Download VOTD OSX Automator Script

Bobby Bosler
Bobby Bosler Member Posts: 55 ✭✭
edited November 2024 in English Forum

I love the verse of the day images offered by Logos, but I wanted a way to download them and set them as my desktop wallpaper automatically every day. I've worked through about a half a dozen different ways to accomplish this, but I finally settled on this one using OS X Automator. Here is the automator action I am currently using to accomplish this:

1. I created an automator "Calendar Alarm" as seen in the image:

2. Then I put in these actions with the following criteria within them. (Note that the filter URL starts with http://biblia.com). Make sure you select an appropriate folder to store your VOTD images in.

3. Once you save and name this calendar alarm, it will open the Calendar app and create a new event. Whenever the event arrives, your script will run. If you want it to repeat every day, you will need to edit the repeating options for the event. I set this script to be run every day at 8am and placed it in an "Automator" calendar so that I can hide it if I want. See screenshot below:

There it is! Hope this helps. Feel free to post any tweaks that might make this run better.

Comments

  • Reuben Helmuth
    Reuben Helmuth MVP Posts: 2,485

    Thanks for this neat tip!

    Robert Bosler said:

    3. Once you save and name this calendar alarm, it will open the Calendar app and create a new event.

    This step is not working for me. Any idea what might be wrong? The workflow runs beautifully when I simply hit "Run" in Automator, but no calendar event gets created by simply saving the alarm. I tried manually creating a calendar event, but was unsuccessful in "triggering" the workflow.

    Thanks!

    Diagnostic Logs 

  • Bobby Bosler
    Bobby Bosler Member Posts: 55 ✭✭
    https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/726795#Comment_726795

    Reuben,

    Sorry for the long delay. I am not sure what you are doing differently, but I am using the latest version of OSX Yosemite (10.10.4). Make sure you complete step one properly by selecting a "Calendar Alarm" in the New Document screen.

    One minor tweak that has allowed this to work infallibly: I had to create a local, "On My Mac" calendar on which to put this "Calendar Alarm"—otherwise the notifications would show up on my iPhone and it would not trigger on my desktop.

    To create a local "On My Mac" calendar in the Calendar app, you need to temporarily disable iCloud, Gmail, and any other calendar "Accounts" in the Calendar app, and then select "File/New Calendar/On My Mac".

    The automator "Calendar Alarm" needs to go on the local calendar to work properly.

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