Automator "Watch me do"

Hi all,
I’m trying to create a workflow with automator with a lot of "watch me do" actions.
This workflow will help me to simulate FCP actions.
My workflow works fine but if I put it in a loop, sometimes the mouse go and click in the wrong window and all my script fail (I recorded the click in the player but Automator play it in the time line).
Sometimes, all the GUI freeze and I must kill automator with ssh.
I read that automator have some problems on snow leopard. Do you know if there is a fix or if it's possible to use the Leopard version of automator on snow leopard?

I've had similar frustrations.

Similar Messages

Automator Watch Me Do gets stuck on "Enable Access for Assistive Devices

I built a simple Automator Watch Me Do Work Flow that simply pastes text I have already copied into Text Edit and then sets the Font, Size, Color and Make All Caps function. Every time I run the script it stops and gives me the following error "Enable Access for Assistive Devices". I have gone into System Preferences/ Universal Access a number of times and confirmed the check box is selected, I even unselected the check and ran the Auotmator script and went back and reselected the check box, I even rebooted my machine, I tired this on another Mac same problem. I must be missing something, can anyone help me out?

Boot into recovery mode and reinstall the OS. You don't need to get it from the App Store.
27" i7 iMac (Mid 2011) refurb, OS X Mavericks (10.9.4), ML & SL, G4 450 MP w/Leopard, 9.2.2

Leopard Automator "Watch Me Do" Excel Scripts Break

Earlier this year I developed a moderately complex set of Applescript/Automator scripts involving Excel and Firefox sharing information. Over the summer I upgrade my computer (i7 MacBook Pro 17 inch), which involved a move from Leopard to Snow Leopard. I also moved from Office 2004 to Office 2011. As might be expected, the scripts do not work.
In running some simpler tests to debug, I found that Automator "Watch Me Do" capability is part of the problem.
It does not seem to be able to automate mouse movements as before.
It does not seem to be able to click on an Excel window and bring that window to the front for additional action.
The Universal Access Preferences is set to "Enable access for assistive devices".
Any words of advice?
Keith

I've found a solution which may or may not help anyone reading this.
I discovered that pressing the TAB key, highlighted my user name field (which is filled automatically by Safari). This seemed to make the login button "live" again and pressing Enter/Return logged me in.

Automator "watch me do" function freezes finder

As I was creating a new service using the "watch me do" function in automator, my finder froze each time I tried to test the service I just created. As I was watching the recorded steps, the cursor would start to move extremely slowly and finally froze completely. I was able to reproduce this problem several times. This is in SL 10.6.

I am experiencing the same thing in SL 10.6.1. I was testing a very short and simple automator "watch me do" workflow to perform a simple cut and paste between iWork 09 Numbers and Filemaker 10. Cursor did not freeze but began to move extremely slow. The first and second iteration seemed to work okay. But, it took 87 and 108 seconds to complete third and fourth tests. Successive efforts had similar results. This workflow had only one step (watch me do) in it and nothing else. It was also not part of a loop. I was also NOT able to force quit out of this.
I never experienced this with Leopard. Is this a bug or is there something new with Automator in SL that I am not picking up on?

Automator -Watch me

I thought I'd try the new "Watch me do" feature in Automator and I was rather surprised that it did capture the entire action. Of course I made some mistakes - so I'm wondering how you edit the events?
I can click on them individually but I can only delete the whole workflow box.
Sorry if I should have put this on some other forum... I don't see Automator jumping out at me here or on the Leopard one. Just to relate this back to Applescript - I'm going to have a race between an Applescript and the Automator recording at 10x

Thanks! - this is actually a keyboard problem... I've been hitting the wrong delete key! the one above the |\ deletes individual items in the workflow. It doesn't take much to break a workflow - I was trying to automate some Safari actions and even having it open to another site (this one) made it die because of the dialog box. Also, even at 10x speed it is glacially moving the mouse around... hmmm maybe if I turn off show results?... If I didn't have a AppleScript option this would be interesting...
Ok I'll go find the Automator forum now.

Automator: Watch Me Do is Always Off?

Hi, I'm using Watch Me Do to perform constant repetitive tasks but the only problem is, the mouse slowly moves farther and farther from its objective point. So if one of the tasks is to close a window it just misses the close button. Is there anyway to make it click pixel by pixel (not color) or at least make it click where I'd like it to and not move off it?

The *Watch Me Do* action isn't very reliable when using mouse operations, because the recorded movements are in relation to the screen layout at the time. If the screen isn't exactly the same as when the movements were recorded, then the mouse may miss the mark. You might try using keyboard shortcuts, which don't rely on the cursor position (for example, ⌘-w to close a window).

Automator Watch Folder

This is a tricky one and Im not sure if it can be done (tricky for me that is). Im trying to make a folder that once new content is added it will launch an application and start working on that content. The example is I have a folder on the desktop/ I add a video to that folder/ Episode application is triggered / Episode begins a batch encode of the new video.
Is this possible or something that has to be done inside the app itself?

You can use Folder Actions. That's the way to attach a script of tasks to a folder so it will be activated when a file is placed inside the folder.
With Automator, you create a workflow of what you want to happen to the files, and then save the workflow as a plug-in. In Automator's menu, select: File > Save As Plug-in..., then set the "Plug-in for:" to "Folder Actions". You will then get the option to attach it to a specific folder, and the option to turn on Folder Actions if you haven't ever used Folder Actions. That's it.
When creating the workflow, assume the workflow already has the files it needs. In other words, don't worry about getting files from the Finder or asking for them. When the files are dropped on the folder they will be passed to the workflow automatically.
For example, you said you wanted to launch an application when a file is added to the folder. Here's the workflow for that (it has one action):
1. "Open Finder Items": Either let it open the files with the default apps, or choose a specific application.
Nothing more to add, no need for action to ask for files. Now save it as a Folder Action plug-in as I mentioned before, and attach it to the folder you want (you can choose Other: at the bottom of the choices). If there's a checkbox for turning on Folder Actions, then select it.
Hopefully that gets you going.

Safari 4 breaks Automator apps

MBPro 10.5.7 Safari 4.0.2 Automator 2.0.3
Simple case: Apple's own "Tab Left", "Tab Right" speakable commands no longer work. They worked fine with Safari 3.x.x These files are located in ~/Library/Speech/Speakable Items/Application Speakable Items/Safari.
Other case: Every day I have a primary Safari window with several tabs. I had an Automator "Watch Me Do" app for this repetitive setup. It worked fine in Safari 3.x.x but fails in the middle with Safari 4. I have tried re-creating the "Watch Me Do" using Safari 4 but get the same (non) result.
Any suggestions?

In your second case do you mean that you are opening the same web pages every day in a series of tabs? If so that should still work. I've been doing that almost every day. Here's my current workflow that works with Safari. I am currently running 4.0.3 but it works with the earlier version as well.
1. Get Specified URLs
2. Display Webpages in Tabs.
To make this work use this version of the Display webpages in tabs action http://raoli.com/projects/automator/ Also make sure that you have tabbed browsing enabled in Safari.

I can't stop "watch me do" while it is looping -- any suggestions?

Documentation says that "⌘ ." should stop the loop but this only works if I can manage to get Automator active while the loop is running. I am using Automator watch me do to record mouse movements and clicks on Safari.
I set the loop to run 100 times and often I want to stop it early.

Try giving it a reset. Hold down the sleep and home keys for about 20 seconds, see if you can force it to reboot. If you see the silver apple, let go and let it reboot.

Metadata Subscription Automation Problem ...

I set up a Metadata Subscription Automation/Watch Assets workflow.
I first added a "transcode now" reference to the Lookup/Metadata Asset Status group. My goal is to generate a transcode job and subsequent upload to a web server (or to a local folder) when asset staus is changed to "transcode now."
Criteria as follows:
- status ... changes
- status ... matches ... transcode now
I inserted a Copy response, and pointed to the configured device[s].
After setup, time to test. I changed the status of a logged asset to "transcode now" and walked away for 10 minutes. When I returned to my desk the job was still running. There were about 15 copies (duplicates) of the output file in the destination device and, counting. I could see the automation complete and restart continuously in the Search All Jobs status window.
Anyone else experiencing this? I can't find any setting that would sort of turn on/off repetitive automation.
thanks.
-paul

I might have found the solution. In the Administration Pane > Response > [Your copy response] > Copy tab:
there is a checkbox for Create Asset, which seems to be the culprit, as I've disabled all Scans, Schedules, Watchers for my FTP location. I guess the purpose of this is that some Automations with copy responses are configured to delete the original when done, and maybe the Create Asset checkbox is so that the new copied file gets cataloged into FC Svr when the copy is complete. In the case of posting to an FTP site, it is certainly redundant to create an asset for a post. The "infinite loop" was because my copy response/create asset was configured to set the status as "Approved," which was my trigger for the response.
So, in conclusion, the "Create Asset" checkbox can be disabled completely, or if you only want to catalog the copied asset ONCE, make sure to set the status to something like "Completed."
Does this solve anyone else's problem?

Automator or Apple Script help needed

Hello,
I have been trying time and time again to create an automated task that runs every hour, in which it should
1) Open Web Browser (Safari, Firefox, whichever one)
2) Type in a URL or choose a bookmark.
3) Log In to university account, I guess by typing my user and password
4) Click a bunch of links
5) Take a screenshot and number it picture_i+1 (where i is the number of the last screenshot taken)
6) Exit Safari
7) Mail me picture or keep it on desktop (whichever one doesn't make a difference)
Now is this possible? Whenever I do it with automator watch me do ( Accessibility options are checked)
It keeps messing up, it speeds up the process and messes up everything, I went as far as having a text file that has the user name and password, and automator copy's one by one and pastes it in.
Let me know if anybody has any ideas I would really appreciate it!
Thank you!

*So this is what I came up with.... Works perfectly, thanks for your guy's advice....*
*Now to figure out how to get it to run every hour.*
CODE:
<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;"
tell application "Safari"
open location "http://www.blackboard.XXX.edu"
end tell
tell application "System Events"
if UI elements enabled then
tell process "Safari"
set frontmost to true
end tell
delay 9
keystroke "u"
delay 3
keystroke "s"
delay 3
keystroke "e"
delay 3
keystroke "r"
delay 3
keystroke "n"
delay 3
keystroke "a"
delay 3
keystroke "m"
delay 3
keystroke "e"
delay 3
key down tab
delay 3
keystroke "p"
delay 3
keystroke "a"
delay 3
keystroke "s"
delay 3
keystroke "s"
delay 3
keystroke "w"
delay 3
keystroke "o"
delay 3
keystroke "r"
delay 3
keystroke "d"
delay 3
key down return
else
tell application "System Preferences"
activate
set current pane to pane "com.apple.preference.universalaccess"
display dialog "UI element scripting is not enabled. Check \"Enable access for assistive devices\""
end tell
end if
end tell
tell application "Safari"
activate
tell application "System Events"
tell application process "Safari"
delay 5
open location "https://www.blackboard.XXX.edu/webapps/blackboard/execute/launcher?>type=StudentCoursesView&id=XXXXXX&url="
delay 5
keystroke "p" using command down
repeat until sheet 1 of window 1 exists
end repeat
click menu button "PDF" of sheet 1 of window 1
delay 3
click menu item "Save PDF to Web Receipts Folder" of menu 1 of menu button "PDF" of sheet 1 of window 1
delay 5
keystroke return
delay 5
end tell
end tell
end tell
tell application "Safari"
activate
tell application "System Events"
tell application process "Safari"
delay 7
open location "https://www.blackboard.XXX.edu/webapps/blackboard/execute/launcher?>type=StudentCoursesView&id=XXXXXX&url="
delay 5
keystroke "p" using command down
repeat until sheet 1 of window 1 exists
end repeat
click menu button "PDF" of sheet 1 of window 1
delay 3
click menu item "Save PDF to Web Receipts Folder" of menu 1 of menu button "PDF" of sheet 1 of window 1
delay 5
keystroke return
end tell
end tell
end tell
tell application "Safari"
activate
close every window
quit
end tell
</pre>

Audition CS5.5

Is there a list of audio file formats supported by CS5.5 for saving files, or a user manual available on this site? Specifically, we have Audition 3 and need to save audio files to the MP2 format. I would like to know if updating to CS5.5 will enable saving files as MP2. This is a radio broadcasting situation where a satellite distribution format requires MP2. Thanks.

Hi Greg,
Native MP2 support is not currently implemented in Audition CS 5.5, and has not typically been supported out of the box due to very high licensing costs for a codec used by a small subset of Audition users. We are re-examining this support for the future and trying to determine the best way to offer this codec to users who need it without impacting others.
If Audition is purchased as part of the Production Premium suite, MP2 support CAN be achieved using the included Adobe Media Encoder and automated Watch Folders, which can convert any file saved or copied there to MP2. I know from my visits to a local NPR affiliate that they include a drag-and-drop MP2 conversion tool on everyone's desktops, though obviously neither of these solutions is as simple as native support.
I'll add your notes to our internal feature database entry for MP2 support.
Thanks,
Durin
Adobe Audition

Mail.app From and Subject are blank in list

From time to time I get an email and once it is deleted, the "From" and "Subject" do not display in the list of emails. Its just blank. The "Date Received" shows up as well as if there were any attachments I get the paperclip icon, but no "From" or "Subject". If I open the email I can see the "From" and "Subject" in the email header just fine so I know the data is there, just doesnt show up in the list of emails. If I move the email back to my inbox and the delete it again it usually fixes the problem. Not a big deal but wanted to see if anyone else has had this issue and has a fix.
I am running Mail.app 3.2, and my emailemail is being routed through google apps setup as imap account.
This also happens on my wife's computer, who has an identical email setup as mine, just a different account, which leads me to believe its a mail.app ->imap ->gmail issue.
Dont get me started on the dreaded "All Mail" folder.

I have tried suffering through changing the message encoding back and forth to get messages to appear, but it has reached a level of absurdity that I just can stand anymore.
I view my mail with IMAP from three places; Mac Pro, MacBook Pro, and iPhone. If I read a message on any one of the platforms, the remaining Mac (not iPhone) do not display the header information in the message list pane. The iPhone always shows everything fine. And if I download the message first on one of the Macs, it looks fine there, but when that message is downloaded on the other Mac (doesn't matter which was first or second, the pro or macbook pro) the from, to, sent, subject are all invisible on the second machine.
I wrote an automator "watch me" recording to toggle message encoding, but with over 2000 affected email messages, it was taking hours to run, and makes that Mac useless until it is done.
I am less than happy with this situation. Why no bulk message encoding change capability? If you select more than one message the encoding options grey-out.
I've tried rebuilding mailboxes. Using the "defaults write ..." on both Macs. Nothing is working.
Surely someone else is seeing this too?
Message was edited by: Brian Brumfield
Message was edited by: Brian Brumfield

Looking for automated log watching program

I am looking for a log watching program similar to Logwatch on Linux which can then be automated, for my Xserves. Does anyone know of such a product?
Thanks,
Lisa

Just pay attention that you should immediately upgrade Snort as the HenWen website says, "The bundled version of Snort will not run in Leopard due to a change in Leopard's iODBC library (and you shouldn't use it in Tiger, either, since it has a security hole)."

InDesign automation using watch folder

Hi InDesign experts,
Can we use InDesign desktop version (CS5) for a remote batch processing work without any manual intervention?
For example, a script automatically picksup the input file and create pages automatically using watch folder. Is this allowed in desktop license agreement.
Thanks in advance.

Marc,
Power Switch is available for both platforms. Trial period is 30 days.
Here are some topics I recommend you to read at start in the User Guide: JavaScript for applications,
AppleScript for applications and Adobe InDesign. Here are some samples (see Javascripts for CS applications).
If you, or somebody else is interested, I can post the script I wrote.
Here are a few short tips to get you started:
Don’t confuse Javascript/AppleScript for CS applications with Internal scripting in PowerSwitch (scripts written in SwitchScripter). You need the former: the script attached to an InDesign/Photoshop/Illustrator/Acrobat/Quark/etc configurator. You drop a configurator into the flow, attach In and Out folders and a script to it.
You can add up to 5 arguments which are simple strings that can be passed from the Properties panel in PS to the script.
Attach the script to Command property. Don't use Open and Save in the script -- PS handles them on its own (Open and Save as parameters)
Use $doc in the script instead of activeDocument
If you had any questions, I would gladly answer them. Probably we could even start a new thread on the Power Switch topic.
Kasyan

Automator "Watch me do"

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