Service's 'Workflow Running Gear" in menubar disappeared in Lion

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Service's 'Workflow Running Gear" in menubar disappeared in Lion

Hi there!

I have created a 'Service' (Scale Images to xxx) in Snow Leopard; When the service was actually in operation, there was a Workflow Running Gear spinning in the menubar indicating that a workflow was in progress, that gear disappeared in Lion, now there's no reference and I can't tell if the Service is done or is working on the background, this was very helpful for a large amount of files.

Is there any way to bring that spinning gear back? or any other form of indicator to show when is performing the service or not.

Note: The actual Service works perfectly, but I would love to see a visual attestation that the work is going on.

Thanks!

Posted on Jul 27, 2011 8:39 AM

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Answer 1

mac.jedi

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Jul 30, 2011 4:59 PM in response to Destructiva

This is bugging me as well. Anyone? Is there a default that can reactivate this?

The only thing I've thought of is adding a growl notification at the end of the workflow, but I'd rather not do that to every service.

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Answer 2

Destructiva Author

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Aug 1, 2011 7:23 PM in response to mac.jedi

Hi mac.jedi, how do you that with Growl?

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Answer 3

mac.jedi

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Aug 1, 2011 7:50 PM in response to Destructiva

Hi Destructiva!

The easiest way is to add the Growl Notification action, at the end of your workflow. It should be installed along with growl. I think it shows up in the Utilities section of the Action library.

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Answer 4

Destructiva Author

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Aug 3, 2011 8:10 PM in response to mac.jedi

Thank you mac.jedi, I created my workflow (Scale Images to xxx) as a Service in Automator, but I tried to add the Growl notification and it won't show on the panel of actions.

Can you tell me how to do it? 🙂

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Answer 5

Destructiva Author

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13 points

Aug 3, 2011 11:39 PM in response to Destructiva

By-the-way every time I turn on my Mac, I get this annoying message from Growl: "Do you want the application “GrowlHelperApp.app” to accept incoming network connections?", do you know how to permanently disable it?

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Answer 6

louiexiv

Level 1

9 points

Nov 29, 2011 8:48 PM in response to Destructiva

I have Lion on two macs. On one, I see the spinning gear when a workflow is running. On the other, I do not. It would be nice to know when and why the spinning gear is and is not visible in the menu bar. I would like to make it visible on both my macs. Anyone know how to make the spinning gear appear in Lion, etc.?

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Answer 7

louiexiv

Level 1

9 points

Nov 30, 2011 3:32 AM in response to louiexiv

I know what's going on. The spinning progress indicator has not disappeared in Lion; it just does not appear for all Automator types. If the Automator workflow is saved as an Application, the spinning gear will appear in the menu bar while the application is executing. If the Automator workflow is saved as a Service, the spinning gear will not appear. I have confirmed all this on two separate macs running Lion 10.7.2.

Once the type is chosen and the workflow is created as that type, it does not appear possible to convert from one type to another, e.g. from a Service to an Application. At least I haven't seen a way to do it. (If someone knows how, please advise.) Fortunately, it is rather easy to create a new workflow as the desired type while having the other workflow type open in another window.

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Answer 8

Destructiva Author

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Nov 30, 2011 10:44 AM in response to louiexiv

You're right louiexiv the gear appears when is saved as Application.

Now, how can we add that Application in the contextual menu? (right click)

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Answer 9

mac.jedi

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Nov 30, 2011 11:39 AM in response to Destructiva

You can try to create a service using the a launch application action. You might be able to use the Run workflow action as well. However, I'm not sure you'll get the menu bar status display using either of these methods, but it's worth a try. This will also probably fail if your service requires input.

I did some testing a while back and found that the services are executed by a service runner that doesn't enable the indicator. The best solution I've found is to launch the workflow via a Shell command using the automator command-line tool. For more info, open terminal and type: man automator

The reason this works is because the workflow is being executed by a Automator runner which activates the status menu. I don't know why Apple didn't add the functionality for services. There could be more to this issue, but that's what I've found so far.

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