Unofficial Technology

Extract Files Action Updated

The Extract Files action is updated to correct an error when one of the input fields is left blank. In version 1.0 of Extract Files, if the File Type field was left blank, all files that had an empty file type would be passed through. The same is true if the File Extension were left blank.

With the update to version 1.01, the action correctly performs the file extract based on the completed parameters and does not return files with an empty file type or with no extension.

The updated action is available for download here.

Leopard - First Thoughts

After installing Leopard on Friday night, my initial impressions were along the lines of "so what?" But after having used it for two days now, I've got some praises and I have some gripes. So what else is new, right?

First, the installation went smooth on both my Mac Mini and my MacBook Pro. As expected, a number of productivity hacks that I use and have come to rely on don't work. Mail.app enhancements MailTags and MailActOn don't work. I almost forgot how to do email without them. What a drag (literally) to have to drag emails over to a particular folder instead of just a few keystrokes. On my laptop NetworkLocations stopped. Now I have to manually set my printer when I travel to and from work. Yech!. In Safari, SafariStand, GreaseKit - GreaseMonkey for Safari and Inquisitor have also stopped working.

Fortunately, QuickSilver was updated prior to Leopard. I don't think I could use my Mac without that. TextExpander updated as well. Fortunately Default Folder X and a number of other items that live in the System Preferences Panel all continue to work.

On to the goodies. Time Machine is wonderful. The only bad news is that there is a problem with Aperture 1.5.6. You cannot have Time Machine running while you are using Aperture or you will risk corrupting your Aperture database.

Then there is Cover Flow. This was the one feature that caught me by surprise. At first I thought that it was a total waste of CPU cycles. However, when combined with a fairly large monitor, Smart Folders, and Quick Look, it is a real boon to productivity. For example, as you can see in the picture I have created a Smart Folder for all my PDFs. More and more I live in PDFs and only print when I have to. I liked YEP for managing PDFs but Smart Folders, Cover Flow and Quick Look make this so much better. I can navigate visually, then pop open the document for a quick look to make sure it is what I need or even read it right there.

So now here is my one little niggling complaint. Why can't I customize the columns that I can see with Smart Folders? No this is not a new issue. I just never found Smart Folders to be quite so useful. Now that I do, I want more flexibility.

Well, I really do have one more complaint. I'm not really fond of the fact that everything looks like iTunes. Its OK. I just like a little more variety.

Overall, Leopard is turning out to be worthwhile upgrade.

Automatically Change Your Safari Home Page

I have a laptop that I use for both work and home. While I am at work I want our Google Apps start page to be my home page. When I go home I would like for my personal iGoogle page to be my home page.

There are a couple of applications that work together to make this happen. First there is the outstanding NetworkLocation application from Centrix.ca.

NetworkLocation can autodetect where you are and change settings as well as run applications or scripts based on the location. So for example, when I am at work, I have NetworkLocation set to change my default printer to the appropriate office printer, automatically run my Parallels installation and now change my Safari home page. There are many other actions that can be performed such as changing your Mail account, for those of you who really need a certain mood, playing a certain iTunes playlist, and more. If you have a laptop, this is highly recommended.

The other application you'll need is the one that you create with Automator. So to help you create your application that changes the Safari Home page, we created two actions, one that actually changes the home page and one that quits Safari. The later is just to make it easier to change the home page if Safari is already running since it has to quit and relaunch in order for the new home page settings to take effect.

OK, we'll assume you've downloaded and installed the actions. I recommend that you create a workflow for each location where you want to have a unique home page. Create the workflow in Automator so that it looks something like the picture.

Once you have your workflow set the way you would like you need to save it as an application. NetworkLocation only accepts scripts or applications. It will not run a workflow.

Back in NetworkLocation, select preferences, select the location where you'd like to use your new application and then click the plus button on the bottom. Select the option to launch an application or run a script. When prompted drag your new application to the box or use the file chooser to select it. Click add.

That's it. The next time you start up your computer in that location, Safari's home page will be changed to the URL you have chosen for that application.

Announcing Extract Files Action

The new Extract Files Action for OS X Automator allows you to extract any combination files by file extension or file type. This is very useful for video and photo workflows. For example if you need to extract all the jpg, tiff and gif files and then use another action to resize them all to the same size.

To use this action, first install it. Start Automator. Then use another action to select some files or folders. Drag the Extract Files Action to the workflow area of Automator, right below the action that selects the files or folders. Enter file extensions or file types of the files that you want to work with into the appropriate text boxes. You should enter file extensions in the form of txt, jpg, mp3. Note that the items are separated by a comma and a space. Do not use a period before the file extension, i.e do not use .txt, .jpg, .mp3. The same is true for the file types.

A NOTE ABOUT FILE TYPES - not all applications assign a file type, so using file types to select your files may give some unpredictable results. If you have to use file types and you are having trouble getting the selection you need, we recommend an application like FileInfo to identify the file type of the files you are trying to select.

To install this action, double-click on the installer. The action will be installed in the ~/Library/Automator directory.

Automate your Video Workflow

If you download a lot of video files that need to be converted to something else, it gets to be a tedious task to complete all of the steps. Now with a couple of new Automator actions, your download and convert process can be greatly automated.

Set Up

I am assuming that you already have an application for downloading videos. It is most helpful if the program that you are using to download will automatically copy the completed download to a different folder when it is complete. If you are downloading bit torrents, Azureus has this feature.

Then you will need a video conversion tool. VisualHub from Techspansion is superb for this application - plus its the one we were able to script.

Lastly you will need our two Unofficial Technology actions: Extract Movies and VisualHub Import and Convert.

After you have installed VisualHub, Run the VisualHub Import and Convert installer. This installer updates VisualHub with a script dictionary from Techspansion that makes VisualHub scriptable. Follow the installation directions. Then drop the Extract Movies action into the ~/Library/Automator folder. (The ~ means your home folder).

Creating the Action

After you have completed the installation, we need to create the Automator workflow with the newly installed actions. So, open Automator and in the Library column, select the Finder application. That will limit the actions available to just the Finder actions. The first thing we want to do is to tell the workflow what folder to look in to find the videos. You can select a top level folder, because the Extract Movies action will search all the subfolders. Select the Get Specified Finder Items Action and drag it over to the blank area on the right. Then click on the plus button at the bottom of the action and select the folder containing your videos.

Next select the Extract Video Files Action (Sorry for the name mismatch. We'll fix that in a future version) and drag that right beneath the Get Specified Finder Items. There are no options to set. Finally, in the Library column, scroll down towards the bottom and select the VisualHub application. In the Action column, select and drag the VisualHub Import and Convert action just below the Extract Movies action. When you are through, your action should look like this (click the image for a larger picture):

Using Your New Workflow

You can now save your workflow. For even more efficiency, you can "Save As Plugin..." and save the workflow as a folder action. If you attach the folder action to your video downloads folder, when a file or folder is transferred into that downloads folder your new workflow will automatically extract the existing videos, add them to VisualHub and start the conversion process at the default settings. Additionally, if you have your default settings in VisualHub set automatically add the converted video to iTunes, all you have to do is sync and run.

Some Limitations and Issues

A known issue is that if you use the VisualHub Import and Convert action to add one or more videos to VisualHub while it is in the process of a conversion, VisualHub will start the conversion process on all files from the beginning.

We haven't yet created the workflow that will clean up the videos out of the download folder once they are converted. You will have to manually clean up the files in the download folder to avoid converting and creating duplicates.

Additionally, we need to decide what to do about the Apple Script timeout. We may need to extend it so we can quit VisualHub when it is done.

Comments Welcome

We invite you to comment and suggest improvements. We do not offer support directly for these actions, but will do our best to respond to comments.