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General discussion

I have a ? about automator and itunes used as an alarm clock

Jul 27, 2005 3:51PM PDT

Hi, i'm new to your forum and wanted to know how to use mac OSX tiger's automator program to make a task that turns my imac G5 on in the morning, opens iTunes, selects a song and plays it, all functioning basically as an alarm clock. I have never used automator before, so all help would be appreciated. Thank you for your time,

Bryce

Discussion is locked

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Automator
Jul 27, 2005 9:48PM PDT

making the iMac start up at a specific time is a function of the energy control panel. Making iTunes launch on startup is a function of accounts/startup items.
Selecting a specific track is the only problem I see, so far.
Go to Automator, select iTunes and select "play playlist".
You may need to experiment for a while but it appears to be fairly easy.
Of course, once you have the automator task running smoothly, save it and put it as a startup item.

Hope this points you in the right direction

P

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getting individual songs to play
Jul 28, 2005 5:04AM PDT

If you take the audio file itself(using Finder, inside the itunes folder), you can control-click on the audio file and select the Automator --> create work flow, option. It will add the individual song to the work flow. Unfortunatly, that was found by accident and I still have no clue how to get automator to work.

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Automator
Jul 28, 2005 6:16AM PDT

Good tip.
The Automator creates a script (WorkFlow) which you save someplace. this can be activated by a double click. Kinda works the same as the Applescript stuff used to

P

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Automator, more
Jul 28, 2005 8:39AM PDT

Following your tip, I created a workflow that goes like this.
Control click the audio file and select Automator - Create work flow. This launches Automator.
You will notice in the RH column that "Get Finder Items" and the name of your audio file, is # in the Flow List.
In the Library section, select Finder and in the Action Folder, select Launch Application and drag it to the RH window. Choose iTunes from the drop down menu of Applications
In the Library section, select iTunes and Start iTunes Playing.
That's it. Click the Run button and it selects the audio file, launches iTunes and plays the File. If that works for you, Go to File/Save As and save it as an Application. Double clicking the icon will launch Automator and it will do its thing.
For the Alarm clock, put the app into the startup items of your account, set the Energy saver to turn on the Mac at a certain time and voila, a musical alarm clock.

P