Stuff I Want: More Automator actions!!!

Here's another one that stems from my newly acquired Mac addiction.  After seeing how Automator works and what one can do with it on MacBreak TV, I checked it out for myself.

I've set up one workflow for adding new tracks found in the Music folder to the iTunes library.  It's handy, as iTunes doesn't do this on it's own.

I also wanted to make a workflow to add all my recently downloaded audio podcasts to a playlist for easy listening in the car.  My head unit doesn't understand the special Podcasts list on the iPod, so this makes life a bit simpler. 

It worked, but it has a few limitations.  Unlike the Library in iTunes, where adding a track that already exists there does nothing, you can add duplicates to a standard playlist.  As there was no way to look for tracks that weren't touched in the last workflow run, I have to tell the action to grab tracks that are from "today." Unless I only download podcasts once a day, at the same time every day, this falls apart.  I check for them all the time, as I never know when I'll be on the PowerBook. 

So, that workflow gave me a bunch of dupes on my podcast playlist.  Ugh.  No way to tell the action to not grab stuff it's grabbed before.  I could see what was on a playlist, but no means of telling it NOT to do something if the file already existed on a playlist.

Ugh again.

Thus ended my work of improving iTunes with Automator workflows.  I want to start again, but I need updated and better actions.  And I don't know AppleScript, which I think is the language which actions are built with.

I heard rumblings of an Automator update for Leopard, but that's not until next year.  Hopefully they'll drop in more crazy actions to can make my music management even more pleasant.

For those who do know AppleScript, is it worth learning just so I can do this? Or is it a lost cause until Apple does their updates?

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