Apple's Automator software has a lot of potential, however, there seem to be quite a few gaps in the available actions. I've created three that I use regularly with the PodcastBumper workflow (also below).
All of the actions and workflows on this page are copyright 2005 or 2006 by Andrew M. Salamon but they may be freely copied so long as all copyright notices remain in place and intact.
| Type | Name | Description | Requires |
|---|---|---|---|
| Action | iTunes Song Names | Takes a list of iTunes songs and generates plain text with one song name per line. | None |
| Action | Wrap Text in HTML | This action takes simple text and wraps HTML tags around it. Each paragraph will be wrapped by p tags, list items or table rows. Either the wrapped or original text can be optionally written to a file. Version 2.0 adds more options for the generated HTML. Version 2.1 is a Universal binary. | None |
| Action | Named Clipboards | Put text on or get text from a named clipboard. Acts like a variable, saving text for later use during the running of a workflow. See also here and here. Version 1.1 is a Universal binary. | None |
| Workflow | Podcast Bumper | This workflow creates both a spoken clip and an html file with a list of all of the podcasts currently on the user's iPod. The audio file is imported into iTunes and copied to the iPod. The html file is copied to a server. | iTunes Song Names Wrap Text in HTML Paste From/Copy to Named Clipboard |
| Action | Comment | This action lets you add comments to a workflow. Version 1.1 is a Universal binary. | None |
Actions should be unarchived and added to any of the Automator folders: /Library/Automator, for system wide use, or /Users/<username>/Library/Automator, for personal use.
January 10, 2006