I know how to add new images to a new album, select and press Cmd-L. I know I can add images to a Smart Album, but sometimes they don't have keywords that may fit my smart album criteria.
Is it possible to have multiple images selected in the Browser and move them to an existing static (blue) album via a keyboard shortcut?
Harringg,
Sorry for the delay, I missed this question.
I’m afraid not. There’s no simple “move” command in Aperture. However, it should be possible with AppleScript. I checked and there is a protocol for Move and it’s very easy to do, however I couldn’t get it to work with Albums—just moving to Projects. Plus, you’d have to modify the script each time to change the Album or Project destination. Finally, offhand I don’t know how to attach a keyboard shortcut to a Script—but it’s probably not that hard.
Unless you’re well versed with AppleScript, I’m afraid you may have to continue using the mouse for that one.
@PhotoJoseph
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Hi Harringg,
First to clarify, you don’t actually move anything when you drag an image to an album. The image lives in the project, and what you see in the album is not a separate image. It’s a virtual image, an “instance” of the version in your project. If you apply an adjustment to either one, the other changes too.
What you’re asking for is possible to do with AppleScript. I can write one where
1. You select the images
2. Run the script
3. Select the target album from a list
4. Rejoice
I just need to know whether you want to choose from all you albums or just the ones in the current project?
And yes, it is possible to launch AppleScripts with keyboard shortcuts. I’ll take you through the steps, but I’m not allowed to upload screen-shots so I hope Joseph will add them or write a post with this tip :)
To make a system wide keyboard shortcut we have to convert the AppleScript into an application. Just open the script in the Script Editor, select File/Save As… and choose “application” from the drop-down menu. Then go to System Preferences/Keyboard/Keyboard Shortcuts and click the little + icon. Select your script-application from the drop-down menu (if you didn’t save to your applications folder, go to the very bottom of the list and select “other”). Then select a keyboard shortcut and you’re good to go.
Morten
@aFringeDweller
Here’s the script. Copy the following into Script Editor (use Spotlight if you can’t find it). Let me know if you need help.
tell application “Aperture”
set selection_ to get selection
if selection_ is {} then
display dialog “Select at least one image.” buttons {“OK”} default button 1
return
end if
set albumlist_ to (get name of every album)
set targetalbum_ to (choose from list albumlist_) as string
if targetalbum_ is false then return
repeat with i from 1 to (count selection_)
duplicate (item i of selection_) to album targetalbum_
end repeat
display dialog “Copied ” & (count selection_) & ” images to ” & targetalbum_ & “.” buttons {“Thanks”} default button 1
end tell
Morten
@aFringeDweller
Forget everything I said about launching scripts with keyboard shortcuts. That technique doesn’t work.
In stead I’ve found an excellent shareware tool to accomplish the same. FastScripts is a script menu replacement that allows you to assign keyboard shortcuts to any script in your script menu. It’s free for up to 10 shortcuts, after that you need to buy a $14.95 license.
Morten
@aFringeDweller
@Morten
That worked beautifully! I have a program called iKey that allows me to assign keyboard shortcuts to AppleScripts so I’m good there.
To take it one step further, is it possible to create a script that sends the selected images to a single (pre-determined) album? I don’t have a problem making changes to the script as I need it. I have 60-70 albums and the script you provided lists them all. Since my workflow includes cleaning up projects and I know which album it’s going to (in that project), if I could highlight 50 images, use my keyboard short cut, and send them to a specific album that would be great. Even if you can guide me in just selecting the Albums from a given project, that’s a start too.
Thanks again for getting me this far! Appreciate it.
With a quick tweak of the ‘move’ AS Dictionary item, I got this working as I wanted.
tell application “Aperture”
set imageSel to (get selection)
if imageSel is {} then
error “Please select an image.”
else
repeat with i from 1 to count of imageSel
copy item i of imageSel to album “harringg”
end repeat
end if
end tell
Harringg,
That’s great! As you have probably seen, thanks to Morten, we’ve been hard at work on AppleScript stuff for the site :) Just in case you missed it… www.ApertureExpert.com/applescripts/!
@PhotoJoseph
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Oh, I forgot to subscribe to this thread :)
I’m glad I could help. Looks like you’ve figured out the answer to your question on your own. A word of warning - it’s possible to have more than one album by the same name and your script might get confused if it doesn’t know exactly which one is meant.
Here’s a fix:
-Select your target album in Aperture
-Run the following script in Script Editor
tell application “Aperture”
tell (item 1 of (get selection)) to get parent
end tell
- Copy the resulting album id from Script Editor’s Result area and paste it into your script, replacing “harringg”.
An album id looks something like this: album id “aZ6wOH1HQT6ZeXT1BWuAkg” of application “Aperture”)
- Morten