You Need Some Automator

Automator, one of the reasons I was looking forward to Tiger, and last night was the first time I actually played around with it. What's wrong with me?

So, one of my least favorite parts about blogging is getting images in the right format and uploading them so I can display them in my blog. Sure, blogger is hosting images for you now, and that makes it easier, but you still have to get them in the right format (screen shots, ug) and get them to blogger.

I decided to see if Automator could help me out, and it can! Programming, without code. It hardly any time at all, I was able to figure out Automator and create a workflow that will take the highlighted file in the Finder, convert to JPEG, post to my iDisk, and copy the URL to the clipboard. All that's left for me to do is paste the URL in to my blog post. Sweet! I just ran the action to post this picture.



Automator lets you compile your workflow in to a program too. I dropped that in my dock so it is easily accessible. When the Automator action is running, you can watch the progress in the main titlebar. Very cool.

I still need to figure out a good way to automate the screen capture. Full screen captures are already there, but I haven't figured out how to do selection caps like those I get with Grab. I also want to be able to upload to servers other than .mac. Once I get those figured out, I'll post the workflow for you guys to enjoy.

Now, if only I could use Automator to make the Automator dude dance to the Activator track that inspired this post's title.