Automator: Processes only possible in Automator app?

[Damrod]

So, I have played around with Automator a little, and found a handy little action I could run with it: A little script/program that get's all widgets from my Desktop (Where I download them to) and moves them to Library/Widgets. Within Automator it works great, but when I save it as a program it does not work at all.

Any ideas? As Automator would die for me if the feature of creating little helper apps does not actually work

 

[barhar]

It appears that you ...

Launched 'Automator', selected 'Finder' from the Library list, and dragged 'Get Selected Finder Items' from the Action list to the rightmost field.
Next, you dragged 'Move Finder Items' from the Action list to beneath the above 'Get Selected Finder Item' - in the rightmost field, then clicked on 'Move Finder Items' 'To:' popup and navigated to, and selected, your 'Home/Library/Widget/'s folder.
You then saved the workflow as an application via the 'File, Save As...' menu item.

Let us say you named the application as 'WidgetMover.app'.
Now, should you make a selection of '.wdgt' files and then double click on 'WidgetMover.app', the file selection is deselected and 'WidgetMover.app', not the desired files, is moved to your 'Widgets' folder.

To get around this scenario - just drag your application, 'WidgetMover.app', to the 'Dock'. Now, make your file selection and then click on the 'Dock' based 'WidgetMover.app' icon. The selected files should be moved.

Naturally, any selected file(s) will be moved, since no type of checking if performed. Thus, make sure you select only '.wdgt' files before clicking on the 'Dock' based 'WidgetMover.app' icon.

 

[Damrod]

It appears that you ...

Launched 'Automator', selected 'Finder' from the Library list, and dragged 'Get Selected Finder Items' from the Action list to the rightmost field.
Next, you dragged 'Move Finder Items' from the Action list to beneath the above 'Get Selected Finder Item' - in the rightmost field, then clicked on 'Move Finder Items' 'To:' popup and navigated to, and selected, your 'Home/Library/Widget/'s folder.
You then saved the workflow as an application via the 'File, Save As...' menu item.

Let us say you named the application as 'WidgetMover.app'.
Now, should you make a selection of '.wdgt' files and then double click on 'WidgetMover.app', the file selection is deselected and 'WidgetMover.app', not the desired files, is moved to your 'Widgets' folder.

To get around this scenario - just drag your application, 'WidgetMover.app', to the 'Dock'. Now, make your file selection and then click on the 'Dock' based 'WidgetMover.app' icon. The selected files should be moved.

Naturally, any selected file(s) will be moved, since no type of checking if performed. Thus, make sure you select only '.wdgt' files before clicking on the 'Dock' based 'WidgetMover.app' icon.

Though it's not what I did, it is an interesting alternative you provide there.

My workflow looke more like this:

Request approval -> Get Finder Object (in my case the Desktop-folder) -> Get Finder object contents -> filter finder objects (in my case only files with the suffix .wdgt) -> Move objects

Like I said, it works in Automator, but not as Application