Luminoir

From the Creative Cow forum

Mark Peysha on Jul 30, 2008 at 3:40:01 pm

Hey Dustin,

Thanks for your entry on automator.
Have you ever heard of anyone making an interface with automator, so that for instance you could trigger your mac to perform an automator function remotely?

Thanks

Mark

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There are a couple of ways to achieve this.
First of all, you need to build a workflow of the script that you want to execute.

This won’t be easy because you want to make sure it runs regardless of the situation the computer you’re running it on is currently in.

The best test of this is to restart and see if it runs correctly from a fresh boot.
This might even mean including commands to start FCP, etc.

Now the part you’re interested in is how to trigger the script remotely.
First of all you need to have remote access to the computer.
If you have a static IP, this is easier.
You only need to VNC, or login to your fileshare through your IP.

However if you have a dynamically assigned IP, you can use a VPN or have your router forward your ip to a DNS for you to access. I recommend the VPN route, I use hamachix for this, it’s as easy as setting up an IM client.

You can trigger the script by creating a workflow that searches a folder on your hard disk for files of a specific name.

For example, you could share your documents folder and have the automator “Find Finder Items” action look for filenames that contain “Export”

If you login to your fileshare remotely and create a text file in that folder named Export, it’ll trigger the Automator workflow to run. Then it’s just a matter of placing the actions you want run, after the “Find Finder Items” action.There are many ways to trigger an Automator script remotely, but I would say, focus on getting the script running locally without a hitch first, before you consider remote triggering.