10.4: Finder selections and Automator action targets

Oct 19, '05 06:45:00AM

Contributed by: verlhum

Tiger only hintIf you use the Automator action 'Get Selected Finder Items' in your workflow, when you actually use the workflow, make sure the item you wish to affect is actually highlighted before you run the action!

I innocently opened a folder in column view and then right-clicked on an item within it and selected an Automator workflow, believing it would function on the item I right-clicked on. Well, it wasn't so much a folder I had selected as a hard-drive. I was attempting to run the tar Automator script on a folder. I noticed, however that it was taking a very long time to compress the item I thought I had selected. I stopped the workflow and checked my /Volumes folder, and found out that the workflow had been operating on my hard drive, as opposed to the item I had selected.

With so many cool Automator workflows showing up here and elsewhere, I thought it should be made known exact what a "Selected Finder Item" was.

[robg adds: This also bit me when I first started using Automator -- to the Finder, there's a difference between the currently selected item and the item you just control-clicked. To make sure things work as expected, click the item first, then control-click on that same object and choose your Automator action.]

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