I made my first Automator workflow today. To be sure, I’ve messed around with Automator before but I’ve always found it ridiculously useless. Some people may derive a great amount of use from it but I’ve always found Applescript to be easier to use and much more extensible. Of course, many other people don’t know Applescript so I concede that it may have some use.

Anyway, I made my first today. I appreciate that fact that Automator scripts can be added to the Finder’s contextual menu. I do wish that Applescripts were treated with the same respect and that writing contextual menu plugins in C/C++ were easier. With that said, I often want to grab the full path to an item selected in the Finder. I have no idea why that isn’t already a menu item. Anyway, I tossed something together. It’s very, very simple but works.

So there’s my only use for Automator: add items to the Finder’s contextual menu. It reminds me of how short-shrifted Applescript is and how Apple really should put some attention into plugins as a whole.

If anyone wants the workflow, write a comment or email me. I’m happy to share but it’s so easy I figure there’s probably already a dozen versions out on the web. I was just too lazy to check.