Ask for Text for Set Spotlight Comments for Finder Items

I want the text from the "Ask for Text" to go in to the "Set Spotlight Comments for Finder Items" action, but they don't seem to interact.
Any ideas?

first you make a new variable using variables tab. then you add the action "set value of variable" right after the action ask for text. drag the variable you made to the variable field of that action. this will set the value of that variable to the output of the previous action.

Similar Messages

"Ask for Finder Items" Automator action broken?

OK, I'm pulling my hair out on Automator (again). I'm on OS X Lion 10.7.1.
Here's what I want to do: I have image files named "something-something (S1).png" and I want to create a copy of each file named "something-something (S2).png" then resize that copy to 50% the size of the original. A perfect choice for Automator, I would have thought.
So here's the workflow I came up with:
1. Ask for Finder Items: Type set to Files and Allow Multiple Selection checked.
2. Duplicate Finder Items: To create a copy, hopefully named "something-something (S1) copy.png".
3. Rename Finder Items: Set to Replace Text, with Find set to "(S1) copy" and Replace set to "(S2)" (in basename only).
4. Scale Images: Set to By Percentage 50.
I would have thought that would have worked. Trouble is, it doesnt even get to first base. When I run the workflow I see the expected choose file dialog, and I choose a test PNG file. Then Automator happily announces that "Ask for Finder Items completed" in the log, and proceeds to sit .. and sit ... and sit. It says it's running, but nothing is happening. No duplicate file action happens, no rename .. nothing. Oh, and yes, I do see the selected filename in the "Results" area for the Ask for Finder Items action.
What's going on? Any ideas? For a supposedly intuitive tool I find automator inscrutable (and I'm a 30 year seasoned operating system oftware developer).
TIA,
--Tim

FWIW, if you've found a bug, please contact Apple Support folks or (if you have access) use the BugReport tool.
(This is a user forum, and the Apple Engineering folks may or may not see any reports that are posted here.)

Pass input to Automator's "Ask for Finder Items"

Hi,
I have created an Applescript in Automator, which is set up to determine a folder location where config files reside.
I would like to pass this location to "Ask for Finder Items", so that the default config file is selected, but the user can select their own config file if they prefer.
I can't see any way to reference my location variable in the "Ask for Finder Items" action.
I've also tried to view the "Ask for Finder Items" sourcecode for a hint, but can't figure out how to do this either.
Any help greatly would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Dan

Found this approach which is working for me:
set config_file to choose file with prompt "Locate the config file and click OK" default location MYLOCATIONVARIABLE
This opens the finder at the correct folder.

"Run Workflow" action in Automator does not "Ask for Finder Items"

So I have a workflow called step_1 that does a bunch of stuff . . . in essence, it "Asks for a Finder Item" and then runs some Python shells and then outputs an Applescript format list {'item_1','item_2','item_3'}
I'm trying to use this workflow in another workflow so I selected "Run Workflow" in Automator and located my original workflow step_1 but when I run it, the process goes straight through the workflow and doesn't "Ask for Finder Items" so i'm sure it doesn't do anything else in the workflow either. It doesn't give me an error, it just pretty much bypasses everything within the workflow and it's pretty annoying.
Any idea on how to get my workflow to work using "Run Workflow" ?

Never tired Run Workflow before so as as a test I rn these two
and the Ask for Finder items in the called workflow ran OK.
Note this was run from Automator. One thing I did see was that the Ask for finder items window did not come to the front and I had to look under my open windows to see it.

Set Spotlight Comment if Blank

I would like to add spotlight comments to a number of files but only if they do not contain a comment already. I'm using Get Specified Finder Items as the input. I thought I could use the Filter Finder Items action to filter on blank spotlight comments but the action doesn't allow this. I can't see where or how to specify the condition. It should be simple but I'm missing something. Thank you!

You can use a Run AppleScript action for the filter - for example:
1) Get Specified Finder Items
2) Run AppleScript:
<pre style="
font-family: Monaco, 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;
font-size: 10px;
margin: 0px;
padding: 5px;
border: 1px solid #000000;
width: 720px;
color: #000000;
background-color: #FFEE80;
overflow: auto;"
title="this text can be pasted into an Automator 'Run AppleScript' action">
on run {input, parameters}
return items that do not have Spotlight comments
input: a list of Finder items to filter
output: a list of items that do not have Spotlight comments
set output to {}
repeat with AnItem in the input
tell application "Finder" to get the comment of AnItem
if the result is "" then set the end of the output to (AnItem as alias)
end repeat
return the output -- pass the result(s) to the next action
end run
</pre>
3) Set Spotlight Comments for Finder Items

Using spotlight comments to find files

Hello
I am new to this forum so please be patience with me. I would like to use keywords in the spotlight comment area to find files on our shared network. However, I am having problems with this. I can find files by name, but not by contents or spotlight comments on our shared network. Can anyone help me with this problem.
Thanks Heather
Message was edited by: Heather316

To Apple Discussions!
Check out the Article: Using Spotlight to search for items
+"To organize your files so you can find them more easily, use the Spotlight Comments field in the Get Info dialog. For example, you could mark all the files for the same project with the project name, tag all your urgent files with the word "urgent," or enter a description that will help you find the file later.+
+If you want to limit your search to specific locations and attributes, open Finder and choose File > Find."+
There may be other info you can use from the Article.

"Spotlight Comments" in Finder Get Info window doesn't accept Clipboard contents

I wanted to paste caption and credit info from a NASA video download into the file's Spotlight Comments in the Get Info window. Done it in the past no problemo. Today it doesn't work.
Tried pasting the copied web page content to TextEdit and converting to plain text, copy again, paste still a no-go. Tried typing in the Spotlight Comments window, that works ok. Looked at the contents of the Clipboard and the text appears there, labeled either as rtf or text depending on where the text was pasted from (web or TextEdit).
Tried copying a couple of letters from the converted text, and they pasted ok into Spotlight Comments.
Suggestions to make the Clipboard contents paste?
Thanks.

On further inspection, it appears that the contents of the old Comments field are carried forward into the Spotlight Comments field.

Setting Spotlight Comments For Multiple Files?

In iTunes and iPhoto, you can quickly assign "Comments" or "Keywords" to multiple files, all at the same time. Is there a way to do this in Spotlight? I'd like to add the same Spot Comment for 10 files. I tried selecting all 10 files, and clicking Get Info, but this flooded my screen with 10 individual Info windows!

Rueben
Check out SmartComments or This Automator Action
Regards
TD
MacBook Pro 15 2.16gig / iMac 20" 2.16 C2D Mac OS X (10.4) 2 gig RAM/ 2 gig RAM

How to Copy Items w/ Spotlight Comments?

Hi all,
I built my first Automator workflow, but having a slight problem. I'm using the "Ask for Finder Items" action which allows me to browse my image collection. I then use "Review Photos" action to review the photos and I have "Approved images" checked, then finally "Copy Finder Items" action to copy those approved images to a specified folder.
Here's the problem: I have spotlight comments in the original files that aren't being copied with the file to the specified folder. Can anyone write me a workflow that will properly copy files with the comments?
Thanks, Bill

Niel:
OK, I setup the AppleScript action, but now I'm getting an Error dialog that says "Can't set folder "Users:myusername:Desktop:SelectedImages" to {alias "myharddrive:StockPhotos:iStockphoto:iStock_000000446037Medium.jpg"} plus any other images I selected w/ error (-10006)
I thought the problem might have been the spaces in folder names, so I took all spaces out, but to no avail. Any suggestions?
Thanks, Bill

How to copy a files name and spotlight comments to a text file for an entire folder

I have movie covers saved as a jpeg for every movie my family and I own. There is about 700 and they each have a comment of the main actors, release dates, and descriptions. This makes it easy to find what to watch. I want my parents to have all of this info but they have a windows laptop so the comments don't transfer with the file and can't be searched like you can on a mac. Is there an applescript, automator, program I can download, or program code supported in xcode that will do at least one of the following things?
1)Take the name of the picture file and spotlight comment, copy and paste it into a text document like word that looks like this...
File Name1- Spotlight Comment for file 1
File Name 2- Spotlight Comment for file 2
. for all 700 files in a folder
2) It would be equally helpful if there was something that would take the name of the picture file and spotlight comment, copy and paste it to a movie file's comments with the same name but obviously has different extention. For an example
In a Pictures folder
Name: Dark Knight, The.jpeg       Comment: (2008) Genre: Action...             <- copy comment
In a Movie Folder
Name: Dark Knight, The.m4v       Comment:                                               <- paste
and do this for all 700 files
3) Is there a free photo program that works on mac and windows that I can put all my movie pictures in and have a description like I did with the comments? It would also need a place that to search the description for keywords. So Basically an itunes for pictures that works on both mac and windows. If so I still need a way to get the spotlight comments to the description.
4) I feel like this would make things more difficult, but if not I can put all of the .m4v files in itunes so instead of pasting all the comments back into a file in finder paste them in a description in itunes
5) At the very least a code that I can run one by one for every file that will paste the comments into the same document
Note: When I say spotlight comments I mean the comment box that is available when you click on get info of a file. The pictures are in the pictures section of finder in a folder called Movie Pictures. The movie files are on an external hard-drive in a file called Movies. Also I am slightly familiar with applescript and automater in that I have used both to create keyboard shortcuts and simple voice commands. I have programmed in c++ and C too. So If you give me a code for applescript I do know what to do with it.
Thanks to anyone who takes the time to read all of this and extra thanks to anyone who tries to help.

Clendenen02 wrote:
2) It would be equally helpful if there was something that would take the name of the picture file and spotlight comment, copy and paste it to a movie file's comments with the same name but obviously has different extention. For an example
In a Pictures folder
Name: Dark Knight, The.jpeg       Comment: (2008) Genre: Action...             <- copy comment
In a Movie Folder
Name: Dark Knight, The.m4v       Comment:                                               <- paste
and do this for all 700 files
This Bash script will do it.
Edit "PicDir" and "MovDir" to the location of your Folders
(Note: The comment is written to the m4v file using xattr, so the Spotlight comment field appears blank in Finder, but the comment metadata is still indexed by Spotlight (If you add a Spotlight comment from Finder, it is stored both as an extended attribute and in a .DS_Store file)
#!/bin/bash
PicDir=$HOME/Desktop/Pictures
MovDir=$HOME/Desktop/Movies
for f in $PicDir/*
do
     if [ ! -d "$f" -a "${f##*.}" == "jpeg" ]; then
          comment=$(mdls -raw -name kMDItemFinderComment "$f")
          if [[ $comment != "(null)" ]]; then
               picname=${f##*/}
               movname=${picname%.*}.m4v
               if [ -e "$MovDir"/$movname ]; then
                     xattr -w com.apple.metadata:kMDItemFinderComment "\"$comment\"" "$MovDir"/$movname
               fi
          fi
     fi
done

Automator for Exporting Spotlight Comments?

Hello,
I have around 700 historic photos that have been digitized. All the photo details (dates, etc.) were entered into the Spotlight Comments field under Get Info. Unfortunately, none of the comments appear when I open the photos in Adobe Bridge CS4. Is there an easy solution (perhaps an Automator script) to export the Spotlight Comments and use them elsewhere?
Thank you,
Brian

Brian
If I read you right, what you are trying to do is grab Finder metadata and convert it to photo metadata. Specifically, convert spotlight comments to Exif and IPTC - which is what a Photo app will need.
You can't do this with Automator. The Automator dictionary has ways to set Spotlight Comments but I can see no way to get them. Further the dictionary has the ability to write to the IPTC data only of images in Aperture, not in the Finder or iPhoto.
You might do better with that question on the Automator forum here:
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1261
Have you tried the Applescript that was suggested when you posted the query last?
As your target are file managed by Bridge, give the Adobe forums a go too.
However, you may run into another issue here and that is that most scanners (as I presume this is how the photos were digitised) do not create Exif and IPTC data for scanned images. It may not be possible to do what you want to do.
Regards
TD

Hp pro 8500 keeps asking for maganta ink when it's already a new one, then loose image, please help

HP PRO8500
KEEPS ASKING FOR MAGANTA INK, THEN LOOSE IMAGE, I ALREADY REPLACED INK TWICE BUT ISSUE STILL PERSIST.
PLEASE HELP

Ok, finally got it fixed !
Here's what was causing the issue, and what I did to fix it :
I had free content in my iTunes download queue that I got from the "iTunes 12 days of Christmas" promotion, but the problem was that some of the items (two HD episodes) were too large to fit in my harddrive (I'm running low on free hd space) - so each time I was running iTunes I had to cancel the downloading of those items. On my iPhone, I was able to cancel the downloading once for all, but iTunes somehow wanted to try downloading them even if I deleted them. This was quite frustrating so I sent a mail to the support using the Express Lane feature on the support website, asking for thos items to be removed from my iTunes account - and tadaaaa ! Once a nice guy from Apple deleted them, my iPhone stopped asking for that stupid password !

Automator doubling my Spotlight comment text

I made a simple workflow to add text to the Spotlight comments field using "Get Selected Finder Items" and "Set Spotlight Comments for Finder Items" but when I use it, the text I enter is entered twice in the Spotlight field. What am I doing wrong here or is this a bug?
Thanks,
Edward

Are those the only actions in the workflow? If you are doing something like using this as a Service, the workflow is automatically passed the selected items, so adding another action to get the selection will double up the items.
Also note that this is the Tiger Automator forum - Automator in *Snow Leopard* is quite a bit different, so future questions should be posted in the Snow Leopard forum.

Is there an ap for finding/deleting corrupt files on OS X 10.7?

I seem to have a corrupt file(s) which cause my MacBook Pro to freeze inexplicably (and randomly) upon start-up. I've been told that this is a symptom of having a corrupt file.
Is there an an for finding/deleting corrupt files on OS X 10.7?
I'm pretty much bound to my computer and simply don't have the time to go through it manually.
Thank you.

This is an old post and I am not the person who posted the original query, but I ran your terminal diagnostic and am hoping you are still attending to this forum. I have a mid 2011 macbook Air 11", 256 GB SSD, 1.8 GHz Intel Core i7, 4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3, Mac OS X v. 10.7.5 Lion. I have had various problems in my user homefolder for a while. I have gone through quite a few other troubleshooting and fixing steps, the most extensive following a posting here "Step by Step to fix your mac" by ds store in the Apple forums. These steps helped a lot. I did remove some 3rd party software as part of this process.
My computer is running well in general now, but one thing that has been a recurring problem is problems with move/cut-paste. I researched this online and ACL's being present where they're not supposed to be seems to be an issue. I have used terminal commands to remove ACL's, used Onyx to repair user permissions, rebooted with command-r to reset password screen and reset user permissions. They all help, but then a some point later on the problem recurs. When I run repair disk permissions with either disk utility or onyx I always get this message:
Repairing permissions for “maggieairHD”
Warning: SUID file “System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/ARDAg ent” has been modified and will not be repaired.
ACL found but not expected on “Users”
Repaired “Users”
Permissions repair complete
This ALWAYS comes up, even if I run it immediately after running it and haven't done anything else on the computer in between.
I created another user and did not have the same problems I was having at the time with some programs, although I haven't used it that much to be able to really compare. The home folder permissions repair in Onyx comes out the same in that user, though.
Here are my results from your diagnostic terminal commands:
Last login: Wed Dec 26 09:36:47 on console
Maggies-MacBook-Air:~ maggieair$ kextstat -kl | awk '!/com\.apple/ {print $6 $7}'
com.rim.driver.BlackBerryUSBDriverInt(0.0.68)
com.logmein.driver.LogMeInSoundDriver(1.0.0)
com.protech.NoSleep(1.3.1)
com.parallels.kext.prl_usb_connect(7.0
com.parallels.kext.prl_hypervisor(7.0
com.parallels.kext.prl_hid_hook(7.0
com.parallels.kext.prl_netbridge(7.0
com.parallels.kext.prl_vnic(7.0
Maggies-MacBook-Air:~ maggieair$ sudo launchctl list | sed 1d | awk '!/0x|com\.apple/ {print $3}'
Password:
com.parallels.vm.prl_naptd
org.x.privileged_startx
org.postfix.master
org.ntp.ntpd
org.cups.cupsd
com.vix.cron
com.sharpcast.xfsmond
com.parallels.desktop.launchdaemon
com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper
com.adobe.fpsaud
Maggies-MacBook-Air:~ maggieair$ launchctl list | sed 1d | awk '!/0x|com\.apple/ {print $3}'
org.x.startx
org.openbsd.ssh-agent
com.parallels.vm.prl_pcproxy
com.parallels.DesktopControlAgent
com.parallels.desktop.client.launch
com.maintain.CocktailSystemEvents
Maggies-MacBook-Air:~ maggieair$ ls -1A /e*/mach* {,/}L*/{Ad,Compon,Ex,Fram,In,Keyb,La,Mail/Bu,P*P,Priv,Qu,Scripti,Servi,Sta}* L*/Fonts 2> /dev/null
/Library/Address Book Plug-Ins:
RCFaxAB.bundle
/Library/Components:
/Library/Extensions:
/Library/Frameworks:
AEProfiling.framework
AERegistration.framework
Adobe AIR.framework
AquaticPrime.framework
AudioMixEngine.framework
HPSmartPrint.framework
NyxAudioAnalysis.framework
PluginManager.framework
RIM_VSP.framework
RimBlackBerryUSB.framework
iTunesLibrary.framework
/Library/Input Methods:
/Library/Internet Plug-Ins:
AdobePDFViewer.plugin
AdobePDFViewerNPAPI.plugin
Flash Player.plugin
Quartz Composer.webplugin
QuickTime Plugin.plugin
Silverlight.plugin
flashplayer.xpt
googletalkbrowserplugin.plugin
npgtpo3dautoplugin.plugin
nsIQTScriptablePlugin.xpt
/Library/Keyboard Layouts:
/Library/LaunchAgents:
com.maintain.CocktailPurgeInactiveMemory.plist
com.maintain.CocktailSystemEvents.plist
com.parallels.DesktopControlAgent.plist
com.parallels.desktop.launch.plist
com.parallels.vm.prl_pcproxy.plist
/Library/LaunchDaemons:
com.adobe.fpsaud.plist
com.apple.remotepairtool.plist
com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist
com.parallels.desktop.launchdaemon.plist
com.sharpcast.xfsmond.plist
/Library/PreferencePanes:
Flash Player.prefPane
JavaControlPanel.prefpane
NoSleep.prefPane
/Library/PrivilegedHelperTools:
Google Drive Icon Helper
com.bresink.system.securityagent3
com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper
/Library/QuickLook:
ParallelsQL.qlgenerator
iWork.qlgenerator
/Library/QuickTime:
AppleIntermediateCodec.component
AppleMPEG2Codec.component
/Library/ScriptingAdditions:
MTL.osax
/Library/Services:
AScrEd • New Script for Frontmost Application.workflow
AScrEd • Open Application Scripting Dictionary.workflow
AScrEd • Open Dictionary of Frontmost Application.workflow
AScrEd • Open with AppleScript Editor.workflow
Audio • Encode to iTunes Format.workflow
Browse Movie Library.workflow
Browse Photo Library.workflow
Browse iTunes Library.workflow
Disk Item • Rename Selected Items.workflow
Disk Item • Set Spotlight Comments.workflow
Image • Add Metadata to JPEGs.workflow
Image • Change File Type.workflow
Image • Import into iPhoto.workflow
Image • Print Image Files.workflow
Image • Rotate Clockwise.workflow
Image • Rotate Counter-Clockwise.workflow
Launch Terminal.workflow
PDF • Encrypt File.workflow
PDF • Set Metadata.workflow
Terminal • Get Manual for Command.workflow
Terminal • Insert Current Finder Directory.workflow
Terminal • Insert Selected Finder Items.workflow
UNIX • Apply Command to Selected Items.workflow
UNIX • New Terminal Window to Insertion Location.workflow
iPhoto • Spotlight Search for Detected People.workflow
/Library/StartupItems:
Cocktail
/etc/mach_init.d:
/etc/mach_init_per_login_session.d:
/etc/mach_init_per_user.d:
Library/Address Book Plug-Ins:
.DS_Store
SkypeABDialer.bundle
SkypeABSMS.bundle
Library/Fonts:
Library/Input Methods:
.localized
Library/Internet Plug-Ins:
CitrixOnlineWebDeploymentPlugin.plugin
Google Earth Web Plug-in.plugin
WebEx64.plugin
Library/Keyboard Layouts:
Library/LaunchAgents:
com.apple.AddressBook.ScheduledSync.PHXCardDAVSource.7D3946E8-ADA6-4982-87CA-565 69B042BAC.plist
com.apple.FolderActions.enabled.plist
com.apple.FolderActions.folders.plist
com.google.keystone.agent.plist
com.macpaw.CleanMyMac.volumeWatcher.plist
Library/Mail/Bundles:
Library/PreferencePanes:
.DS_Store
Archives.prefPane
Library/Services:
.DS_Store
GraphicConverter.service
Sync with MacDropAny.workflow
Maggies-MacBook-Air:~ maggieair$ osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to get the name of every login item'
NoSleep, iTunesHelper, Caffeine, Dropbox
Maggies-MacBook-Air:~ maggieair$
I have removed NoSleep, Caffeine, itunesHelper and Dropbox from login items before and didn't notice any difference, so I put them back. Some of these I know I don't want, like rim/blackberry, adobe AIR. Skype has never worked consistently on this computer. I don't use most of these Services, and I know I had trouble with some that were not compatible with Lion before. I am not using Parallels much now, have been thinking about taking it off as it uses a chunk of my SSD. But I don't feel confident about getting rid of .frameworks etc safely.
I am glad to remove anything I don't use if I know how to do it safely. I am willing to remove anything I do use if it's necessary, but obviously would prefer to find a way to keep things that I find helpful.
I appreciate any suggestions!

ERR-1002:unable to find item id for item page_id in applicattion 103

Hi all,
I am a newbie to htmldb with ajax.
My problem is this..
when my javscript calls an on demand process like
------ var get = new htmldb_Get(null,document.getElementById('pFlowId').value,'APPLICATION_PROCESS=pull_contents',0);
-------var id_value = get_check_box_value(document.wwv_flow.f01);
-------get.add('page_id',id_value);
--------var greturn =get.get(null);
process-PULL_CONTENTS
declare
begin
owa_util.mime_header('text/xml', FALSE );
htp.p('Cache-Control: no-cache');
htp.p('Pragma: no-cache');
owa_util.http_header_close;
for rec in(select blob_content as "contents" from obe.file_subjects where id =12)
loop
htp.prn(rec.contents);
end loop;
end;
i get an error in the return text like
ERR-1002:unable to find item id FOR ITEM "PAGE_ID" IN application 103
what can be the problem?

Hello,
Your going to have to reproduce it on htmldb.oracle.com, it will be much easier to help you out.
The htmldb_Get() 'is included' on every page by default unless you've done something like comment out the header section of your page template. Look at your page source you should see something like
<script src="/i/javascript/htmldb_html_elements.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="/i/javascript/htmldb_get.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
in the header section.
Make sure you page template has the #HEAD# substituion tag.
Carl

Ask for Text for Set Spotlight Comments for Finder Items

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for