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Cut and Paste in Mac OSX 10.5

Shake 'n' Bake said:
Is there anything free? I've been wanting something like this for ages.
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Not that I know of. Clipboard Evolved has because of its ability to be placed in a variety of places is extremely unique, also the hot keys are really nicely designed. I honestly don't know how much I will use this in college, but even around the forums it has been helpful, it also serves as the best to-do list I have seen.
 
Shake 'n' Bake said:
Is there anything free? I've been wanting something like this for ages.
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Depending on how skilled you are with automator, you can build a cut and paste solution yourself. I started doing this a couple of years ago, but I didn't really care about it so I stopped before I finished it.

Basically you just need to make a folder in a stable location and call it "clippings". Then make an automator script that does a "move selected items" into folder called "clippings". Then make a second automator script that does the actions "select all items in clippings folder" and "copy those items into current forefront folder" and then "select all items from clippings folder" and "move them into the trash". Then simply assign the copy script and paste script to key commands in the finder. It's a bit of an inelegant hack, but it should work perfectly. The only thing you'd lose is the ability to undo a cut. I never finished it simply because I couldn't quickly find the correct automator actions that perform a couple of these steps, but I'm sure it'd be easy for anyone who has even just an intermediate skill level with automator.
 
motulist said:
Depending on how skilled you are with automator, you can build a cut and paste solution yourself. I started doing this a couple of years ago, but I didn't really care about it so I stopped before I finished it.

Basically you just need to make a folder in a stable location and call it "clippings". Then make an automator script that does a "move selected items" into folder called "clippings". Then make a second automator script that does the actions "select all items in clippings folder" and "copy those items into current forefront folder" and then "move items from clippings folder into the trash". Then simply assign the copy script and paste script to key commands in the finder. It's a bit of an inelegant hack, but it should work perfectly. The only thing you'd lose is the ability to undo a cut. I never finished it simply because I couldn't quickly find the correct automator actions that perform a couple of these steps, but I'm sure it'd be easy for anyone who has even just an intermediate skill level with automator.
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I think I'll see if I can do that tomorrow.
 
Shake 'n' Bake said:
I think I'll see if I can do that tomorrow.
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Cool! Tell us how it goes. And of course, be careful and do a lot of testing before you start using these automator scripts on files you care about. There are a couple of pitfalls I started to see happening during my testing phase that I should warn you about if you're gonna give this a shot. For instance, if you do a cut command which moves the selected files into the clippings folder, and then forget to do a paste command, and then do another copy command, then when you do a paste you'll wind up pasting files from BOTH times you did the cut command. At the same time, this can be seen as a powerful advantage! You can do multiple copy commands on many different files in many different locations, hit copy then copy then copy, and then move ALL of them into your target folder with a single paste command!

Here's another possible pitfall. Since this process uses a "copy" command instead of the much faster "move" command, then the actual paste process can be slow, especially if you're moving around large files. And you'd probably have to put a "wait" command between the "paste" and "move to trash" commands so that it doesn't try to move the items from the clippings folder into the trash before the OS has had a chance to fully complete the "paste (copy into forefront folder)" command to be fully finished first.

Definitely tell us how it goes!
 
I can't find an action that puts things into the top folder. I might try writing my own action for this.

And I can't find a way to assign key combos to things. Is there special software to do that?
 
Shake 'n' Bake said:
And I can't find a way to assign key combos to things. Is there special software to do that?
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I'm sure there's an easy way to do it, but right off the top of my head I can tell you that you can simply drag, hover, and drop the launchable script file into the header area of any finder winder. That'll create a button icon in all your finder windows that when you click it it will launch that script.
 
Shake 'n' Bake said:
Now I'm only stuck on copying the items to the top window. I can't find anything to do that.
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Well, I can't help you there, as I said in my original post, I'm only a very basic automator user so whenever I try to do something in automator I often can't find some actions that I'm looking that I know must exist but I don't know the name of.
 
I've got most of it sorted. The only problem now is when I run the paste portion of the thing, it makes the desktop the active window.

After I solve that problem, I'll find some snazzy icons and make a package.
 
Everything is ready to go, but Installer gets stuck on this screen and won't go any further.

EDIT: Never mind, got it. I'll post it in a few minutes.
 

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NEW PROBLEM!

After Installer finishes, this is all there is. There should be "Cut" and "Paste." Anyone know why this is happening? "Contents" shouldn't be there either.
 

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Cool beans dude! I bet if you give this project a little bit more visibility then you'll get the attention of people who are advanced automator users who'll help you refine the whole project. Good work, keep it up!
 
motulist said:
Cool beans dude! I bet if you give this project a little bit more visibility then you'll get the attention of people who are advanced automator users who'll help you refine the whole project. Good work, keep it up!
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I think I'll post around some forums and see if I can get help with PackageMaker, and if that works, I'll start a new thread and post it there.
 
Awesome! Good to know Apple FINALLY addressed this issue and admitted they were wrong about excluding this feature! It's kind of a wimpy move to add it in such an unannounced manner though.
 
No you can't do it in 10.6. At least I haven't found out how to do it. It is also annoying you can't delete files by hitting the delete key. Instead you have to drag or use the context menu.
 
JayInNJ said:
No you can't do it in 10.6. At least I haven't found out how to do it. It is also annoying you can't delete files by hitting the delete key. Instead you have to drag or use the context menu.
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You should try reading the thread. Some solutions have been given. As for deleting, use cmd+delete to send to Trash. No mouse needed or context menu.
 
Since upgrading to SL, I haven't touched Automator much, but now I think I've got a cut/paste solution.

It all hinges on two things:

1. Being able to have the workflow sub-menu thing on the right-click menu

2. Me being able to work Package Maker.

So if you've got a solution to the first one, I'd love to hear it.
 
angelwatt said:
You should try reading the thread. Some solutions have been given. As for deleting, use cmd+delete to send to Trash. No mouse needed or context menu.
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Great thanks on that. It would have easier though if they just made it plain delete. I was referring to the post above that indicated it was "fixed" in 10.6.
 
The best solution so far

I know some solutions has been suggested in the thread and that the previous post is more than a year old, but this is the perfect solution: It is called moveAddict and is found here:

moveAddict: http://kapeli.com

(Thanks Tamias for pointing to that video). It adds cut and paste functionality to Finder. It is very similar to what is done in Windows, as when you cut some files (with cmd-x) it just remembers what files you have cut, and when you paste, then the move is done. This way, nothing is lost if you don't do the paste. It also marks the files as cut in Finder. It is not free but the price of $7.99 is affordable.

Yeah, it just works as we want it to 🙂

WARNING: Do NOT buy it via the new App Store. Buy it via the developer's website. If you buy it via the App Store you will have an issue upgrading it.
 
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