Open finder items automator

Hi,
I have an automator service that uses Open Finder Items as part of the workflow. This works fine except if the app I want to use is not in my Applications folder. How can I make it so that my workflow can find my app in any location I keep it? I see the option New Variable but didn't quite figure out how to use it. I was also thinking to maybe use Applescript as part of my workflow but again couldn't figure it out. Any help would be great I'm sure there must be a way. Thanks!
rc

I'm having a similar problem. When running from within Automator everything is fin, but the plug in doesn't get the finder items. Oddly, I have ONE old workflow that takes the word "folder" away from a file name. That one works fine, but doesn't require any action once I select it. It doesn't even open the automator show action dialog window to make any changes. Weird how this one is still working and the other ones won't.

Similar Messages

Automator Open Finder Items Won't Work in Plug-In

I'm having another Automator problem in Leopard.
This time I have a workflow that is intended to combine PDFs selected in Finder and open the resulting document in Preview. The steps are:
1. Get Selected Items
2. Combine PDF Pages, Combine by appending pages
3. Open Finder Items, Open with Preview
The workflow runs fine if I'm running it from within Automator. When I save it as a plug-in, the Open Finder Items portion doesn't work. If I turn on Show this Action, I get a dialog box with a dropdown list of programs with Preview already selected along with Cancel and Continue buttons. Clicking the Continue button does nothing.
As a test, I tried removing the Combine PDF Pages step from the workflow and saving it as a plug-in. My expectation is that this version would simply open the items selected in Finder. Unfortunately, that didn't work either.
Anyone have a clue for me?

I'm having a similar problem. When running from within Automator everything is fin, but the plug in doesn't get the finder items. Oddly, I have ONE old workflow that takes the word "folder" away from a file name. That one works fine, but doesn't require any action once I select it. It doesn't even open the automator show action dialog window to make any changes. Weird how this one is still working and the other ones won't.

Using Variables to Open Finder Item

I have created a workflow that right now goes through the following actions:
1. Get Specified Finder Items
2. Open Finder Items (using TextEdit)
3. Watch Me Do (To Select All..Copy...Close Text Edit...Click in text input field of Safari...Paste)
What I would like to do is use some variables to determine what TextEdit File is opened. For example, I would have a text file named "Friday-FileA.rtf" and would like to have the workflow use the variable to determine what Weekday it is and open the appropriate file.
I am new to Automator and have no knowledge of AppleScript but am pretty competent with my mac. Please let me know if this is something that can be done rather easily.
Thanks in advance
Nick

say you have a file "friday-13.txt" on your desktop.
You can modify your workflow by changing the first action "get specified finder items" to:
1. get value of variable "current weekday".
2. run apple script action:
<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: #ADD8E6;
overflow: auto;"
title="this text can be pasted into the Script Editor">
on run {input, parameters}
tell application "Finder"
set wday to file (input & "-13.txt" as text) of (path to desktop)
end tell
return wday
end run</pre>
You can modify that as needed.

"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.)

Automator (move finder items)

I have a service that moves finder items to a particular folder. Since I started using this I noticed I occasionally will need to move an item with the same name into this folder. Is there a way I can get the service to move the second item with the same name, but instead of overwriting the first item, have it add a -1 or something? If I open something like a zip file multiple times in finder, it creates the second one with a 1 after the name. That's exactly what I need. Any way to do that with a service like this?

No, I didn't give up on the thread, I just went to work with what you gave me to see what I could do with it. It's just that you've been nothing but extremely helpful and patient with me in the past; and I started to feel like I was coming to the board, putting up my problems, and you do everything for me. I know you're here to contribute to the community, but I don't like to take advantage. I am making an effort to learn this stuff now, I just have to make baby steps!
Okay, here is the deal with this item. I actually want to apply this with more than one operation, but the basic script or concept would remain pretty much the same. We create lots of documents like invoices, receipts, shipping labels, etc., that usually get saved as pdf onto the desktop. Then, they are named, often with the date and particular file name and finally moved into the proper folders. For example, shipping labels get saved to desktop with the default name of something like
vty3RlsIK.LabelGenerationServlet.part
Then I would change the name to something like
12-31-2009USPSLabel.pdf
Then, I would move it to the folder where we keep the shipping labels for records.
So, the service I created actually does more than just moving the file. It goes like this:
service receives selected pdf
in finder
name single item in finder item names (to: USPS_Label.pdf)
add date or time to finder item names (before name, underscore separator)
move finder items (to target folder)
open finder item (with default application)
The other ones I need would be similar, except they don't usually need to be opened afterward, just named and moved, for the most part. I figured I could continue to just use the name change function of automator before running the script, but if would run faster or more efficiently if that were also part of the script, I suppose that would be better. And I would like to be able to have the numbers go up through as many as I need. If it's a matter of just adding in all the possibilities of existing names up to the number I need, that's tedious work I don't mind doing now to save on having to name all these files in the future!
Also, these files are always named differently, so the source file would need to just be selected file, not the actual name.
Finally, I tried to play with the script to name the desktop like you said, but would it be something like
set source_folder to folder (path to desktop)
or
set source_folder to (path to desktop)
I still need to learn a little more before I understand the way that works. I am so used to only using the unix path, I like the ability to use (path to desktop) that's really interesting.
I think I may have rambled a bit, but that should explain the details of what I'm trying to accomplish.
thanks

AppleScript for entering text in Open Finder Window

I am very, very new to using AppleScripts. I need to enter text into the search box. So far the script looks like this:
on run {input, parameters}
    tell application "myApplication" to activate
    tell application "System Events"
        keystroke "o" using {command down}
    end tell
    return input
end run
This launches the app and fires the command-o keyboard shortcut to open the finder menu to choose a file to open. Now I just need to enter text in:

happyg5_89 wrote:
Well, honestly I am processing a bunch of pictures in automator. At the end of the workflow I am launching this application and I am trying to navigate to a folder of pictures on the desktop and then hit the Open button...
I'm not sure what the above means. are you trying to open a Folder containing image files in the Finder, or are you trying to open a set of image files in some application? If the latter (which seems more likely), just add and Open Finder Items action at the end of the script and specify the application you want to use to open them. Or if that's not what you mean, could you explain a bit more clearly?

Automator 2.2 "Copy Finder Items" Action Error

Hello all,
When I try to create an Automator workflow that finds a type of file (pdf) in a nested folder structure and copies those files to another folder - essentially extracting the pdfs from their nested folders - I get an error message.
1) I use the "find Finder items" action. I specify the top-level folder and set the kind to "document"
2) It returns 56 items
3) I use "copy Finder items" action and specify a new folder
4) The copy action fails stating that a given file "couldn't be saved in the folder". It does not always error-out on the same file. Changing or creating a new folder doesn't help.
I have tried this under two user accounts with the same result. I have tried deleting preferences. The same error results.
Any ideas?
I am running 10.7.1 on a 15" MacBook Pro, early 2011.

I was having the same issue.
I found another solution: instead of copying files, you could move files.
1) Duplicate your original folder (unless you want to move/extract your files entirely to the new folder) (right click the folder and select duplicate)
2) Create a new folder as the destiny folder
3) Open automator and use the following actions (in order) on the workflow
- Find Finder Itens (browse to your source folder; select "any"; select "extension"; select "end with"; type "pdf") (you can do the same thing with the actions "get specified finder items" combined with "filter finder items")
- Get Folder Contents (and mark repeat for each subfolder found) (use this action if you have subfolders)
- Move Finder Itens (browse to your destination folder, that you created previously)
Now you can delete the duplicated folder.

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.

Automator - Filter Finder Items filtering contents of sub folders

I have an external hard drive and I want to keep my iTunes music library automatically backed up on it. I am using automator to copy my most recent files to the external (run the script once a week). I let iTunes manage all my audio files, etc so I figured the created, modified, opened dates would be the best way to filter the items I want to copy over. The workflow is as follows.
1) Get Specified Finder Items (iTunes Library Music folder)
2) Get Folder Contents (All artist directories (Repeat for each subfolder found is NOT checked)
3) Filter Finder Items (ANY of Date Last Modified, Date Created, Date last opened in the last week)
4) Copy finder items (to my external hard drive)
I am having two problems.
1) If I play a song from my second hard drive iTunes copies it into it's directory when it opens... iTunes Music > Artist > Album > Song.mp3. The mp3's modified date, created date, and last opened date is the same as the file that got copied. The new Artist and Album directories that were created by itunes have current created dates (makes sense). However, the filter is still not catching it. Only if the mp3 is current will the filter catch it. I DON'T have 'Repeat for each subfolder found'... shouldn't the filter check for the folder's modified, created and last opened dates?
2) If everything works the way I want it to I see this to be a problem in the future. If I add an album by an artist that I already have an album for, the filter will skip it. Any suggestions on how I could handle this problem?
Thanks.

Found out that since Hebrew was set up first in the language option the filter on textual was failing. After I changed the order of the languages in the language preferences the file filter by name, extension etc… worked O.K.
Nati

Rename Finder Items with Automator in Leopard

I used following automator actions to rename all files contained in selected folders in Mac OS finder:
1. Get Selected Finder Items
2. Get Folder Contents (repeat for each subfolder found option on)
3. Rename Finder Items (Add Text before name, Show action option on)
First two actions were executed flawlessly. Unfortunately after keying in text to be added in front of every file name in text field of popup window on execution of last action, no file name was changed. Then I realized that same actions performed in automator application instead of invoking through Finder's contextual menu worked as expected. So the problem seem to be related to initialization of text value in text field of the action.
I decided to try with new variable feature introduced in Leopard version of automator. Clicking on Variables button next to Actions button in menu bar of Automator, then select following item:
Library > Text & Data > New Storage
I managed to provide a text value for the New Storage variable through "Library > Text > Ask for Text" and "Library > Utilities > Set Value of Variable" actions, but text field in Rename Finder Items action seem to reject the New Storage variable completely. So the attempt to provide text value to the Rename Finder Items action through user initialized variable failed without reason.
May I know how can I make use of variables to set text fields in Rename Finder Items action ? Is the above mentioned failure a confirmed bug of Leopard waiting to be fixed by Apple (after one whole year of beta testing !!) ? Thanks in advance.

I figured out a way to use variables in the Rename Finder Items.
In my case I want to rename the files to a sequential name. I can't link the variable to the "New Name" box in the Automater GUI.
But it helps to know that that the Automator is just creating an XML file and you can edit this directly.
To do this, create the Automator workflow and save it. Give the variable some distinct name like "myVariable".
In Finder, right click the Automator file and select Show Package Contents. Within this folder go to Contents and find the document.wflow file. This is the XML file, so open it with TextEdit or something.
Search the file for your variable name. The first instance of it should be in a section that starts with <key>variables</key>. All the variables will be listed here. Each variable has several lines to define it. The first will be the UUID. The UUID will have a line that is something like: <string>BD464B7A-ACDE-4A63-B595-FAF1DA6DE26E</string>. The BD464B7A-ACDE-4A63-B595-FAF1DA6DE26E is how Automator refers to your variable. Search the file for this UUID string and you will see. Whenever Automator wants to insert the variable, it will enter $(BD464B7A-ACDE-4A63-B595-FAF1DA6DE26E).
Copy this string, with the $() surrounding it. Close the wflow file. Now you can go back to Automator itself and paste it wherever you want your variable to appear, even if you can't normally insert the variable into that field.

Automator Find Finder Items

I have created an automator workflow to batch import photos into a document from within Word. The workflow works fine and has two processes:
Find Finder Items
Import Contents into Word Document
The problem is when i run this workflow from within Word the Find Finder Items dialogue box opens up behind Word. All i do is use Mission Control to select the dialogue box but it would be easier and more convenient if it just popped up at the front. Does anyone know how to add an action to automator to bring the window to the front?
P.S. I tested this from outside Word to make sure it wasn't specifically with Word. The same thing happened.
Thanks,
Adrian

Peter Russell1 wrote:
Yes, I was aware of changes in Leopard version, and did recreate the workflow from scratch. If you get AND, as expected, I wonder if there is some hidden AND/OR setting somewhere?
not that I know of.

Capitalized finder item with automator

I've quite a lot of items on the finder that I want to quickly capitalize the name of it,
how can I do that with automator?

I figured out a way to use variables in the Rename Finder Items.
In my case I want to rename the files to a sequential name. I can't link the variable to the "New Name" box in the Automater GUI.
But it helps to know that that the Automator is just creating an XML file and you can edit this directly.
To do this, create the Automator workflow and save it. Give the variable some distinct name like "myVariable".
In Finder, right click the Automator file and select Show Package Contents. Within this folder go to Contents and find the document.wflow file. This is the XML file, so open it with TextEdit or something.
Search the file for your variable name. The first instance of it should be in a section that starts with <key>variables</key>. All the variables will be listed here. Each variable has several lines to define it. The first will be the UUID. The UUID will have a line that is something like: <string>BD464B7A-ACDE-4A63-B595-FAF1DA6DE26E</string>. The BD464B7A-ACDE-4A63-B595-FAF1DA6DE26E is how Automator refers to your variable. Search the file for this UUID string and you will see. Whenever Automator wants to insert the variable, it will enter $(BD464B7A-ACDE-4A63-B595-FAF1DA6DE26E).
Copy this string, with the $() surrounding it. Close the wflow file. Now you can go back to Automator itself and paste it wherever you want your variable to appear, even if you can't normally insert the variable into that field.

"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.

Unable to open the photos in reviewer, every time I click on the photo on , it says do not have permission to view the photo. Please open the item in the finder choose the item and click on get info . What am I suppose to change in the setting on getinf

Unable to open the photos in reviewer, every time I click on the photo on , it says do not have permission to view the photo. Please open the item in the finder choose the item and click on <get info>. What am I suppose to change in the setting on <get info>

Back up all data.
This procedure will unlock all your user files (not system files) and reset their ownership and access-control lists to the default. If you've set special values for those attributes on any of your files, they will be reverted. In that case, either stop here, or be prepared to recreate the settings if necessary. Do so only after verifying that those settings didn't cause the problem. If none of this is meaningful to you, you don't need to worry about it.
Step 1
If you have more than one user, and the one in question is not an administrator, then go to Step 2.
Triple-click anywhere in the following line on this page to select it:
{ sudo chflags -R nouchg,nouappnd ~ $TMPDIR..; sudo chown -R $UID:staff ~ $_; sudo chmod -R u+rwX ~ $_; chmod -R -N ~ $_; } 2>&-
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.
Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window by pressing command-V. I've tested these instructions only with the Safari web browser. If you use another browser, you may have to press the return key after pasting.
You'll be prompted for your login password. Nothing will be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning to be careful. If you don’t have a login password, you’ll need to set one before you can run the command. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.
The command may take a few minutes to run, or perhaps longer if you have literally millions of files in your home folder. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign ($) to appear, then quit Terminal.
Step 2 (optional)
Take this step only if you have trouble with Step 1, if it frightens you, or if it doesn't solve the problem.
Start up in Recovery mode. When the OS X Utilities screen appears, select
Utilities ▹ Terminal
from the menu bar. A Terminal window will open.
In the Terminal window, type this:
res
Press the tab key. The partial command you typed will automatically be completed to this:
resetpassword
Press return. A Reset Password dialog will open. You’re not going to reset a password.
In the dialog, select the startup volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name) if it's not already selected.
Select your username from the menu labeled Select the user account if it's not already selected.
Under Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs, click the Reset button.
Select
 ▹ Restart
from the menu bar.

How to find open SO Items with tax code for a particular day?

Dear all
If i want to see all open SOs(items), with tax code for a particular day, how to find using table VBAP in SE16?
Please guide me
Edited by: Julius Bussche on Mar 3, 2009 11:10 PM
Please use descriptive subject titles and the search

Hi GB,
Its always better to see through the standard reports , as you will be able to see the aditional info as well.
In the case of table in se16 you will be able to see one table at a time and then you need to manually figure out the fields that required.
For example if you want to see the sales order details through tables then
1.You have to go to VBAK to see the document type and then you need to go to VBAP to see the items , it means that you need to access 2 tables for this simple thing ....
In standard reports there will be lot of joins between the tables and you can view the data more elobarately as weel.
Note : In general if you want to see the complete details of the documents(open), then pls use the reports.
Regards,
Vvieks

Open finder items automator

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