(7)
Your rating: Now say why...
Automaton is four tools in one program, each of which is indispensable. It includes AutoNotes, AutoClips, AutoTyper and AutoFiler.
AutoNotes is notepad unlike any other. You can activate it with a hotkey, and automatically save notes into your "repository", for lightning fast quick notes. Your documents are all linked together like a wiki for fast navigating between pages. You can add tags to group your documents. But best of all, the "repository" is just a plain folder of text and RTF files. So you're not tied down to any proprietary file formats, and you can open existing folders
AutoNotes is notepad unlike any other. You can activate it with a hotkey, and automatically save notes into your "repository", for lightning fast quick notes. Your documents are all linked together like a wiki for fast navigating between pages. You can add tags to group your documents. But best of all, the "repository" is just a plain folder of text and RTF files. So you're not tied down to any proprietary file formats, and you can open existing folders
What's New
- Filer: work around a nasty bug in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion causing rules not to match.
Requirements
PPC / Intel, Mac OS X 10.5 or later.
PPC / Intel, Mac OS X 10.5 or later.
Automaton User Discussion (Write a Review)
Overall:
(7)
(7)
| Downloads:13,715 |
| Version Downloads:834 |
| Type:Utilities : File Management |
| License:Shareware |
| Date:28 Jul 2011 |
| Platform:PPC / Intel |
| Price: $34.99 |
Overall (Version 1.x):  |
| Features: |
Ease of Use: |
| Value: |
| Stability: |
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Automaton is four tools in one program, each of which is indispensable. It includes AutoNotes, AutoClips, AutoTyper and AutoFiler.
AutoNotes is notepad unlike any other. You can activate it with a hotkey, and automatically save notes into your "repository", for lightning fast quick notes. Your documents are all linked together like a wiki for fast navigating between pages. You can add tags to group your documents. But best of all, the "repository" is just a plain folder of text and RTF files. So you're not tied down to any proprietary file formats, and you can open existing folders of documents already linked like a Wiki with no work on your part! Then if you want, export your entire repository as a web site. A fast and powerful way of brainstorming, making knowledge databases, or simply jotting down quick notes.
AutoClips records a history of the items you have cut and copied to the Mac Pasteboard, You can get back older items organised chronologically, or by application, or by Spaces workspace. Get them back either with a hotkey, or from a status bar menu.
AutoTyper is a classic typing saver application. It can replace what you've typed into any other application with some different text and/or images. There is support for dates, times, plain text, rich text, cursor positioning, images, and more. Save keystrokes by making abbreviations for common text. Spice up your emails or documents with signatures, pictures, logos, smilies, etc that are expanded from a simple keyword. Expand entire form letters from abbreviations. Correct common spelling errors. Programmers can make code templates.
AutoFiler uses a simple rule interface so to organize your files for you in the background. Filter on name, type, date, tags and Spotlight attributes. Move or copy files, set color labels, import into iTunes or iPhoto, archive and backup, and more. Let AutoFiler work silently in the background while you get some real work done. AutoFiler can also manage your Trash, emptying it according to your own rules, and it can even clean up after deleted applications by discarding the support files.
AutoNotes is notepad unlike any other. You can activate it with a hotkey, and automatically save notes into your "repository", for lightning fast quick notes. Your documents are all linked together like a wiki for fast navigating between pages. You can add tags to group your documents. But best of all, the "repository" is just a plain folder of text and RTF files. So you're not tied down to any proprietary file formats, and you can open existing folders of documents already linked like a Wiki with no work on your part! Then if you want, export your entire repository as a web site. A fast and powerful way of brainstorming, making knowledge databases, or simply jotting down quick notes.
AutoClips records a history of the items you have cut and copied to the Mac Pasteboard, You can get back older items organised chronologically, or by application, or by Spaces workspace. Get them back either with a hotkey, or from a status bar menu.
AutoTyper is a classic typing saver application. It can replace what you've typed into any other application with some different text and/or images. There is support for dates, times, plain text, rich text, cursor positioning, images, and more. Save keystrokes by making abbreviations for common text. Spice up your emails or documents with signatures, pictures, logos, smilies, etc that are expanded from a simple keyword. Expand entire form letters from abbreviations. Correct common spelling errors. Programmers can make code templates.
AutoFiler uses a simple rule interface so to organize your files for you in the background. Filter on name, type, date, tags and Spotlight attributes. Move or copy files, set color labels, import into iTunes or iPhoto, archive and backup, and more. Let AutoFiler work silently in the background while you get some real work done. AutoFiler can also manage your Trash, emptying it according to your own rules, and it can even clean up after deleted applications by discarding the support files.
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+353
Steven Goodheart reviewed on 28 Jul 2011
+1
+4
Drking reviewed on 21 Apr 2011
+6
+139
I am a previous user of ClipMenu, so finding out that Automaton has a pasteboard functionality as well, I wanted Automaton to provide an additional functionality for me to completely move to Automaton. When I suggested to the developer that he add this functionality (pasting as plain text), he said, "how would you like me to implement it?" I told him with a keystroke + click. The next day he said it would be option + click to past as plain text.
Amazingly fast replies and very friendly support. Great value.
[Cerebrl]
+1
+1
Ploth reviewed on 04 Jan 2010
I haven't really used this to it's full potential but it is well worth the money and has many useful features.
The Clips part was the main draw card for me - and it does work very well. It has a few great features though really could use integration to the Right Click Menu and a popup clip'board'.
Autofiler is great, as is typer. Notes is amazingly powerful - I really should use it but I find I only really use todo's that sync with my iPhone.
This is among the best value software I have bought and I hope the few missing features are added to keep it at the top!
+1
+9
All Automaton modules may have less eye candy than comparable apps from other developers, but that is not important to me.
+2
+36
Ljmac reviewed on 23 Nov 2009
-1
+100
Something is wrong with Version 1.17 of this app. I've been running a demo for the past few days and my iMac is crawling at times. In reviewing Activity Monitor, the app is using up over 900MB of RAM and 1.57GB of Virtual Memory. Yikes!!
Needless to say, in the trash with ya!
+4
+12
You've got to be really cautious in interpreting memory usage stats.
If you've got Growl installed, which most people do, try this experiment: goto System Preferences, Growl configuration, and check "Show Growl icon in menu bar". Now look for "Growl Menu" in Activity Monitor. For me on Leopard Growl 1.2 (64 bit) shows 8 Gigabytes VSIZE for this dinky little app, which all it can do is display that menu. On Snow Leopard, it shows 300MB which is twice as big as Automaton. Turn and on and off. Starts up pretty quick huh? Do you think its allocating 8GB of memory in less than one second?
Private Memory (RPRVT on Leopard) is the only number that even nearly means something, and even then has to be qualified by other considerations.
Why is Automaton different to other apps? Well partly because it is 64bit, which Leopard seems to be exceedingly confused about. It may be partly due to the architecture which uses a lot of small plugins, which probably also confuses the reporting in Activity Monitor. If you've got WriteRoom, Automaton uses the plugin library that developer wrote. WriteRoom on my Leopard machine (32 bit) has VSIZE of 365MB, before I even type anything, all for a fairly basic text editor. Clearly WriteRoom doesn't really use 365MB to show an empty text editor.
For example, right now I'm running Automaton 64 bit on Snow Leopard, and it says 183MB Virtual Memory (VSIZE). But the private memory is only 14MB. Shared Memory is 32.5MB. That means that Automaton is linked against Apple libraries that might be 183MB, little of which has, or ever will get into memory! All it means is these program pages *could* get into memory if the program ever asked for them. But a typical program only asks for certain features out of a large library. The 32.5MB says that at least that much has got into memory, but it might not have been Automaton that did it! If Automaton is linked against Cocoa libraries, and say Finder is linked against the same library, it might have been Finder that caused that memory to get loaded!
The private memory truly belongs to Automaton, but even then it might not all be resident. Most programs will have only a small portion of their actual memory resident at once. How much memory the program demands as resident depends on how much it is "touching" at the time. Programs that have no windows open at the time typically aren't touching much. Programs that are inactive, or whose activity doesn't need much data aren't touching much. Its only active memory that really matters. For example, let's say you load an enormous document into AutoNotes, and then close it. Programs don't relinquish memory as far as Activity Monitor is concerned, but it gets paged out to disk, so your real memory isn't used. Yes, there is a "Real Mem" column in Activity Monitor, but it includes shared libraries, so its not that helpful. Right now I'm using 76MB of real memory, of which 70MB is shared, so at a rough guess Automaton is probably occupying 6MB or less of memory that you could save if you shut it down. Other times, if you have been doing things, especially in the GUI this number might be bigger, but you wouldn't actually save it by shutting down, because it was all paged out anyway.
In fact, a large VIrtual Memory (VSIZE) in activity monitor, could actually indicate an efficient program. It means the program is using a lot of Apple libraries, (which are shared among different programs in memory), and not reinventing the wheel with code that can't be shared.
At the end of the day, how much real memory is used is mostly to do with how much memory the program "touches" during normal background usage. And this should be very small indeed for Automaton. How much virtual memory is directly attributed to a program is the Private Memory (RPRVT) field. Normal users should ignore most of this stuff because it is too hard to interpret.
+36
+3
+15
Islandmike reviewed on 20 Oct 2009
Docshlo reviewed on 12 Oct 2009
+1
+1
Trahe reviewed on 08 Oct 2009
Clipboard Manager (also keeps Clipboard after Shutdown), rather interesting to have the Clips sorted by Spaces/App
AutoTyper (replaces self defined acronyms like TIA with completion)
Notes : which i never have known to be needed, but some tiny good replacement of using TextEdit, also you can have tags for linking notes to each other, might be more interesting when get used
AutoFiler: some Hazel like Rule Sets for Folders
Wel actually, to make it short, i like this App, bcs it is more easy to use than having
mutltiple Apps, for me it replaced Savvy Clipboard, Hazel, Typinator, and can be configured all in one.
I am indy developer myself so like the simplicity and ease of use
Aetintin rated on 28 Jun 2011
+18
PaperCutPro rated on 06 Apr 2011