Automator
The suspense over Tiger is just killing me! Every day my Mac boots up in the morning at 8:30am sharp (scheduled). When that happens my email gets downloaded, the latest happenings on the Weblogs are also downloaded - and ultimately the daily news awaits my arrival to my desk not 5 minutes later. Lately though, I’ve been greeted with an added treat - multiple IMs from my fellow Mac enthusiasts stating the number of days until Tiger is released.
Its been asked, which feature am I most anticipating? And answer this question I shall. By far, I am looking forward to Automator. This isn’t to say that I’m nearly breaking into a sweat just thinking about Tiger’s other features such as Safari 2.0, Mail, Spotlight, Dashboard and iChat AV. The list of new features is staggering, but yet I await 1 with more excitement over all others. Why?
Its simple really. Out of all the new features scheduled for release on April 29th, Automator will change the way I work. Sure Spotlight is going to make it much easier to find things. Granted that Dashboard is going to give me instant app bliss at the touch of a hot key, and Safari 2.0 will make my browsing experience much better - but all of these apps combined will not be able to save me as much time as Automator.
Mac OS has had always had ways to automate various tasks. Why, just the simple fact that my computer boots up and starts up my most used applications, downloading the latest content, and awaiting my arrival should give you an idea that Mac OS is prone for automation. And that’s without even using a single Applescript.
Applescript is a fairly simple language which allows for easily scripting your OS for many tasks. In fact, with the Applescript menu installed - countless avenues for getting things accomplished open up. Currently I only use a modest amount of Apple-scripting to get my daily tasks completed - but I will tell you this - that will change.
The general purpose of Automator is very similar to any Apple application. Apple’s applications, generally, are constructed to make difficult tasks easy for even the novice user. Granted, there are some frills within Apple’s apps that make developers leap for joy - but overall the applications are just incredibly usable.
Automator will make Applescripting easy. It will also lead its way to more creative ways of using Applescript that you would have seen in the past.
Nearly every Applescript that I’ve come across has been simple in nature. There are iTunes Applescripts, iPhoto Applescripts and so on and so on. The scripts generally take mundane tasks and automate them. For example, there are Applescripts for iTunes specifically designed to take your iTunes playlist and create an HTML page with Artist, song title and Album information on it. A very good use of Applescript, and typing that information yourself would be extremely tedious.
However, as we can see from the very first demo of Automator - the very existance of this Application will lend itself to use Applescript for more than just mundane task automation. The demo, which was given by the King of Applescript Sal Soghoian, showed the way that Sal took family photos from his email, created an iPhoto library which then created a slideshow, which then exported that slideshow to DVD. To do this via Applescript today, might seem a little daunting. I know that I would never think to use Applescript for something as complex as Sal did on a demo right in front of our eyes with Automator.
Expect Automator to change the way you use your Mac, and the way you get your work done. Countless hours will be saved using this app, and hopefully a majority of them are my own.
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