Mac OS X Automation
Power to Command
Sooner or later every individual, business, or organization is challenged to perform repetitive or complex procedures on their computers. Whether the task is renaming numerous files, batch processing images, or building documents using data from multiple sources, the need for powerful automation tools is shared by all computer users. Mac OS X is designed, from the ground up, for automation and offers a variety of integrated tools and technologies to solve your automation challenges.
AppleScript
The Language of Automation
AppleScript is an English-like language used to create script files and applets that control the actions of the computer and the applications that run on it. AppleScript scripts can “think” and make decisions based on user-interaction or by parsing and analyzing data, documents or situations. With support integrated into hundreds of Apple and third-party applications, such as Microsoft Office, AppleScript provides motivated customers an approachable way to address their specific automation requirements by writing their own scripts or using those developed by others.
Services
Power Where You Need It
The Services menu, found in the Application menu of most applications, offers a wealth of powerful automation options. In Mac OS X, many applications and system components publish their abilities as “services,” enabling the functionality of one application to be used with the items selected in another application. For example, using a Mail service from the Services menu, text selected within a Pages document can automatically be used to create a new outgoing message in Mail. Or the text of a long article displayed in Safari can be quickly summarized in a few concise sentences.
Automator
Your Personal Automation Assistant
Automator delivers customizable automation to customers without the necessity of writing any scripts, routines, or computer code. Similar in concept to kitchen recipes, Automator enables users to create and execute an “automation recipe” by following a simple drag-and-drop process, relating the individual steps of a workflow to pre-crafted automation nuggets that are listed in the order in which the steps of the task are to be performed. If you can describe how to make a sandwich, you can use Automator!




