OS X: Add images from iPhoto to any app

Contributed by handspring June 11, 2007  
Tagged: Apple Mac

Have you ever been working in, say, Microsoft Word or Mail, and needed to add a picture that you know is in your iPhoto library? Use this tip, and save yourself from even having to open iPhoto.

Automator is quite possibly a very underestimated feature of Tiger. I didn’t think it amounted to much, until I discovered that you could easily make simple tasks into applications.

[1] First, I opened Automator.
[2] In the Library, click on iPhoto. Notice new things have appeared under the Actions column.
[3] Click Ask For Photos in that column.

[4] Now, drag it to the Workflow box. (The grey box that says “Drag or add actions here to build your workflow.”)

[5] The grey box now looks like this:

[6] There’s no need to change anything else…
[7] Now, you need to save your project. Thankfully, when you go to File>Save, Automator lets you choose whether you want to save your project as a “Workflow” or “Application.” For our sake, choose “Application.”

Your application is saved wherever you put it. When you run the application, the iPhoto dialog will appear, ready to put pictures in whatever application you wish.
(Notice the great status indicator in the menu bar)

BIG NOTE: It’s only worked when I dragged my pictures out, the choose button is pretty much non-functional.

Here is the window: (I just made an example album out of some background images)

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Now, whenever you needed to use it, you could just open the app, but that’s not really ergonomic in my workflow. And I can’t afford to add another item full-time to my dock. (Not that it’s crowded, I just like to keep it super-uncluttered if I can.)

So, let’s take this a step further.
Many users use Blacktree’s Quicksilver (http://quicksilver.blacktree.com/,) which is a launcher, among other things. So, in theory, we can add a hotkey for the app we made.

Let’s go to Quicksilver’s triggers pane (accessible from the menu bar icon, or by hitting Command + ‘ when Quicksilver is activated)

-Go to ‘Custom Triggers’ on the sidebar.
-Go to the ‘+’ icon at the bottom of the window, and hit ‘HotKey’.
-Click on the first pane and start to type the name you saved your application as. When you find it, click on the Save button.
-Then, double click on the entry you just made.
-Click in the HotKey box in the sliding panel, and type your hotkey of choice.

PRODUCT:
Now, a scenario! I want to send a picture of New York City that I took to my sister. I simply press the hotkeys I created in Quicksilver, and…Voila!

I went a step further and hid the application from the dock with a great app called Dockless (http://homepage.mac.com/fahrenba/programs/dockless/dockless.html)

ISSUE:
I noted above that the “Choose” button does not seem to work…I think this is because it doesn’t know what app it’s working for, but I really don’t know how to tell it that. If anyone knows how to resolve this (have you noticed I’m not very script-y?) I’d really appreciate if you could tell me, and I’ll edit this recipe.

Expect a more steady addition of recipes from me over the summer break.