Re: Basic help with Automator?
Re: Basic help with Automator?
- Subject: Re: Basic help with Automator?
- From: Ben Waldie <email@hidden>
- Date: Sun, 15 Mar 2009 09:43:10 -0400
Dave,
1) When I click on the Run button at the top of the Automator
window, nothing happens. Something apparently runs (I hear a beep
when it's finished), but there is no indication that anything has
been copied or pasted (I highlighted some text in the Automator
window to provide a source for the Copy command).
What am I doing wrong?
(I note that the description of the "Copy To Clipboard" action says
"Text passed in from the previous action". There is no previous
action, only the highlighted text in the frontmost application
window. Is this valid input to this action?)
Yes, this is the problem. The "Copy to Clipboard" action must receive
text as input in order to copy it to the clipboard. This action won't
simply copy the selected text in the frontmost application.
Therefore, you'd need to...
a) Find a third-party Automator action that will retrieve selected
text from Firefox, and pass it to the "Copy to Clipboard" action. I'm
not aware of an action for this, but you could check the Automator
actions section of Apple's Mac OS X downloads page.
<www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/automator>
b) Try recording the process of bringing Firefox to the front and
typing Command+C or selecting "Edit > Copy" from the menu bar to copy
the text.
2) There is no Automator item in the contextual menu. How do I add
this?
And a real newbie question: why are there 3 Contextual Menu Items
folders:
Library/Contextual Menu Items
System/Library/Contextual Menu Items
~/Library/Contextual Menu Items
I presume this relates to scope: if you want an action available to
one user or all users, you choose the appropriate destination for
your action?
In order for an Automator workflow to appear in an application's
contextual menu, the application itself must support that capability
and provide a way for you to install your workflow somewhere where the
application can find it and load it. I'm doubtful that there's a way
to do this with Firefox.
Automator will allow you to save a workflow as a plug-in for some of
Apple's applications and processes. For example, if you save a
workflow as a Finder plug-in, it will appear in the Finder's
contextual menu. In your case, you could save your workflow as a
script menu plug-in, making it available from the menu bar within any
application, including Firefox.
I'm fumbling with the basics. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
There are a lot of resources online to get started with Automator.
One good place to start is <http://automator.us>. You can also find a
number of articles, tips, and tutorials in the "Tips" section of my
website at <http://www.automatedworkflows.com/tips/tips.html>. And,
you can learn some basics from my video podcast series "Mac Automation
Made Simple", which you can also find in the "Tips" section of my
website at <http://www.automatedworkflows.com/tips/podcast.html>, as
well as within iTunes. Finally, you may want to check out my book
"Automator for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard: Visual QuickStart
Guide" (Peachpit Press), which covers all the ins and outs of how to
use Automator <http://www.automatedworkflows.com/books/automator_vqs.html
>.
Hope this helps.
-Ben
Ben Waldie
President
Automated Workflows, LLC
610.935.0652
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