Putting Variables in Action "Find Finder Items"

Hello! I'm using Automator to make a workflow. One of my action in my workflow is to find finder items. I'd like to tell Automator to find items that start with a specific string of text (the text is "016") stored in a variable. Since Automator does not allow me to insert a variable directly, I tried to add the variable by adding the variable's UUID. I followed the method outlined in this website:
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20080213200213250
But even after I put my variable's UUID as "$(9051E0AA-257F-4F00-9A58-50677FB0C07E)", it seems that Automator does not understand, as the results of the action "Find Finder Items" returned no files at all. I tried to store my string as "Storage" and "Text" and used the same method, but it still didn't work. Thank you very much!

I'm not sure what the action is using to search, but a name extension does not include the period. Another approach would be to get the entire contents of the memory card, and filter the items from there.

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Folder Action + Move Finder Items = Zero KB files

I've got a folder action set that is supposed to run the Automator Action "Move Finder Items" on any file that gets placed in a specific folder (called "Folder A") and move it to "Folder B". I'm having an issue with larger files though.
As soon as I begin to transfer the file to "folder A" , the folder action runs and results in a "Zero KB" file in "Folder B".
Is there any way to keep the Folder Action from triggering until the file has completely copied to the folder with the Folder Action attached ("Folder A")?
A side note: I have this same folder action running on an iMac with Mac OS 10.6.3 and it works great . (This one was made with the newer version of Automator that shipped with 10.6 vs. Automator on 10.5 which made the action I am having trouble with)
Any input would be appreciated!

There is a check in *Snow Leopard* to see if the items have completed their copy/download, but Leopard does not do any checking - the script is triggered immediately. You can add your own delay with a *Run AppleScript* action, though, for example:
<pre style="
font-family: Monaco, 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;
font-size: 10px;
font-weight: normal;
margin: 0px;
padding: 5px;
border: 1px solid #000000;
width: 720px; height: 340px;
color: #000000;
background-color: #DAFFB6;
overflow: auto;"
title="this text can be pasted into an Automator 'Run AppleScript' action">
on run {input, parameters} -- wait for file copy to complete by testing the size of the containing folder
set theFolders to {} -- to handle items in different folders
set skippedItems to {}
repeat with anItem in the input -- get a list of unique folders
tell application "Finder"
get (container of anItem) as alias
if the result is not in theFolders then set the end of theFolders to the result
end tell
end repeat
repeat with aFolder in theFolders
set timeToWait to 30 -- time to wait for copy to complete
set interval to 2 -- test every interval seconds
set copied to false
tell application "Finder" to set currentSize to size of aFolder -- get initial size
repeat with timer from timeToWait to 1 by -interval -- check every interval seconds up to maximum time
delay interval
tell application "Finder" to set newSize to size of aFolder -- recheck size
if (newSize is equal to currentSize) then
set copied to true
exit repeat -- success
else -- update size
set currentSize to newSize
end if
end repeat
if not copied then set the end of skippedItems to quoted form of (aFolder as text) -- timed out
end repeat
showSkippedAlert for skippedItems
return input
end run
to showSkippedAlert for skippedItems
show an alert dialog for any items skipped, with the option to cancel the rest of the workflow
parameters - skippedItems [list]: the items skipped
returns nothing
if skippedItems is not {} then
set {alertText, theCount} to {"Error with waiting for items to copy", count skippedItems}
if theCount is greater than 1 then
set theMessage to (theCount as text) & space & " folders timed out"
else
set theMessage to "1 folder timed out"
end if
set theMessage to theMessage & " - copy of contents may be incomplete:"
set {tempTID, AppleScript's text item delimiters} to {AppleScript's text item delimiters, return}
set {skippedItems, AppleScript's text item delimiters} to {skippedItems as text, tempTID}
if button returned of (display alert alertText message (theMessage & return & skippedItems) alternate button "Cancel" default button "OK") is "Cancel" then error number -128
end if
return
end showSkippedAlert
</pre>
The action will check the folder sizes, and when there is no change (or the wait times out) the input items are passed on.

Automator Variable and Find Finder Items

Hello!
I am creating a quick Automator file to grab any files within a folder and copy them to another folder. It prompts the user for a file name. I used this http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20080213200213250 post to attempt a work around for the Find Finder Items not allowing a variable as an input. Any ideas how to get this to work?
Thanks!
-Josh

Bit late but this came up tops when I was having the same issue.
You will find your created variable at the bottom of the workflow panel, from ther eyou can just drag them into the drop down menus.

Automator Action "Find Finder Items" bug...

Hello,
I created an application that searches SD flash memory cards (out of a Canon video camcorder) that are formatted FAT32 for files that have a .MOD extension and copies them to mounted server volumes for transcoding to .MOV (to later use in an editor). Most memory cards work with the "Find Finder Items" action item returning the whole contents of the SD card volume's MOD files. Other SD cards return no result even though the files are clearly visible to Finder when you manually look for them. When I run the workflow, it does the search and returns nothing without an error to the app. Any suggestions as to why some SD cards are different in this regard? Thanks!

I'm not sure what the action is using to search, but a name extension does not include the period. Another approach would be to get the entire contents of the memory card, and filter the items from there.

IMac: I try to save a file and get 'the action "Copy Finder Items" encountered an error. Check the action's properties and try running the workflow again.'

I keep on running into this when I try to save a download file. Any help would be appreciated.
'The action "Copy Finder Items" encountered an error. Check the action's properties and try running the workflow again.'
I tried clicking the button to change the save but that has no effect.

Hi All,
I am having same issue too. Can anyone you advise? Thank you.

Folder action to find and replace text and change line feeds

I want to use a folder action to find and replace text and change Mac carriage returns to DOS line feeds inside text files.
The text to be replaced is: "/Users/wim/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Music" (without the quotes)
This text has to be removed (i.e. replaced by an empty string)
The text occurs many times within each file.
The files are playlists exported from iTunes in the M3U format (which are text files). They contain Mac carriage returns. These need to be changed to DOS line feeds.
I have found the following two perl commands to achieve this:
To find and replace text: perl -pi -w -e 's/THIS/THAT/g;' *.txt
To change carriage returns to line feeds: perl -i -pe 's/\015/\015\012/g' mac-file
I know that it's possible to make a folder action with Automator that executes a shell script.
What I want to do is drop the exported playlists in M3U format in a folder so that the folder action will remove the right text and change the carriage returns.
My questions are:
Is it possible to make a folder action that executes command line commands instead of shell scripts?
What is the correct syntax for the two commands when used in a folder action shell script? Especially, how do I escape the slashes (/) in the string to be removed?
Thanks for your help

Ok, I've include an applescript to run a shell command. The applesript command quoted form makes a string that will end up as a single string on the bash command line. Depending on what you want to do, you may need multiple string on the bash command lines. I've included some information on folder actions.
It is easier to diagnose problems with debug information. I suggest adding log statements to your script to see what is going on. Here is an example.
    Author: rccharles
    For testing, run in the Script Editor.
      1) Click on the Event Log tab to see the output from the log statement
      2) Click on Run
    For running shell commands see:
    http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/technotes/tn2002/tn2065.html
on run
    -- Write a message into the event log.
    log " --- Starting on " & ((current date) as string) & " --- "
    -- debug lines
    set desktopPath to (path to desktop) as string
    log "desktopPath = " & desktopPath
    set unixDesktopPath to POSIX path of desktopPath
    log "unixDesktopPath = " & unixDesktopPath
    set quotedUnixDesktopPath to quoted form of unixDesktopPath
    log "quoted form is " & quotedUnixDesktopPath
    try
        set fromUnix to do shell script "ls -l " & quotedUnixDesktopPath
        display dialog "ls -l of " & quotedUnixDesktopPath & return & fromUnix
    on error errMsg
        log "ls -l error..." & errMsg
    end try
end run
How to set up a folder action.
1) right click on folder. click on Enable folder actions
2) Place script in
/Library/Scripts/Folder Actions Scripts
3) right click on folder. click on attach folder action
pick your script.
Create a new folder on the desktop & try.
You can put multiple folder actions on a folder. There are other ways of doing this.
Here is my test script:
on adding folder items to this_folder after receiving dropped_items
    repeat with dropped_item_ref in dropped_items
       display dialog "dropped files is " & dropped_item_ref & " on folder " & this_folder
    end repeat
end adding folder items to
How to make the text into an AppleScript program.
Start the AppleScript Editor
/Applications/AppleScript/Script Editor.app
In Snow Leopard it's at: /Applications/Utilities/AppleScript Editor
Copy the script text to the Applescript editor.
Note: The ¬ is typed as option+return. ption+return is the Applescript line continuation characters.
You may need to retype these characters.
Save the text to a file as an script and do not check any of the boxes below.

Backup workflow fails - Find Finder Items

I have tried to put together a simple Automator workflow to backup recently changed files to a CD as follows:
[Find Finder Items]: Where:[Top level folder] Whose:[Date Modified]:[Within the last 2 weeks]
[Create Archive]: Save As:[Archive File Name] Where:[Desktop] Ignore unreadable items
[Burn a Disk]: ...
After Create Archive has run I have a Zip file on the Desktop, but it contains far more than just the files modded in the last two weeks. Even if I reduce the [Date Modified] criterion to [This Week] I get the same result.
Any idea what I'm doing wrong?
I've set up a Smart Folder in Finder to list the files using the same search criteria, and it produces a reasonable list. I thought of trying to archive the contents of the Smart Folder, but that just archives the Smart Folder definition file, not the files it points to.

Whoops! I can now answer this one myself!
It turns out that if a folder contains a recently modified file it is included in the items, and then the entire contents of that folder are included in the archive. I was able to solve the problem by adding a second criterion to the [Find Finder Items] action: Kind Is Not Folder. The Zip file still contains a hierarchical folders/files structure, but now only the recently-changed files are included.

"Find Finder Items" Broken? Help!

I'm having a problem with Find Finder Items. I set it as follows:
Find Finder Items
Where: 100EOS7D (this is a folder on my drive)
Whose: Extension is equal to CR2
When I run this I see in the window below all my CR2 files listed. However, I also see my path and directory listed twice at the top. Why? My next step is to move the results of this search to the trash, but along with the files, my folder is moved to the trash as well!
Am I doing something incorrectly?
Please let me know either here or at *********.
<edited by host>
Thanks!

please don't put your email in the post. it's against forum rules. are you using automator? please give full details of the whole workflow, not just one action.

"Find Finder Items" returns same file twice

Hey y'all,
I'm trying to jerry-rig a photobooth for my wedding. I'm using automator to grab 3 stills from a webcam, and place them all in a folder. When I use "Find Finder Items" to send these images to an action that will rotate them, it finds one of the images twice. That is, the results for "Find Finder Items - where: path whose: name contains 'snap' " will return pictures/path/snap3.tiff, pictures/path/snap1.tiff, pictures/path/snap2.tiff, pictures/path/snap3.tiff. This means that when I send these results to my Rotate 90 Degrees action, Snap3 is rotated 180, and when I send them all into a PDF, I get snap3 twice.
This also happens when I "Find Finder Items" and just look for all the .tiff files in /path, and when use "Get Folder Contents" on /path.
Background: Running 10.5.8 Leopard on a PPC Mac mini. Fairly new to the world of Mac, so I may be missing something obvious.
I've been searching for answers for a day or two now, and haven't come across this sort of issue; I apologize if this is old hat, but I really have made a goodfaith attempt to search these and other forums.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Edited to add: The folder only contains the 3 .tiff files, and the PDF I'm trying to dump them into. I thought maybe I was somehow creating a 4th identical file, but it's not the case.

Hello & a warm welcome!
no idea what is happening, other than Apple Software is usually the worst to accomplish thing the way YOU want to.
GraphicConverter has a powerful Browse Folder function, & many tools for manipulation, & you can keep your Pics wherever you want...
http://www.lemkesoft.com/

11.1.1.4:Could not find the item selected to match the value of type Number

Hi,
I have a taskflow with an input parameter.
The input parameter value is to be assigned to a list item as the default selected value.
I have mapped the pageFlow scope parameter to set value to the list item using input page parameters defined in task flow.
but When i Run the task flow the value does not get assigned to the drop down list and jdevloper console screen shows up the following message
"Could not find the item selected to match the value 2 by type: oracle.jbo.domain.Number in LOV."
But If I click the Lov to check the values it shows that value is present in the list.
The same configurations works if the list of values is for a column with type as java.lang.String.
Is it somethng different that is to be done for a Number field to assign value from a taskflow parameter?
Edited by: user3067156 on Jun 25, 2011 3:34 PM

Hi Jobinesh,
I am assigning the default value in the task flow using input page parameters ...
<view id="VIEW1">
<page>/title.jsff</page>
<input-page-parameter>
<from-value>#{pageFlowScope.pInputTyp_Id}</from-value>
<to-value>#{bindings.pTyp_Id1.attributeValue}</to-value>
</input-page-parameter>
</view id>
It does not assign the value, if Bind variable(pTyp_Id1) NDtype and task flow input parameter(pInputTyp) class type, both are set to use type oracle.jbo.domain.Number.
If I change both to use java.lang.String and additionally also change the VO defination the accept the bind variable of type string, it assigns the value correctly.
Usecase:
I have a a task flow for which has its first page a search page.
The Search page is created using operation execute with params and dragging the query parameters on the page.
The Query parameters are to be filled using a select one choice option and the list is bound to the master values.
This task flow can be used inside a standalone page as a region to provide a search page
The same task flow can be called from within another taskflow which will provide the default values for the drop down lists ..
Since the search page is a jsff fragment i dont have a page on load handler to provide default values..
So assiging the values using input page parameters defined in task flow view tag.
For testing I am passing the taskflow input parameters by calling the task flow from a jspx page a region . When I configure this task flow a region in a page its asks for providing the values for the parameters
And the same gets configured in my testpage def as
<executables>
<variableIterator id="variables"/>
<taskFlow id="Flow1" taskFlowId="/WEB-INF/Flow1.xml#Flow1"
activation="deferred"
xmlns="http://xmlns.oracle.com/adf/controller/binding">
<parameters>
<parameter id="pTyp_Id" value="1207"/>
</parameters>
</taskFlow>
</executables>
Edited by: user3067156 on Jun 27, 2011 1:50 PM

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.

"Find Finder Items" and external volumes

I have a particular file (an Entourage mail database) that I want to automate backup to a USB thumb drive. Once a day I already use the Backup utility to automatically copy it (currently about 350 MB) to the external thumb drive. No problem.
Now I want to be able to delete old backups (say more than a week old). Before I can get there, I need to get the "Find Finder Items" action to work on external drives. Is this an action that only works on internal mounted volumes? I also have an external hard drive that doesn't seem to work with that action either. No matter what criteria I select, when I run the action I get "no results produced" which I know is incorrect.

"Find finder items" works on all drives. But the drives have to be indexed by spotlight. can you do finder search on your thumb drive? also, how is it formatted? it's best if it's formatted mac os extended. thumb drives are usually formatted FAT by default.

Syncing stops on finding purchased items

So I have been looking for a solution for this problem for a while now but i can't seem to find any answers.
Basically every time i sync my iphone 4 into itunes (11.0.1.12) it will sync until it gets to the point where it says "finding purchased items". It then stays at this stage. Also because of this I cannot put any new music onto my iPhone. Most other feed have said something about iBooks and deleting but i dont even have iBooks to start of with... Any Suggestions?

I have had the same problem however deleting IBooks did not help and I have been messing with this for days...but I have found something that appears to work (its copying purchased items now, I'm crossing my fingers).
Try this... after plugging in your Ipad, right-click on the Ipad icon, but instead of choosing "transfer purchases", click on "backup". When I did this, instead of "looking for purchased items", it immediately started "transferring purchased items from Ipad"... and its been running now for 40 minutes.. (I have a quite a few purchased apps), but its not locking, and the apps copying... .
hope this helps
Bob

Size in Find Finder Items

Does anyone know of problems with the Size option in Find Finder Items ?
I was hoping to make a workflow to compress all my movie files over 100MB in size.
First step was to use Find Finder Items to identify all movies over that size, but it just brings back every single one - the size option lets you enter a number but doesn't say if that is bytes, KB etc.

The action is using KB as the unit for Size.
It took a bit of trial and error to figure out, but inputting the size in KB should work.
For reference, you can use the View Results action under the Automator grouping to troubleshoot this type of thing.

FRM : 41067 Cannot find menu item id ( forms 10g Menus/Forms Conversion )

Hi All ,
We have menus converted into forms 10g using the forms migration assistant FMA ( frmplsqlconv ) . Now , we had the menus (.mmb) which had used Shared Menus.
After conversion observed that there were some duplicate copies of the shared menus created automatically and each reference where this shared menu was used was replaced by the newly created ones.
Now , when I open the form that uses the menu I get the following error :
FRM : 41067 Cannot find menu item id
On debuggin observed the the above error was generated at :
set_menu_item_property(SHARED_MENU.ITEM,.... )
Not sure how this worked in forms earlier version and not working in 10g now.
Could anyone please let me know how to go about to fix this issue and why is this happening at the first point.
Is re-creating the menu from scratch the only option to resolve the issue ?
Please advise ..
Thanks ,

Hi
Error Message: FRM-41067: Cannot find Menu Item: invalid ID.
Error Cause:An invalid ID was passed to a built-in subprogram.
Action:Verify that a proper call to FIND_MENU_ITEM will be performed. Level: 20 Type: Errori think c1 returns null pls check ur Query in the cursor ; run & test if it returns data or not & check the name of the menu that should actually match with the name stored in the db.
If the error still existing then u can get reide of it with a simple line check using FIND_MENU_ITEM as follow...
PROCEDURE disable_menu_items IS
mi_id MenuItem;
val varchar2(10);
BEGIN
IF :Global.user_code '01' THEN
IF :GLOBAL.VC_ROLE_CODE '01' THEN
declare
cursor c1 is
select vc_menu_code,vc_menu_name from
makess.mk_module_menu a where
vc_module_code='06' and
not exists(select vc_menu_code
from makess.mk_roles_menu_inv b
where vc_comp_code=:global.vc_comp_code
and a.vc_menu_code=b.vc_menu_code
and ch_role_code=:global.vc_role_code);
BEGIN
for crec in c1
mi:=FIND_MENU_ITEM('MENU.MENUITEM');
IF NOT ID_NULL(mi) THEN
loop
set_menu_item_property(crec.vc_menu_name,ENABLED,Property_false);
end loop;
END IF;
END;
:global.check:='N';
END IF;
END IF;
END;Hope this helps...
Regards,
Abdetu...

Putting Variables in Action "Find Finder Items"

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