Re: Very Simple Automator Work Flow

[Dan Keys]

Hi,
And as I said earlier, If you Purchase a .Mac account, not the 60 day  
thing, you don't have to go through the image thing. Guess I'll call  
Apple tomorrow.
Darn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Dan
On Dec 6, 2007, at 10:30 PM, VaShaun Jones wrote:
I just tried it and it takes it to the site that Ester told us  
about. I haven't a clue as to how else this can be done other than  
calling Apple maybe. Back to square one...I wonder if we go through  
Mac to get it do we have to pay Apple's price or can we still use a  
cheaper vender?
On Dec 7, 2007, at 1:21 AM, Dan Keys wrote:

Okay, I'm going to give it a try after my next cup of strong-strong  
coffee.

On Dec 6, 2007, at 10:18 PM, VaShaun Jones wrote:

I think you can do it in system preferances, I will try it before  
morning and let you know. If you find out before me then get back  
with the list. If we three get it up and running will you use the  
screen sharing feature to discuss Automator with us?
On Dec 7, 2007, at 1:08 AM, Dan Keys wrote:

Hi,
I was told that to set up a 60 day .Mac account, you would have  
to answer the information in an image and that no Audio clip is  
available for blind people. I sure hope this isn't true. Further  
more, I was told that if you wanted to purchase a .Mac account  
that you wouldn't have the graphic problem.
Does anyone know the answer to how signing up for a 60 day  
account works?
Thanks,
Dan
On Dec 6, 2007, at 7:39 PM, Esther wrote:

Hi Shaun.

You do know that you can sign up for a free 60-day trial .Mac  
account,
don't you?  You could use that for iChat.  I'm not sure whether  
the
ability to use iChat even expires after the 60 days, since your  
user
name is probably still active.  Of course, if you send mail to  
your
.Mac account you won't be able to read it without subscribing  
after the
60 day period.

If you're interested, just go to:

http://www.apple.com/dotmac/

and use the links chooser menu (VO-keys+U) to navigate to the
"Free Trial" button. VO-keys+space bar will take you to the
signup page.  I got a dot Mac account through a promotional offer
at my Apple Store, and not through the web page, but it should be
doable if you're interested.

Cheers,

Esther

On Dec 06, 2007, at 05:11PM, VaShaun Jones wrote:
I will have to get a AIM account. Give me a minute to figure  
out the
security mechanism that AOL has when this type of account is  
set up.
On Dec 6, 2007, at 10:02 PM, Jane Jordan wrote:

Yes, since I don't have a Google account set up, nor have I  
gotten
MSN working right yet.

Jane


On Dec 6, 2007, at 8:30 PM, VaShaun Jones wrote:

So do I have to be on AIM to do screen sharing with you?
On Dec 6, 2007, at 6:27 PM, Jane Jordan wrote:

It's an AOL account--taken from when I was in college and
attending ROTC classes. :)

Jane


On Dec 6, 2007, at 6:07 PM, VaShaun Jones wrote:

I like that screen name  lets set it up. I have MSN and g- 
mail.
Will either of these work or do I need a dot Mac account?
On Dec 6, 2007, at 10:03 AM, Jane Jordan wrote:

Forthat matter, the three of us could get together and chat.

My screenname is BlindCadet.

Jane


On Dec 6, 2007, at 12:40 AM, Darcy Burnard wrote:

Hi Shaun.  Are you on ichat?  I was thinking that  
automator is
one of those things that would be easier to show rather  
than
explain.  So if we could do the ichat screen sharing  
thing some
time, that might be easier.
Darcy

On 5-Dec-07, at 10:35 PM, VaShaun Jones wrote:

Either Jane or Darcey, can I contact either of you for a
understanding of Automator?
On Dec 5, 2007, at 10:16 PM, Jane Jordan wrote:

Hello Darcy.

I don't know of a range of values.  I e-mailed the
accessibility folks and they sent me a link to a really
complicated reference on controling speech output with
commands embedded in text.  As an example, they gave me  
the
rate control, but there's lots more that I haven't even  
begun
to play with.

What I am *really* curious about doing now is, say,  
editing a
file to have certain characters read with certain  
voices, for
example, and have a narrator voice.  But that will be a  
while
coming.  I may just have to write a test file and see  
how it
works.

I may be able top play more tomorrow--the doctor has  
told me
she would prefer it if I stayed home to try and get  
better
from this cold--so I will see if I can come up with more.

But yes, to get back to the original question.   All I  
did
was put left-bracket left-bracket rate 300 right-bracket
right-bracket at the very top of the document, left it  
open
in Textedit, and ran the application.  I am trying to  
figure
out how to get text from email, hav e it delete certain  
text,
and then run it, but I don't know if that is possible.

To the other person who wanted to ask questions, I can  
*try*
and help, but I think actually Darcy is a little more
experienced than me; he was the one that explained the  
very
basics--he deos more with it thatn I am doing at the  
moment--
though I am working on changing that, at least as far as
creating books goes.  Which makes me wonder---if I put
embedded commands into a text file, and ran it through
books2burn, i wonder how well that owuld work?  I  
*think* it
would work well.  I am doing the Say one for now,  
because it
simply seems to be faster.  My one gripe with my  
automator
action er application so far is that it automatically  
names
the file audio text.aiff, and places it on the desktop,  
and
what I want to do is to have it have the same name as  
thbe
original file, except for audio at the end.  Ideally, I
woul.d have it convert to mp3, but I don't know if that  
can
be done without me playing it in iTunes.  Can it?

I apologize--the toddler is sleeping, and I am just  
sitting
down to think and so all this came up.

Jane


On Dec 5, 2007, at 9:27 PM, Darcy Burnard wrote:

Hi Jane.  This is cool.  So then do you just place the  
rate
command in the text itself?  Also, you used rate 300  
in your
example.  What is the range of values you can put in  
there?
Darcy

On 5-Dec-07, at 6:15 PM, Jane Jordan wrote:

OK, so I could have done this in Terminal, I guess, but
Terminal was proving to be difficult to get to work  
right.

I did an automator work flow that takes text from  
TextEdit
and converts it into an audio file.

If you put left-bracket left-bracket rate 300 right- 
bracket
right-bracket

you will get Say to read the file at that speed.  I  
spelled
out the symbols, otherwise Voic eOver would interpret  
them
as a command and you'd suddenly start having very fast
speech!  Or slow, depending on how you like your Mac to
talk to you.

Anyhow, now I am experimenting with ways tomake it even
more interesting,.  It seems that saving a Workflow  
as an
Application is the best way to go.

Jane