Automator: Automator Action Xcode Project Settings

Automator Action Xcode Project Settings

Automator action projects in Xcode 4 will not execute when built and run. This is a known bug and will be addressed in future versions of Xcode. Until then, follow these simple steps to fix the issue and have your Automator action project execute correctly.

STEP 01

The first step is to create a new Automator Action project in Xcode 4. Select Application Plug-In from the templates list, and select Automator Action as the chosen template.

STEP 02

Name the action project and choose the template type: Cocoa action, Shell Script action, Cocoa-AppleScript action

STEP 03

Select the action target product and then select Edit Scheme… from the Product menu.

STEP 04

In the Product Scheme sheet, attached to the Xcode window, select Run Automator.app in the list on the left, the Info tab in the center of the sheet, and then select the Automator application as the executable from the Executable popup menu.

STEP 05

Select the Arguments tab in the center of the sheet, and then select the action product from the Base Expansions On popup menu.

STEP 06

The final step is to click the Plus (+) button in the Arguments Passed On Launch area and enter the following string in the new text input field:

-action "$(BUILT_PRODUCTS_DIR)/$(FULL_PRODUCT_NAME)"

RESULTS

With these changes to the project file, Automator will now launch when the project is built and run, and you can access the created action in the Automator library.

FOR ACTION DEVELOPERS

Lion includes updates for action and application developers, notably:

Updated action APIs with better error handling
AMCustomInputType for custom service types
Webarchive and Rich Text types available

Regarding how to implement your own custom Automator data types for your application:

An application declares its custom types via the AMCustomServiceTypes key in its Info.plist file. This key contains an array (list) of UTIs that shall be considered custom service types. Automator and LaunchServices will find apps with these types at runtime and add them to the input types menu in the Services header when that app is selected in the menu. The application vending the view from which the Services will be invoked must implement the standard cocoa API. This is described in the Services Implementation Guide.

The data you put on the Pasteboard must be of the UTI that you declare as custom in your Info.plist. This data must to be put on the pasteboard as a "data" property list value, containing the serialized (binary) form of an AppleEvent descriptor (specifier). It is important to remember that the specifier needs to have a PSN added, since it will be used outside the process calling the Service.

In Automator, it is necessary to have actions that are declared as taking that custom type. When Automator gets the data from the client app and runs the Service, the data will parsed and turned into an NSAppleEventDescriptor. This NSAppleEventDescriptor will be given directly to the first action of the Service workflow.

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