AWSManager is a great way of extending the functionality of your Cocoa services without additional application code. To understand what is possible and what is not possible, it is necessary to take a brief look at Cocoa services and how they work.
Cocoa Services
Cocoa services are OS X services available to Cocoa applications. They can provide data, transform data, or process input data. They're based on the system passing data back and forth over a clipboard. The nature of the service is determined by the service provider. Most but not all services need selected text to perform.
ACP Services
AWS.service is a behind-the-scenes application which never appears on screen. It runs services on the Cocoa services menu.
The ACP Services include both bidirectional and unidirectional services. The freeware version of the ACP Services, the ACP Web Services you have here, are unidirectional.
AWSManager
AWSManager assumes you have properly installed the ACP Services. When launched, AWSManager will show you your current ACP Services menu items along with their query strings.
Most but not all ACP web services need a query string; 'Visit URL' works automatically without one. But most of the most useful URLs, such as those for Google, Dictionary, and the like, involve query strings.
If you have a query string you would like on your Services menu, simply add it through AWSManager, choosing an appropriate text for the menu item.
The slash character ('/') creates a submenu - only one hierarchical level is permitted.
Query Strings & Selected Text
The actual URL invoked will be the concatenation of your query string and whatever text you have selected. Thus if your query string is:
google.com/search?q=
And your selected text is:
services
An invocation of that service will result in the following URL (sent to your browser):
http://google.com/search?q=services
The ACP Services recognise the 'http:' and 'mailto:' schemes. If neither scheme is found in your query string, the ACP Services automatically prepend the 'http:' scheme to your URL.
Updating Services
When you are ready, invoke the Update Services command (⌘S). AWSManager will refresh your Services menu.
In theory it is necessary to log out and in again, or reboot your computer to get a complete functional update of Cocoa services. But because the code for the ACP Services is not being modified this will not always be necessary.
In the event of any conflict, log out and in again or reboot your computer.
Caveats
OS X will update the Services menu of all Cocoa applications - but not Finder. Finder is not a Cocoa app and the code it uses is unfortunately not 100% compatible with Cocoa either. You'll need to 'kill' Finder to get it to update.
Open a Terminal window and type in:
sudo killall Finder
That should do it.
|