Coffee & Cocoa hot bits and bytes

Some days ago I wrote about the Automator dillema and the fact that Automator needs more attention. Today I will give Automator more attention.

What makes Automator really helpful and powerful is the possibility to integrate a workflow with the OS. You can store a workflow as a plugin for Finder, Folder Actions, iCal Alarm, Image Capture, Print Workflow or for the Script menu.

With Automator and these plugins everyone can add new functions to prominent places of the OS. You are missing a ZIP and Mail menu item in the context menu of Finder? No problem with Automator.

I made two simple workflow (Archive PDF Printouts and Create Source Bundle) that show the possibilities of Automator.

Archive PDF printouts of bank transfers

Pretty all of my bank transfers are done through online banking. I keep a copy of the confirmation as a PDF for each bank transfer I have done. I store them in a special archive directory and add date information to the PDF file for easier future reference.

Archiving these PDFs is an awkward job. I have to move to the right directory and remember the current day, change the filename, …

Doing it with Automator is pretty simple. The workflow consists of three actions.

1. Give the user the chance to change the filename as the filename is extracted from the title of the website. I had to do that with Applescript as I found no action for that
2. Add the date information to the file.
3. Move the file to the archive directory.

I have a separate folder for each year. To make this workflow still usable in the next year I created an alias to the current year and called that alias “This year”. Therefore the target of the move action is “…/This year/…” instead of “…/2006/…”. Next year I only have to change the alias.

You can download the Archive Bank Transfer Workflow. Open the workflow with Automator to adopt it for your needs (archive directory, …). Then store the workflow as a Print Workflow plugin.

Create a source bundle of a project

Whenever I want to upload a new version of some source code to this site I remove the subversion metadata directories (.svn), check if everything is committed and add the current revision number to the file. First I created a shell script that does all of that for a single project. Than I generalized that script to make it useful for any project and now I have bundled that script in an Automator workflow. It’s now a plugin for the Finder.

That makes it possible to select a project folder or subfolder in the Finder and instantly create a source bundle.

You can download the Create Source Bundle Workflow. Store the workflow as a Finder plugin.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 20th, 2006 at 10:00 am and is filed under Automator. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.