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Murphy already posted about issues with mailing vertically-oriented photos from your ios4 iPhone: Chances are your recipient sees the photo rotated 90 degrees to the left. Web browsers - Safari included - don’t know how to read the exif orientation tag included with the jpg file.
My previous solution was to use an alternate camera app. But I’ve got another approach that requires a Mac running Mail.
When I take a photo with my iPhone - in portrait orientation - I simply email it to myself. My Mac is configured to watch for email with a particular subject and then automatically grab the attachment, strip the exif rotation information, and rotate the photo without using a tag. Then my Mac mails the photo back to me.
Here’s the setup:
In Finder
In your home folder create a folder called lab with subfolders in and out. Like this:
/Users/murphy/lab/in
/Users/murphy/lab/out
AppleScript
Download my AppleScript. Edit the AppleScript and change all occurrences of ‘murphy” to the name of your home folder. There are notes in the script to help you.
Automator
Create an Automator workflow. You’ll need to add 4 actions in the same order they’re listed below.
- Mail: New Mail Message
- Finder: Get Specified Finder Items
- Mail: Add Attachments to Front Message
- Mail: Send Outgoing Messages
Only the first two Automator elements need further configuration. The first one defines the address your altered photo will be emailed to. You might add a subject as well.
Then specify this file path in the Finder element:
/Users/murphy/lab/out/outbound.jpg
Make sure you replace “murphy” with your home folder name. The path points to the photo Automator will mail back to you. Save as a workflow. The AppleScript expects the workflow to be in a folder called _applescripts in your Documents folder. Edit the AppleScript if your workflow will be stored somewhere else.
Mail
In Mail you need a rule to kick off the AppleScript when a message arrives meeting certain criteria. My rule looks like this screenshot. The script runs when an email arrives with the subject “rotate”. You might select a different word or phrase. Make sure you set the script path to the location where you saved your AppleScript. More on Mail rules.
jhead
The AppleScript relies on a command line utility called jhead to strip the exif rotation tag, which I found in this TUAW post. My script expects jhead to be in the /Users/murphy/lab/in folder. After downloading jhead you’ll need to make it executable. In the Terminal:
chmod +x path/to/jhead
In my case I entered chmod +x /Users/murphy/lab/in/jhead
That’s about it. My script pulls the photo from the email, rotates it, strips the exif rotation information, copies it to another folder, and kicks off an Automator workflow to mail the photo back to me.
When I receive the altered photo on my iPhone I can simply forward it to someone. If they view it in web Gmail they’ll see the photo inline-style within the email. I prefer to save the photo to my camera roll and send it from there. That way I’m prompted to select a size and recipients using web-based gmail get a thumbnail with a choice to view or download.
Notes
You might want to place jhead somewhere other than where I did. If you move it you’ll need to edit the AppleScript.
Mail needs to be running on your Mac for this to work.
I used an Automator workflow to send the return email. You can do it in AppleScript if you prefer, but I’ve had mixed results down that road. Decided to try Automator.
You could use Automator to extract the attachment. I’d already written a script to extract an attachment from Mail so it seemed like the way to go.
You could alter the AppleScript so everything happens in one folder. I used two folders only to help me with troubleshooting the script the first time through.
Don’t forget to make jhead executable.
Dropbox Alternative
Here’s another alternate solution: Dropbox
You could upload your images to Dropbox from your iPhone - then mark them as a favorite. From there you copy the image to the clipboard to paste into a mail or save it down to your camera roll. They won’t be full-size though. And if you paste and mail it’ll be sent as a png. But the orientation will be correct. If you simply upload and send the link the orientation will be wrong.
OR
You could use something like my script above to place a full-size copy of your file in your Mac Dropbox. Then you can access the photo from the Dropbox app on your iPhone. You’ll still need to copy and paste or save it to the roll to get the rotation right.
Yeah - it’s a lot to set up and you need a Mac running to use it. I can wake my Mac up from my phone so that’s not a big deal. And I find mail-based workarounds like this convenient to use. Still - maybe Apple should switch back to the old way until the browsers catch up.
Script Download
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I was thinking it would be nice to watch a video I’d just recorded with my iPhone on the Apple TV. But it’s kind of a pain to do that. I’d have to run the iPhone upstairs, plug it in, wait for it to sync, add the video to a playlist…
Alternative: I could upload the video to YouTube, but you have to fill out the fields to upload and it seems sometimes my Apple TV loses track of my YouTube account. Or at least loses access.
So I’ve got a Rube Goldberg alternative that makes it really simple from a user perspective - once you’ve done the upfront legwork. Just email the video to yourself, if it’s short enough. Let your Mac automatically grab the video from your email and drop it into iTunes. My Apple TV seems to immediately sync on its own when new content is added to a Playlist that’s set to sync.
I’m using a pretty straightforward AppleScript and a rule configured in my Mac’s Mail program. Here’s what happens:
- I email the video to myself with the subject atv.
- The email arrives.
- A Mail-based rule sees the subject and kicks off an AppleScript that copies the video file to the Automatically Add to iTunes folder in my iTunes Music folder.
- The video gets added to my iTunes Library.
- The video is added to a Smart Playlist.
- The Apple TV is set to sync with the Smart Playlist.
- The video is synced to my Apple TV.
That looks like a lot of stuff but the Mac will do all the work. There are only a couple things you need to set up:
- Create a Smart Playlist and tell Apple TV to sync with it
- Create a rule in mail and have it run the AppleScript when a matching email comes in.
Then all you do is email yourself the video. If you open Finder and look around in your iTunes Music folder you’ll see a folder called Automatically Add to iTunes. Anything that gets dropped in there gets added to your library, so that’s where the script copies the file.
I threw this script together quickly, there’s nothing fancy, no error checking - so feel free to post any enhancements. My intention is to provide an example of what can be done easily with AppleScript and Mail rules. It might help someone accomplish other tasks similar to this one.
Here’s a link to the script and screenshots of a Mail rule and sample Smart Playlist settings. The script was saved as a text file. You need to change the path in the third line of script to reflect your user name. You also need to save it as an AppleScript using AppleScript Editor.
In the Mail rule you need to change the path to where you saved your AppleScript.
Mail Rule Screenshot:
Smart Playlist Screenshot:
You might come up with something more sophisticated for the Smart Playlist…
Finally - here’s a look at the AppleScript, which you can download.
Other tricks with Mail: Pick a Playlist by Email - Retrieve a File by Email - Mail a File Dropped in a Finder Folder
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Remember when iTunes used to have a Library container that you could select as the basis for a search of ALL your content? That was nice. Now if you want to search for a TV show in the library you need to click on the TV Shows node before initiating a search.
If there were a keyboard shortcut to select each container I’d use it, but I don’t see any such shortcuts. Thanks to the king of AppleScripts for iTunes I’ve pulled together some pieces that give me a solution.
If you really miss the all-inclusive Library container you can add it back into iTunes using an AppleScript application provided by Doug Adams called Change Hidden iTunes Preferences. From there you can script selection of that container or you can go a step further: I’m using TextExpander to kick off a script that facilitates iTunes searching. The script can select the Library container or go on to select a container like TV Shows, Movies, or Podcasts. The extra step is only required if you prefer to have search results limited by media type.
The commands to select the Library container were provided by Doug. When hooks for selecting other containers weren’t readily apparent (maybe they’re there and I didn’t see them) I moved on to another strategy: Selecting the Library and then scripting arrow key presses to move down the tree. So far that works ok. Last step: Place the cursor in the search box. Doug’s page on automating keystrokes helps there too.
The simple script, shown in the screenshot, can be kicked off with a keyboard shortcut. For me it means not using the mouse, and that’s worth the effort. Still, the script isn’t working 100% of the time. For example, if the Library node is already selected it fails. Needs a little work…
Murphy's Web Host
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Sometimes Murphy is just a little too lazy to go upstairs and reboot a Mac that needs rebooting. With an iPhone or iPod touch you don’t need to leave the sofa.
Today, Murphy was watching tv on the iPhone via EyeTV’s iPhone app. It started to lock up so a reboot seemed like a good idea. Murphy has Touch Term installed on the iPhone. And the Mac is set to accept SSH sessions. One tap to connect and one command to start the reboot was all it took. Here’s what you need:
- First, go to Sharing in your System Preferences. Turn on Remote Login. This allows your Mac to allow incoming SSH sessions.
- On your iPhone install Touch Term, or some other SSH client. Murphy remembers getting Touch Term for free, but now it starts at $3.99. You might want to comparison shop for similar products.
- Next, configure Touch Term to connect to your Mac, either by name or ip address.
- Once you’ve connected just type the command to reboot your Mac, and press Return. Here’s the command: sudo shutdown -r now
Murphy took the extra step of creating a shell script to run that command, so there’s less to type when it’s time to reboot. That’s all there is to it.
You might want a command to send your Mac to sleep instead of rebooting it. This command should accomplish that: osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to sleep'
Of course, you can always try something completely different. A long time ago Murphy wrote some posts about using the Mail app on a Mac to trigger events. Murphy has Applescripts on the Mac that do different things when emails come in with certain characteristics. Scripts that adjust iTunes, retrieve files, or put the Mac to sleep. The whole thing was based on a post here.
Some of these scripts had issues with different updates to OS X and changes to Mail. Your results may vary…
I haven’t looked into other ways to reboot my Mac from the iPhone, so if you’ve got a good way let me know.
As always, be careful when using the Terminal.
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I was so close to making a screencast tonight, but the stuff I was looking at isn’t quite worth the time. For me. Maybe for you?
I found these little apps on Apple’s Applescript site that let you drop some files onto a droplet. The files are stored in the droplet which when double-clicked displays the files in Quick Look. So you could send the droplet to another Leopard user and they could see a group of photos, Numbers docs, or whatever mix of files you drop in there. As long as Quick Look can display them you’re good.
The downside is that it’s not really using Quick Look - the script utilizes qlmanage which is a Terminal utility intended for Quick Look testing. Unfortunately the command line version of Quick Look doesn’t do everything full-on Quick Look does. For example, once I invoked the Index view I couldn’t get back to regular view. I couldn’t go full screen. And the space bar wouldn’t close the Quick Look window. The site provides ample warning that qlmanage isn’t everything that Quick Look is. It does play video though.
On the plus side, it’s conveivable you might want a different look for files you’re distributing. A single Quicktime movie sent this way might get a little more attention, it won’t look like the same old same old. Then again, if it gets sent on to a non-Leopard user that wouldn’t be good.
Looking at the package contents (right click the droplet and select Show Package Contents) you’ll see that the underlying Applescript invokes qlmanage with the -p option, which displays normal Quick Look previews. I was hopeful when I saw the man page in Terminal. The -t option displays thumbnails, but not in the manner you might expect. I expected the Quick Look Index view.
Altering the script to use -t resulted in thumbnails displayed one at a time in a Preview-looking window - revealing the next preview only when you close the previous one. It didn’t look like Quick Look at all.
If there were a way to make it open in Index view and have that view function like Quick Look - letting me get back to the default view - I’d be interested. But I’m not. What about you?
You can read more about the downloads here. The download includes another droplet for Quick Look that opens the files you drop on it immediately with pseudo Quick Look. It uses qlmanage as well.
There’s another download on the site that lets you click a Finder toolbar button to jump into a full-size Finder window in Cover Flow view - with one click. Is that anything?
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