to be a lot more robust than what people are thinking but since Tiger is under NDA no more technical info can be released.
As always though most people don't know what they can automate until they see their choices. Hang tight.
Automator is an API that will enable apps to automate using Applescript, Shell Scripts and possibly other methods. It actually compiles C++ code for the actions according to eWeek mag. I'm thinking it's going to be a lot more robust than what people are thinking but since Tiger is under NDA no more technical info can be released.
As always though most people don't know what they can automate until they see their choices. Hang tight.
I've got to admit to be being pretty pumped-up about Automator. I'm expecting Spotlight to save my life in much the same way that I'm increasingly dependent on Google Desktop Search on my PC at work. However, Automator seems to be even more exciting since its power appears only limited (to a degree) by your imagination. I really need to start learning AppleScript, particularly since there have been a number of scenarios recently where I've been sure that there has to be a simpler job to automate a repetitive job, and Automator looks like it'll be a great accompaniment to this.
When I think back to it, Panther's only killer feature that I took note of when it was unveiled was Expose. However, after I received my copy of it I found loads of features that I can't do without today (the great implementation of Command-Tab, for example) and therefore would miss if I went back to Jaguar (hell no). The point is that I can see a reasonable number of features in Tiger that excite me (Spotlight, Automator, Mail, Dashboard, Safari RSS and XCode 2, in particular), so if the same experience is true with Tiger as it was with Panther, I should find tons of great stuff in the new OS.
When I think back to it, Panther's only killer feature that I took note of when it was unveiled was Expose. However, after I received my copy of it I found loads of features that I can't do without today (the great implementation of Command-Tab, for example) and therefore would miss if I went back to Jaguar (hell no). The point is that I can see a reasonable number of features in Tiger that excite me (Spotlight, Automator, Mail, Dashboard, Safari RSS and XCode 2, in particular), so if the same experience is true with Tiger as it was with Panther, I should find tons of great stuff in the new OS.
Automator would be a help to me. I do quite a bit of repetitive work that, for various reasons, I haven't been able to automate fully with the existing solutions. Automator will fix the lack of solutions problem. The only thing missing is applications that work with the file formats I use for Mac OS X (I have to use Windows for some formats currently).
GodBless said:
Okay, but wait... doesn't a program need to be "scriptable" in order for AppleScript to interact with it? Say I want to use Automator on some random Joe Blow shareware app for some reason, but the developer hasn't done anything to support AppleScript and/or Automator. Wouldn't that render both useless to that program?
You can script user interface actions with applescript, and I have a feeling that the same will be true with automator. So even if an app doesn't have built in applescript support, you can still write scripts for it. Look here for more info: http://www.apple.com/applescript/uiscripting/.
mduser63 said:
Beautiful! This sounds exactly like what I've been looking for. New to 10.3, eh? No wonder I didn't know about this, I think the last time I seriously looked into AppleScript was 10.1 or 10.2. Thank you!
