Automator: ExecShellCommand

I find myself quite often needing executing a shell command when I am working in the Finder, say, for example, to “touch” a file in a certain folder on screen. What one needs to do in such cases is opening a Terminal window, drag and drop the folder icon on to it, preprend a “cd” to the folder path, and finally type the desired command.

All of this is readily accomplished in a very elegant way by means of the simple Automator workflow that’s described by the following snapshot (click to see it larger).

If you create the Automator workflow depicted above, and save it as a Finder workflow (see picture below),

you will be then able to right-click on any folder, or on the Desktop, and then choose ExecuteShellCommand from the Automator menu that will be displayed.

Thereafter, you will be asked for the command to execute. If you ran the workflow on a folder, then the command will be executes inside that folder. If you ran it on a file, then the command you specified will be passed the file as the last argument.

As said, this is useful when you want to carry out a one-shot operation, like touching a file (if it does not exist, you will need to run the workflow on the folder that’s going to contain it and specify the file name; if the file exists, you only need to run the workflow on that file and specify “touch” as a command to execute), opening a file with a given application (“open -a “), and so on…

If anyone finds interesting uses for this workflow, please let me know. Also welcome, since I am not really good at Automator , are any suggestions as to better ways to implement it.