AppleScript: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition

Automator

Automator is a utility application, new in Tiger, that allows the user to construct a script (called a workflow ) from a series of steps (called actions) in a graphical interface without knowing a programming language. The default actions are in /System/Library/Automator/; additional actions may be installed into /Library/Automator/ or ~/Library/Automator, or they may be included in an application's bundle, where Automator can see them directly. Workflows can be saved as files to be run by Automator, as applications to be run independently (rather like an AppleScript applet), or as plug-ins for use by various applications: for example, a workflow saved as a Finder plug-in becomes a Finder contextual menu item, and a workflow saved as a Script Menu plug-in becomes a menu item in the Script Menu.

The default actions include a Run AppleScript action , which lets the user incorporate AppleScript code directly into a workflow. Even more interesting, an Automator action can easily be written using AppleScript, and instructions for doing this appear in Chapter 27. An action is a useful way to distribute a piece of AppleScript code to users. You can't know, after all, exactly what a user would like to do with your code, and some users don't understand programming well enough to customize AppleScript code in a script editor themselves. An Automator action can help to solve these problems. An action can easily be positioned among other actions in a workflow that the user constructs ...