Sylvester Roque introduces the Automator, a built-in utility in Mac OS X Tiger that can automate some manual and repetitive tasks quickly. You can automate tasks like moving files and resizing images etc. Now with more software that supports Automator, if you are using a Mac, you should start learning this for saving your time:
… I had programmed a smidgen in Applesoft BASIC years ago. It didn’t go badly, but it did convince me that I didn’t like coding. I tried AppleScript but didn’t have many applications that supported it at the time and found it a little confusing. Needless to say, that didn’t last long either. My last programming effort actually resulted in a semi-working series of macros in Microsoft Excel.
With the advent of Tiger came Automator, a drag-and-drop programming language. I tried it a few months ago for all of about five minutes, but maybe it’s time I lived up to my resolution and learned something new. If you think this is complicated or that you can’t create something useful, let’s dive right in and see what happens. There are a few things you need to know before we begin.
A growing number of applications are “Automator aware”—they contain pre-defined steps or “actions” that Automator knows how to execute. If you have ever looked at AppleScript dictionaries, this is a similar concept. Actions are the individual steps that must be executed for an application to finish a task…
Are you using Automator already? Do you have tips to share with other lifehack.org readers? Tell us here in the comment, or email us: tips at lifehack.org.
