hey guys, new to the forums, longtime mac user though. Ive been having some fun with automator recently, and dreamed up a little project.
Heres what i want to do:
Have my computer wake on command at a specified time.
Have iCal trigger an automator workflow that that will do the following:
1. Greet me "Good morning, the current time is (X) it is (date)"
2. Grab weather info from an RSS feed, and streamline the data so that it will flow something like this: "it is currently (x) degrees in boulder colorado, the expected high today is (x) degrees, with a low of around (x) degrees. Current conditions are (sunny) with a windspeed of x miles per hour.
3. The flow will now pause and ask if I would like to hear the weekend forecast. Using speech commands, i will be able to answer yes or no.
4. Automator will then check my iCal and inform me of any appointments or events happening during the day.
5. Next, the automator should grab the rss feed of my gmail acount and alert me to how many new messages i have, and will ask me if i would like them read to me, i will be able to answer yes or no. I would like to be able to streamline this part as well, so that automator will read the sender, when the email was sent, the subject and then the body of the message.
*it would also be nice to have automator only read me the subjects of the emails, but not necessary*
6. After emails, it should ask if i would like to hear the news for today, and it will grab another rss, this time from a news site, and read four or five headlines, after each headline it should ask if i want to hear the entire story, and if not, it will read another headline.
I know it sounds really complicated, but all of the individual pieces are there, i just need some help streamlining it though, so automator doesnt reed all of the unnecessary and awkward parts of the rss feeds. What i have started doing is using a folder devoted to the process filled with text files. i can get all of the text files to string together in the right order so that it sounds right, and will pause and ask questions as necessary, the only thing i am really having trouble with is getting automator to filter out individual variable from the feeds. So i guess my question is how do i take a variable from an rss feed, say number of unread emails, and filter out only that. I want to be able to have automator look at my emails rss, see that there are 7 unread messages, and have it put the number 7 into its own text file.
Sorry for the novel, but i am really close to pulling this off, and i just need to learn how to filter stuff out more efficiently.
If anyone wants, i can post the files and workflows that i am working with.
Heres what i want to do:
Have my computer wake on command at a specified time.
Have iCal trigger an automator workflow that that will do the following:
1. Greet me "Good morning, the current time is (X) it is (date)"
2. Grab weather info from an RSS feed, and streamline the data so that it will flow something like this: "it is currently (x) degrees in boulder colorado, the expected high today is (x) degrees, with a low of around (x) degrees. Current conditions are (sunny) with a windspeed of x miles per hour.
3. The flow will now pause and ask if I would like to hear the weekend forecast. Using speech commands, i will be able to answer yes or no.
4. Automator will then check my iCal and inform me of any appointments or events happening during the day.
5. Next, the automator should grab the rss feed of my gmail acount and alert me to how many new messages i have, and will ask me if i would like them read to me, i will be able to answer yes or no. I would like to be able to streamline this part as well, so that automator will read the sender, when the email was sent, the subject and then the body of the message.
*it would also be nice to have automator only read me the subjects of the emails, but not necessary*
6. After emails, it should ask if i would like to hear the news for today, and it will grab another rss, this time from a news site, and read four or five headlines, after each headline it should ask if i want to hear the entire story, and if not, it will read another headline.
I know it sounds really complicated, but all of the individual pieces are there, i just need some help streamlining it though, so automator doesnt reed all of the unnecessary and awkward parts of the rss feeds. What i have started doing is using a folder devoted to the process filled with text files. i can get all of the text files to string together in the right order so that it sounds right, and will pause and ask questions as necessary, the only thing i am really having trouble with is getting automator to filter out individual variable from the feeds. So i guess my question is how do i take a variable from an rss feed, say number of unread emails, and filter out only that. I want to be able to have automator look at my emails rss, see that there are 7 unread messages, and have it put the number 7 into its own text file.
Sorry for the novel, but i am really close to pulling this off, and i just need to learn how to filter stuff out more efficiently.
If anyone wants, i can post the files and workflows that i am working with.