Hi Chris,
A long time ago you asked:
Does anyone know how to make a favorite to a web site, or to a
file/folder, and put that on the Doc?
and in response to Jane's recent followup to that post (just about the
"Put items on the Dock" workflow) your wrote:
On Nov 16, 2008, at 9:11 PM, Chris Gilland wrote:
What I don't get is how to put websites on the doc with this work flow
What you can do is put a Webloc (web location) file into the dock with
this work flow. You can think of a Webloc file as a shortcut to a web
page. These files get generated when sighted users drag and drop web
address icons from browsers onto the Desktop or to other locations. If
you open webloc files (with Command-O, or with double-click) on the
Desktop (or other location), or put them in the dock, and open them
with VO-space, they launch in Finder and open a Safari page at the
original URL location. If Safari isn't open, opening the Webloc file
will open Safari. If Safari is already open, then depending on how
you've set up your preferences, a page pointing to the URL might open
in another tab. (The webloc file doesn't open WebKit -- just
Safari). You can also send these webloc files as mail attachments,
and people can save them to their Desktop or in their folders. I keep
a Webloc folder that points to our searchable list archives in the
Dock. There are also Windows versions of the Webloc files that you
can send to Windows users and that can be used the same way with other
browsers.
The difficult part was finding an app that would generate web location
files without using drag and drop. Greg Kearney wrote an Automator
Make URL Shortcut Workflow, but the trouble was that it didn't work
for me on my non-Intel Mac running Tiger. (I found WeblocMaker before
Greg's workflow was written, and I believe the issue with Greg's
workflow is that it doesn't work for Tiger, not that my laptop was
PowerPC instead of Intel). The WeblocMaker app was written for PPC,
but it works fine on my Intel MacBook as installed from the link in my
earlier post (below) -- I did not have to migrate this from by
PowerBook. It's a simple GUI interface where you type or paste in the
URL you want to create a Webloc shortcut for, type in a name (e.g., my
shortcut to the list archives is simply named "discuss"), then set the
popup button for type as either Mac location (webloc) or Windows
location (URL), or create both. (You may have to use Command-N to
bring up the GUI window if it doesn't automatically appear when you
open the app, but that's all). Control-Q to quit when done. There's a
reset button that will clear your entries if you want to generate
another webloc file. The files will show up on your Desktop.
Another thing -- if you open the file in TextEdit you can see an xml
file. You can copy the file and edit it in TextEdit, and simply
replace the address in the webloc file with a newly edited one. This
means that even if this application gets trashed or lost, as long as
you have one webloc file you can create others that work the same
way. I'm sure this is only because this is an old version of the
webloc file where the text can be read. New versons of system files
-- like plist files -- are now in binary format. They all used to be
text and readable.
If you want to send the equivalent web shortcut file to a PC user, use
the Windows location selection and the URL file. (That file is not
usable on a Mac).
Anyway, there were really two parts to this old post from September:
The part about the Automator workflow to put things into the Dock and
the part about WeblocMaker and webloc files. I've posted before about
this, but never had anyone express interest in the part about webloc
files.
Just trying to answer your original query. HTH
Cheers,
Esther
----- Original Message ----- From: "Esther" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "General discussions on all topics relating to the use of Mac OS
X by theblind" <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, November 15, 2008 11:04 PM
Subject: Re: Speaking a putting things on the Doc...
Hi Jane,
You're very welcome. The funny thing is that we just recently had
another question about how to put folders into the dock, so I ended
up writing new replies that pointed people to Tim Kilburn's
VoiceOver download pages to get the "Put items on the Dock"
Automator workflow. A few days earlier, and I could have just
pointed people to your post (smile).
Cheers,
Esther
On Nov 15, 2008, at 5:46 PM, Jane Jordan (Gmail) wrote:
I realize this is very late, but I wanted to thank you, Ester, for
putting up the URL to grab this script for putting things on the
dock. Ijust tried it, and it worked like a charm. Now I don't
have to navigate to the other computer onthe network, navigate
through the various folders, till I find what I want. Nope, I
just go to the dock, open the folder, and there it is. Fun.
Jane
On Sep 23, 2008, at 5:32 PM, Esther wrote:
Hi Chris,
On Sep 23, 2008, at 7:50 AM, Chris Gilland Desktop wrote:
Does anyone know how to make a favorite to a web site, or to a
file/folder, and put that on the Doc?
Yes, if you want to put a file or folder in the dock, go to Tim
Kilburns' download site and look for "Put items on the Dock":
http://homepage.mac.com/kilburns/voiceover/downloads.html
There are full instructions with the download about how to set
up and use this Automator workflow. Chris, you might also be
interested in using this on the Tiger platform as a quick way to
browse and play iTunes music. I think there might be
performance issues for the machine you're using to try this
(insufficient memory), but take a look at this archived post
about playing your iTunes podcasts from the dock under Tiger:
http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40macvisionaries.com/
msg35623.html
If you're using Safari, press Control-N to read Holly's question
and use another Control-N to read my reply expanding on how this
works. (The Mail Archive site supports Access Keys for
navigation of posts and Control-N takes you to the next post in
the thread -- I think that for Internet Explorer you use Alt-N
instead, but I haven't tried this.)
For URLs , I used to use "WeblocMaker" that was issued for Power
PC Macs:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.levinvideo.com/jalstuff/geke/Software/WeblocMaker/WeblocMaker.tar.bz2
It's perfectly accessible, and brings up a small WeblocMaker
window that prompts you for a Web location URL, which you can
copy and paste from the URL address field of a web page (Command-
L to navigate to the address field, Command-C to copy it). Then
switch applications (Command-tab) to the WeblocMaker and paste
in (Command- V) the desired address and supply a Webloc Name.
Despite being labeled for PowerPC Macs, it also appears to work
on my (Intel) MacBook with Leopard. However, the author of this
freeware tool, Geke Software, no longer seems to maintain a web
page, and the above link was the only current download location
I could find. It will create a "Webloc" file with the specified
name on your Desktop. When you double-click it, Safari will
open to the specified web page. You can also put it in the Dock
with the "Put items in Dock" automator action, and again, if
your VO-space (perform the default action) on this in the Dock,
it will open a Safari web page. (Note that you may want to
adjust your Safari Preferences depending on whether you use
tabbed browsing or want this to open in a new window.)
You can create "Webloc files" or "URL files" by making your
selection (VO-space) on the popup button for "Type" (Mac Web
Location, Windows Web Location, or Both). The URL locations
work on Windows machines. These files can be attached to mail
messages. Close the app with Command-Q when done.
To read more about this, see this old post in the Archives:
http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40macvisionaries.com/
msg29570.html
One warning: the downloaded file was: WeblocMaker.tar.bz2.tar
indicating a second level of archiving. On my PowerPC this
meant that having the Stuffit application did not automatically
open the app when it was downloaded. I had to double-click the
file to create a WeblocMaker.tar.bz2 file and then I had to
double-click (hold down Control-Option-Shift keys and tap space
bar twice) the WeblocMarker.tar.bz2 file to have it unpack into a
WeblocMaker folder with the app inside. The Un-Archiver seems to
be a more flexible unpacking tool than Stuffit Expander, and on
my MacBook I only had to double-click on the downloaded file
once. Here's the URL for the Unarchiver:
http://wakaba.c3.cx/s/apps/unarchiver.html
Cheers,
Esther
