Anyway, happy whatever–you–celebrate–this–time–of–year. Be excellent to one another.

—Kol. Panic

Back in the Jaguar/Panther days, there was a Finder contextual menu plug–in, but it didn’t work on Tiger, and the developer had abandoned it. Automator was a prime candidate to replace it, and I did see some nice solutions on Mac OS X Hints, but they all had some drawbacks. I wanted it to work even if a file was selected, using its enclosing folder, but, in attempting that, I learned that AppleScript hates FileVault. Since I had been casting about for a tacow presentation topic, I thought I’d try to whip up an Objective–C approach (and when you have a hammer…). You can get the result here.

There are a couple of actions: one to filter a Finder selection down to a folder (for example, if you have a file selected, it’ll turn it into a reference to its parent folder); another to open a Terminal session at the passed in location. Also, there are a couple of workflows: one to actually launch Terminal, and the other to build the Release version of an Xcode project. See the enclosed PDF for instructions.

Once you install them, there will be a couple of new items under the Automator menu, like this:

If you’re interested, you can check out a copy of the source–code from tacow’s Google Code repository.

There are a lot of under–the–hood changes too, slimming the application a bit down while adding features and fixing a few bugs. I also changed and rearranged some of the menu items, and changed the short–cuts for the ringtone creation items under the File menu (I couldn’t think of another easy–to–type modification of ⌘S). There’s also a new Select Search Field item under the Control menu to put the keyboard focus in the search box at the bottom of the window, saving a bit of mousing. Finally, since iPhone ringtones are limited in length, the range duration is now displayed in the player.

If there’s anything you want to see added, changed or fixed, you can always choose the Send Feedback Message item under the Help menu or just click here.

P.S. In case anyone is wondering, my main ringtone is the opening tintinnabulation of YYZ, by Rush.

Thanks and enjoy!

Update: Mojotones 2.0 easily creates iPhone ringtones. Read about it here.

To overcome this deficiency, I’ve put together a few AppleScript plug–ins that add the missing menus to Address Book. Here’s how to use them:

1. Quit Address Book if it’s running.
2. Download the plug–ins here.
3. Unzip the downloaded archive.
4. Copy the four script files from the expanded archive to the Address Book Plug–Ins sub–folder of your home Library folder (~/Library/Address Book Plug–Ins/).
5. Re–launch Address Book.

Now, when you click on the label next to a .Mac email address or AIM account, you’ll get two extra menu items, like this:

I’m providing these as–is, without any warranties or support. Download them, use them, modify them, pass them around — do whatever you want. Just don’t forget me when I need a lift to the airport.

Update 2008-07-12: The plug-ins now work with @me.com addresses too.

David went to the first edition last fall and was so enthusiastic, I new I couldn’t miss this one. It didn’t disappoint. Highlights for me were Will Shipley’s hype, Tim Burks’ presentation on Ruby–Cocoa bridges and Nu, and Cabel Sasser on Panic and Coda (an app I heartily endorse). The surprise guest, Fake Steve Jobs, was a no–show — something about an “ear infection”. Alex Payne has an excellent summary — now I’m not so sorry I didn’t take notes.Never having been to a MacHack, I didn’t know what to expect from Iron Coder Live. The theme was Conspiracy and the API was iPhone, which, in the absence of an official SDK, was tough to pull off. Despite that, the results were incredible. Golden dog tags went to the Ecamm guys, whose iPhone video-conferencing app blew everyone away. Lights Off, an iPhone–native version of the classic game was the runner up.I met a slew of great people. I was most impressed with the number of fellow Canadians present, including David Teare and the guys behind 1Passwd and Aaron Vegh. They’re not too far from Toronto, so we may get a couple of new tacowhands.There were no major infrastructural issues to compare to last year’s Plan L. While we were able to take the L downtown after arriving at O’Hare on Friday, the CTA closed the Blue line over the weekend for construction. A few of us ended up sharing a cab back to the airport Sunday afternoon. However, because of the upgrades, the train ride downtown should be much quicker for C4[2] (at just $2, it’s already much cheaper than the alternatives).Thanks to Wolf and his team for putting it all together. I’m looking forward to next year’s edition.