Apple's Automator is a curious effort to spread the good word about scripts and task automation to a non programming audience. Apple is to be commended for taking the step, but the tangible effort, itself, is not worth much. What cripples Automator is the entirely counter intuitive manner in which it works. Apparently, though targeted to a non programming audience, the familiar problem is that a programming crew put together the operation of the product and, thereby, left the audience behind.
Let's look at the following: the example workflows work for wierd tasks; for example, resizing images, speeding up yet another itunes task, etc. Real requirements for business types who are using a Mac, like backing up, should have example workflows, but don't.
Without a schematic of how steps are intended to work together to result in hands free and useful actions by the computer, the non programmer can't follow the process and folds. Here we go again, another Dashboard (I will write on this other solution without a problem feature in a later post).
If Automator offers a view of the applescript, or javascript behind the Workflow, I can't find it. The debugger bombs erroneous routines, but doesn't provide a clear indicator of where the problem may be.
I would welcome a useful Automator. Mac OS X is a great operating system that gets a lot of my attention. Much of what I do with Mac OS X is repetitive and certainly a good candidate for a useful Automator, but I need something more useful than today's package. Hint to Apple: make it better in yet the next version of Mac OS X.
© Mike Blonder, 2007, All Rights Reserved