CODEWITHSUNDEEP
exportapplescriptprocessingautomator
fthofhuis
fthofhuis

Reputation: 11

Apple automator save as ### filename + extension selection

I'm trying to get some automator script going but I have no clue how to achieve it. It's like this:

in Processing I exported a batch of 1850 SVG's. These SVG's now have to be opened in an application called Cenon. This application can save SVG's as .hpgl files. It's no problem to open a file in a specific application like Cenon when it's added to a folder. That works fine. But how do I save this file in a specific extension like .hpgl and create a variable name? Because Cenon always opens a file with the name 'UNTITLED'.

So I need to do:

I hope someone can help me!!

Thanks in advance, Fons.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 442

Answers (1)

Kaydell
Kaydell

Reputation: 474

First of all, let me make a distinction between two related technologies:

  1. AppleEvents which are messages that can be used for different applications to communicate with each other, asking each other to do tasks.

  2. AppleScript which is one kind of scripting language that can send and receive AppleEvents to and from Mac applications.

You can't use AppleEvents with Cenon but you still may be able to use AppleScript with Cenon. I know that you can't use AppleEvents with Cenon because I downloaded Cenon version 4.0.1 from the web and I tried to open up it's AppleEvent dictionary with the "AppleScript Editor.app" application that comes with OS X.

So, AppleEvents are out. This means the "tell" command in AppleScript can't tell the Cenon.app to do anything with AppleEvents, but you may still be able to use AppleScript.

AppleScript can be used by simulating user menu-selections and key strokes instead of using AppleEvents. Using AppleEvents would be better, but sometimes, using AppleScript, you have to go through the user interface.

An alternative to resorting to using AppleScript to simulate the user-interface (UI) would be to use a shell-command. It just seems to me that this would be a better solution, but you would have to find a Unix shell command that was compiled for Mac that would convert from .svg to .hpgl

If you really want to use AppleScript and Cenon.app, here is a link to study about using AppleScript going through the UI of an app:

http://www.macosxautomation.com/applescript/uiscripting/

AppleScript was originally designed to be a scripting language to take some of the functionality with application A, and then take some of the functionality of application B, etc, and glue it together with a little logic from AppleScript and empower the user to more easily automate their tasks.

AppleScript was designed to be an alternate user-interface, going through AppleEvents, but AppleEvents are not as widely supported as they could be by applications, so this kludgy solution of having AppleScript go through the GUI is commonly done.

Again, I think that a shell script would be a better solution for this problem and you could call is "solution.command" or you could embed the shell script into an Automator Workflow saved as an Application or embed the shell script within an AppleScript saved as an application. Either one work work.

Upvotes: 1

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