AWSBrowser


AWSBrowser is a great way of extending the functionality of your OS X services without additional application code. To understand what is possible and what is not possible, it is necessary to take a brief look at OS X services and how they work.

OS X Services

OS X services are both bidirectional and unidirectional. They are all based on the system passing data back and forth over a clipboard. The nature of the service is determined by the service provider. Most but not all services need selected text to perform. Some but not all services will do something with this text and perhaps transform it.

ACP Services

The ACP.service module is a behind-the-scenes application which never appears on-screen. It only runs services on the OS X services menu.

The ACP Services include both bidirectional and unidirectional services. The freeware version of the ACP Services, the ACP Web Services, are unidirectional.

ACP Web Services

The ACP Web Services are unidirectional: they require only that text be selected somewhere. This text becomes the basis for a URL which is opened by its protocol handler. If no scheme is given, the 'http' scheme is prepended.

AWSBrowser

AWSBrowser assumes you have properly installed the ACP Web Services. It contains a great many web services you might like to install on your Services menu.

You can browse through these services and export them to the ACP Web Services for inclusion on your Services menu.

Drawers

AWSBrowser has two 'drawers' to help you browse. One is the 'config' drawer with data that will be included on your Services menu; the other is the 'detail' drawer with specifics about the service and a 'test field' you can use to try the service out before installing it.

Import

Under certain circumstances you can 'import' web services from other collections. Try the 'Import' function and see.

Export

The 'Export' function will export the selected services to your 'Services' menu and activate them immediately if at all possible.

Goto All

Watch out for the 'Goto All' function on the File menu: it is the most powerful feature in this application - invoking it will immediately access all selected services with your 'test input' field contents.

[Note: this works in a totally awesome way with Safari: watching it instantaneously open three dozen or more windows has to be seen to be believed.]

Caveats

OS X will update the Services menu of all Cocoa applications, but Finder is not a Cocoa app. If you want Finder to update its Services menu, you have to restart it.

Open a Terminal window and type in:

sudo killall Finder

That should do it.


Copyright © Rixstep. All rights reserved.