View from the Dock

A few posts back I described my experience trying to create a workflow to automate the process of exporting my Delicious Library (DL) catalog to LibraryThing (LT).

Here is the Automator workflow I created: open up Delicious Library, export the book catalog (an XML file) to my desktop, copy the location path of this newly created document to the clipboard, open my browser (Firefox) to the LibraryThing import page, tab to the appropriate form field (I used tabs so it was not relative to browser window location), paste the path from the clipboard into the ‘Upload File’ field on the LT import page, then use tabs and returns to activate the form and upload the file. Finally, move the exported DeliciousLibrary file to the Trash. Once that’s all complete, I threw in a Growl notification to let me know it was done.

And here is the Workflow file if you’d like to modify it and make it your own. Disclaimer: download and use this at your own risk. You will need to modify it a bit to make it work for you.

This little project really whet my appetite for Automator. It’s a very unique tool that isn’t really talked about too often. If you’ve never worked with Automator before, check out Apple’s Mac 101 tutorial for starters. Here are a few sources for more automator workflow actions, tips and tutorials:

1. Automator.us: This site has some good tutorials and a great variety of downloadable actions
2. AutomatorWorld.com: Look for more advanced Automator stuff here
3. Apple.com Automator Actions downloads: check out the most popular downloads