There are little things one can still do without AC (Asking ChatGPT). But first, a word about blogging!
It was quite wonderful that after writing my post on installing the Photini app that I quickly got a comment from its developer, Jim Easterbrook. How does that happen? I’d guess he has a google alert for Photini. I just have to say that publishing a blog post, where it has a real honest permalink on the World Wide Web, enables this. Can people find your thoughts and ideas when they are dumped into LinkedIn, et al? Is your stuff sent out by email newsletter discoverable?
Well Jim had noted that on Windows/Linux installs, there is a means to offer a one click icon on the OS I launch the app, but it does nor work on Mac OS. Here, I need to launch Terminal, and invoke three lines of commands (which could be wrapped into a shell script, but blargh).
I was fairly sure there was a means to set things in motion on a Mac with some AppleScript, well actually it is Automator. Wow, everyone says web search it toast but I got an answer in 2 clicks and 30 seconds.
So I launch Automator, use the option to create an application, and in the Library, it’s under “Run a Shell Script”. Double clicking in the pane on the right opens the window to paste in my commands.
I save it as an Application called Photini.app inside my Applications folder. I can go the extra step and download the Photini logo from Jim’s site, open in Preview, do a command C to copy. Then, on my new Photini.app do a command I for Get information, click the icon on the top left, and do a command V to paste.
Check out what’s in my Application folder!
Just a double click, and Photini launches (and then I can keep it on my doc).
As I said. It’s the power of writing up your own stuff in your own damned site AND finding ways to do things yourself that are meaningful to me. Go ahead and enjoy your fast food creating with Bert or Claud or Brad. I like cooking my own solutions. Be more maker.
Featured Image. Mine, humanly created.
No Google alert, just an occasional search for any recent mentions…
By the way, your three line script could be reduced to one line. In the ‘photini/bin’ directory there should be a photini executable that will run without activating the virtual environment. It should be possible to run that executable (via its full path) from anywhere.
Thanks Jim, I will look for that, one line is better than three!
In my travels I found this, which suggests a MacOS version of photini-post-install might not be too difficult to do.
https://stackoverflow.com/a/30792824/4425282
It’s always satisfying to discover those “little things” we can still figure out without relying on AI! I completely agree with your point about blogging and how it opens up unexpected connections—like getting direct feedback from a developer.