Hi all,
I made a few minor corrections and stripped out the earlier
messages. Apart from a few typos, the main difference is
that I clarify the four key windows are outline, table,
HTML content, and scroll area from the very start of this
description. This makes it easier to think of the
navigation in Automator, because you can associate
these with a selected Application, actions for that application,
a help window that describes a selected action, and
a window that contains the series of automator actions
that build a work flow.
Hi Jed,
On Wed, November 21, 2007, at 01:01PM, Jed Barton wrote:
>tell me about automater.
>This sounds interesting. Yes i am getting a lot of unknowns when i
>tab around there.
>Thoughts?
OK, I found Automator confusing when I first tried it under
VoiceOver, but as I said, I was able to quickly put together an
Automator action to find Audio files on a directory and add them
to an iTunes playlist. I bet this is easier in Leopard, and
also that other list users are more experienced with how to
do this.
The confusing thing for me was figuring out how to get to the
different actions, and specifically when to interact, and when
to stop interacting so I could move to another field. The other
part that I had to find out was how to figure out what actions
were useful.
This is a very detailed description of a simple (2-action) workflow
that finds mp3 files in a specified folder and adds them to
iTunes in a playlist that you name. It also describes how the
Automator windows are laid out (based on my experiments
in VoiceOver on Tiger).
When I start Automator I'm in a Search Text Field for Automator
actions. What I do is tab to the next field and get "Outline".
Then I interact with the outline and hear something like
"Interact with outline on selected expanded folder Applications
Applications edit text"
I can arrow down to various applications that are alphabetically
listed:
Address Book, Automator, etc.
The interesting ones for Jed's question were Automator, Finder,
iTunes, and TextEdit.
I started by selecting Automator in the outline. I had to stop
interacting in order to move to the next field. When you
VO-keys right arrow you get to a table that you
interact with, and get a list of various Automator actions that
you can select. The first time I tried this I found that if I stopped
interacting and continued to VO-keys right arrow or VO-keys
down arrow I got into other windows (either outline, table,
scroll area, or HTML content) where I had to interact.
If you VO-keys down arrow after you've stopped interacting
with the first (outline) window, you first get a splitter and then you
hear "HTML content". Interacting with this gives you
a description of the action or, in the case of my
Automator selection, where I haven't yet selected a specific
action in the table window, tells about getting started with Automator.
If you interact with the HTML content, it says:
(copied and pasted from window)
<outline reached by VO-keys down arrow from Applications Outline>
Getting Started
To view the actions for an application, click the application.
To show all the actions, click the Applications folder.
To find an action, enter a word or phrase in the search field.
To add an action to the workflow, drag it into the workflow.
To open a saved workflow from the library, double-click it.
<end of outline content>
So the first outline window is the list of applications.
If you select an application in the first outline window, stop
interacting, and VO-keys right arrow, you get to a table
window that lists the actions for that application.
So in the case of the selection of "Automator", this
table now shows an alphabetical list of possible
actions associated with the Automator application.
This includes things like "Ask for Confirmation",
"Pause", "Run AppleScript", "Run Shell Script",
"Run Web Service", "Run Workflow", "Wait for
User Action", and "View Results".
If I double click on an action, it will get added to
the Workflow, which is yet another (scroll area) window.
There appear to be 4 windows in total that
are relevant to the workflow. You can cycle
through these with VO-keys right arrow or
VO-keys down arrow. They are designated as outline,
table, HTML content, and scroll area.
(I'm ignoring the buttons and splitters that may
show up between these in your navigation).
1. Outline -- is the list of Applications
2. Table -- is the list of Automator actions for that Application
3. HTML content -- is the help area that describes the
selected Automator action. (If you haven't selected an
Automator action, you get the information copied
above about getting started with Automator).
4. Scroll area -- is where the Automator workflow sequence
of actions is assembled.
You can build an Automator workflow by double-clicking
on a number of Automator actions in the Table window.
These get assembled in sequence in the Scroll area window.
I spent a lot of time initially arrowing down through likely
actions and checking what they do in the HTML content
window, before trying to build a workflow. I generally
found it easiest to either VO-keys right arrow through the
four windows or VO-keys down arrow through the four
windows (and then reverse the navigation) when I
was getting around these.
When I finally tried building a workflow, like:
1. Finder: Find Finder Items
a) Where: <set folder to check>
b) Whose: Kind is Audio and Extension Ends With mp3
2. iTunes: Add Files to Playlist: <playlist name>
I did this by choosing the Application (Finder or iTunes)
in the Outline window, then choosing the action
(Find Finder items or Add Files to Playlist) in the Table window
by double-clicking..
In the Scroll area (workflow) window, I then added any
qualifiers. Each time I navigated to another window
I had to interact, make a selection (for the Application
or Action in the Outline or Table windows), and then
stop interacting so that I could VO-keys right arrow to
the next window. In addition, I added the selected
action to the Scroll area (workflow) window by
double-clicking in the Table (action) window.
Then, when I got to the Scroll area (workflow) window
I interacted and used VO-keys right arrow to review
the action arguments.
For example, for the two-action workflow described above:
1. Start Automator (use Spotlight and search for Automator and
select it, or from finder use shift-command-a to go to the
Applications directory and open Automator from there).
2. Tab to the Outline and interact. Arrow down to Finder.
Stop interacting with the Outline.
3. VO-keys right arrow to the Table and interact. Arrow down
to Find finder items. Double-click. Stop interacting with
the Table.
4. VO-keys right arrow to the Scroll area and interact. (You
pass a splitter). In the Scroll area you first hear "button button"
VO-keys+h tells you this button is for "Remove this action".
If you click on this button you will remove the action from the
scroll area. VO-keys right arrow through the options for
Find Finder items.
a) You'll hear "Where" then "Computer, pop-up button".
You can change the folder being searched
with VO-keys shift space and select another folder. If you
choose "other" at the bottom of this menu, you'll be prompted
with a finder-like window. This one is easy to navigate
with VoiceOver.
b) Continuing on with VO-keys right arrow,
you hear "Whose" then "Name, pop-up button". Again, you
can change the selection on the pop-up button with
VO-keys shift space. I set this to "Kind".
c) Then VO-keys right arrow gave me another pop-up button,
"Is" (could be changed to "Is not").
d) And VO-keys right arrow took me to a third pop-up button
which I set to "Audio".
e) After the pop-up buttons, VO-keys right arrow takes you to
"hyphen" and "plus". Clicking on "plus" allows you to add
another set of selection pop-up buttons.
f) I set the next set of buttons to "Extension" and "Ends with"
and "mp3". If I wanted to remove this criterion I could click
the "hyphen" (minus sign) button. To add another criterion
I would click the "plus" button. The combined criteria here
make finder search in the specified folder for an Audio
file with extension of mp3.
5. Stop interacting with the scroll area (workflow) and
VO-keys left arrow back to the outline (applications)
window.
6. Interact with outline and arrow down to select "iTunes"
7. Stop interacting and VO-keys right arrow to the table
window to select the action.
8. Interact with the table window and arrow down to select
"Add files to Playlist". Double-click to add this action to
the workflow.
9. Stop interacting and VO-keys right arrow to the scroll
area (workflow) window. Again, you'll be at the "button
button" for removing the first action. I VO-keys right arrow
across the arguments to get to the second action, but
you can also VO-keys down arrow to the next "button
button" and then start to VO-keys right arrow.
10. In the "Add files to Playlist" action you will hear
"Existing Playlist, radio button one of two", then
VO-keys right arrow takes you to a popup button where
you can select one of a number of existing iTunes
playlists.
11. If you continue to VO-keys right arrow, you hear,
"New Playlist Named, radio button two of two". If
you select this radio button with VO-keys shift space
you can VO-keys right arrow and enter a new play list
name where you hear "blank edit text". For example,
I named this "import playlist" (without typing the
quotation marks). I made the folder to be searched
in "Find finder items" action be my downloads folder
(separately named "Downloads" on my Mac).
12. When you run the workflow with command-r your
specified folder will be searched and the mp3 files
in that folder will be added into the iTunes library.
Other key comments:
I didn't save this action -- I only explored and ran it interactively.
I would NOT blindly run this unless you understand how iTunes
preferences work. This is especially true if you are a Windows
user and have lots of mp3 files. Under the default preference
setting that apply if you allow iTunes to organize your music,
iTunes will copy files that you add to your iTunes Music library
from other folders on your hard drive.
When I tested this on my Mac, I removed the second action, and
used Automator: View Results and TextEdit: Speak Text (or
TextEdit: New Text File) so that I could check the files being
added to my playlist before I ran the workflow. (I wanted to
either hear the results of the files that were found spoken or,
as turned out to be more convenient, write them into a text
file to check).
I'm sure there are more experienced users who have checked out
Automator -- especially under Leopard, where it may be easier
to use. As I said, I found the navigation to initially be very confusing.
I've left out all the parts where I looked in the HTML window to
figure out what the interesting sounding actions did.
For better Automator scripting, you probably want to put in
actions like Automator; Ask for Confirmation. To prompt
users about what the workflow does and ask them if they really
want to continue.
Once you run the workflow, you can go into iTunes and find
your new playlist in the sources outline. If you check in the
Songs outline for the playlist all these files will have been added.
The more interesting aspect is that you could run the workflow
to add files that were recently added to your computer or your
specified folder by specifying modification date in the Find
finder items action. Be very careful to check your workflow
first! If you were not selective about your criteria, you could end
up adding huge garage band library loop aiff files to iTunes
and fill up your disk! Again, new users who do not understand
how iTunes preferences work should not try this.
Maybe somebody else who is familiar with Automator can
follow up on this?
Also, I started experimenting with these workflows a few days
ago because of Cara Quinn's question about "automagically"
adding music files to iTunes and deleting them after they
were added.
Cara wrote:
> I'm wondering about a couple of things in ITunes.
>
> The first thing is this; I'm wondering if it's possible to have
>ITunes delete songs as it imports them into the library?
>the second thing is also concerned with importing, and it is this; I
>tried to consolidate my library
I think the way to do what Cara wants is to modify the workflow
so there are three actions:
1. Finder: Find Finder Items
a) Where: <set folder to check>
b) Whose: Kind is Audio and Extension Ends With mp3
2. Finder: Move Finder Items
a) To: iTunes Music
3. iTunes: Add Files to Playlist: <playlist name>
If she has the default preferences of
a) Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library
b) Keep iTunes Music folder organized
checked in the general tab of the Advanced menu in
iTunes preferences (or wherever these options may be in
iTunes 7.5.x on Leopard), moving the files to the
iTunes Music folder before adding them to the Playlist
should do what she wants --- find the files and move
them into the iTunes library.
Windows users or people who use third party applications
that have a different file organization should NOT try
this workflow.
HTH.
Cheers,
Esther
