I just noticed a post on cult of mac which showed how to make a new Automator ” System Service To Save Text to Notes.app In Mountain Lion”
It is a nice idea but I was surprised that the Author used a copy to clipboard Automator Action along with a Run Applescript action
There is some redundancy in this workflow as well as unnecessary GUI commands.
From the start the Service will take what ever text is highlighted (selected) in any application.
Then it is passed onto the copy to clipboard action. Which copies the text input to the clipboard.
Next the Run Applescript action goes the through the process of clicking menu items to create a new note and keystrokes to paste into it.
There is no need to use copy to clipboard when the service has already captured the highlighted (selected) text as it’s input.
The input will be passed onto the Run Applescript action. Via the Run Applescript action’s input variable. Also Notes.app is scriptable and you can create a new note with some know how. i.e I read the apps dictionary.
So the is no need for all the keystroking or clicking menus.
I want to add I am not knocking the original cult of mac post. But just want to post something that imho is how it should work.
So taking into account the above the service workflow is simplified as a single Run Applescript action that contains
[iframe /blogR/newnoteApp.html 700 300]
The Run Applescript action takes the input from the service, obtains a name for the note using the first paragraph of the input text, and makes a new note.
There of course can be some refining of the applescript code. Which I may update here with. Or you can post a comment with yours.