Re: automator
Re: automator
- Subject: Re: automator
- From: Timothy Klein <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2007 10:39:41 -0700
On Nov 28, 2007, at 9:00 AM, John C. Welch wrote:
On 11/27/2007 21:32 PM, "Timothy Klein" <email@hidden> wrote:
In order to use Automator with an application, that application needs
to have Automator actions built-in. Neither Excel, Numbers, nor Pages
have actions built-in, so you can't do anything with them in
Automator, at least not directly (if you could do something in those
apps with a shell script or Applescript, you could wrap that in
Automator, if you wanted to).
Excel will likely never have Automator support. Pages and Numbers
*ought* to have Automator support, but they currently don't (Keynote
does).
In addition to what PaulB said, what you are saying is well, wrong.
Well, um, no, it's not: that's why I mentioned shell scripts and
Applescripts, But to be honest, if you can do it with a shell script
or Applescript, the advantages of wrapping it in Automator are small
(it provides a better UI , and the plug-ability *may* be nice for
you, but other than that, msot of your real work is done outside
Automator -- for a *user*, see below).
But seeing how this is a *users* list, I spent no time in my brief
post about that path, as it seems a distinctly developer-oriented
route, to me (yeah, Applescript is a "user" technology, but I have no
idea if the OP knows any Applescript). I like Automator, but I've
tried to shoe-horn it into jobs where it doesn't currently shine, and
it's just been more work than it was worth. Using it with non-
Automator aware apps is such a job. Writing actions, via Applescript
or shell wrappers (or Obc-C dorectly, which is not much of an option
here) is beyond the scope of this list.
I apologize for the error about Excel and Automator -- I don't pay
close attention to MS roadmaps, and Automator didn't seem like a very
Microsoft-y thing. Having coded Automator, though, I can see how it
would be easy for MS to add Actions if they already have Applescript
support. Especially in light of that recent hubub about MS Office
losing VisualBasic support on the next iteration for the Mac -- MS
will want to try and leverage Mac automation tools as much as
possible, to ease the sting of that.
Sincerely,
Timothy Klein
--
KleinVox Software
email@hidden
http://kleinvox.com
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| | >Re: automator (From: "John C. Welch" <email@hidden>) |