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What is Automator?
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A tool to create workflows (processes) to automate repetitive tasks
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For example resizing and renaming a folder full of images
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Think of it like cooking
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Start with ingredients, the things that you are going to process into a finished product (input)
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The Automator workflow is the recipe a sequence of steps you will process the ingredients with in series to get a result. (chop, cook, etc)
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Result, the finished food ready to be enjoyed.
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Automator is powerful and designed to be easy to use. It can do a lot, but not everything
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Has built-in actions and 3rd party apps and developers can add in additional functionality
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AppleScript is also available for more advanced automation
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Automator Application
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Automator is part OS X and you'll find it in your Applications folder (Applications-->Automator).
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Launching Automator for the first time:
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Brings up a new workflow with the 'Starting Points' panel displayed
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Workflow: This is the raw Automator file format and will create a file that will open with the Automator application.
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Application: This creates a stand alone app. Supports drag and drop input
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The rest create plug-ins (Service, Folder Action, Print plug-in, iCal Alarm, Image Capture)
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Can also open and existing .wflow document.
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Actions, the individual steps in the workflow
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Take input and then some provide results (output) to feed to the next action
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Most also have settings and parameters that you can configure.
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Left column is the Action Library
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Organized by categories
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Can also search
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Info panel below the library
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Provides a description of the action
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What it expects as input and results
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Creating a workflow
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Drag an action from the library to theWorkflow panel on the right
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If it has configurable options you should see the options
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At the bottom of an action there are tabs (Results, Option, Description)
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RSS to Audio File
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Internet Action: Get Specified URLs
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Add the feed URL (you could add multiples)
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Notice the input and output for this action is a URL
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Internet Action: Get Feeds from URLs
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Input: URL
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Result: Passes RSS feed to next action
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Internet: Get Text from Articles
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Input: RSS Articles
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Result: Text, each RSS article as a text file
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Text: Text to Audio file
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Input: Text
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Options:
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Select voice
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Name for files, multiple get incremented with a number suffix
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location, select a folder where the files will be stored
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Result: Files
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Music: Import Files into iTunes
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Input: Music files
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Options: Playlist to add to, can create a new one.
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result: iTunes songs
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That's it.
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You can now save the workflow as an Application.
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When run it will read the feed, extract the text, convert it to audio (AIFF) files , and add it to your iTunes Library as a playlist.
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Just the beginning
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This is a basic starting point, many ways to improve or extend it
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Internet: Filter Articles, could use to add finer control to the text you extract from RSS
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Internet: Get Enclosure URLs from Articles, instead of the Text to Audio, make your own Podcatcher
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Add 3rd party action to convert audio file to MP3 instead or AIFF (default).
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