Jean-Baptiste Bres

Chief Information Security Officer

Action(s) might rise again

In my previous post, I was announcing the end of support of Action(s). I have been receving a lot of emails and message supporting Action(s) and some ideas to have this incredible tool continue to work and evolve.

Obviously, as I mentionned previously, I cannot continue to work on Action(s) in the current situation. I do not have time to do so. To be able to evolve, I should be able to dedicate part or full of my professional time to it. Due to my current job, part time is not an option, and full time would be possible only if Action(s) was actually creating an income, which it is not.

One of the solutions that have been suggested to me would be to try raising some funds via a crowdfunding platform. I like this idea. If I could raise enough funds to pay myself, I could dedicate myself full time to this project and update and upgrade Action(s) to a new level.
However, to be viable, such a solution would mean that, ultimately, Action(s) would also became a paying tool. Yes, not free anymore. Probably only a few dollars, but not free. Why? Because is Action(s) could rise thanks to crowfunding, a business model is also required to keep it aflow. People that helped with the funding would get a license for free, but new users, ultimately, would be what will make the tool running.

It would not need too much money to start. But I do not know yet if it would possible to raise it. I will be working on that in the coming months...

Feel free to share with me what you think about this idea, and also to let me know if you would be ready to participate to such a funding, to pay for the tool, or what new functionalities you would like to see to make this interresting...

End of support (at least for now)

Dear users,

[Update 21/12/2013] As a few users have been asking, Action(s) is now available as a standalone application at http://app.jbbres.com/jws/app/Actions-1.1.8-standalone.zip. Make sure that you have Java installed.

It has been 4 years now since the introduction of Action(s). 4 great and interresting years. Action(s) has been downloaded over a million time and we got a lot of great feedback from all around the world!

Unfortunatelly, as for anything in the world, Action(s) needs time and money to live.

For time, I have unfortunatelly to admit that, though I have tried various options, I do not have any to spend on this project anymore. My real work - the one that pays my bills - is more and more demanding, which give me less time for my family and personal projects. Choises have to be made. Unfortunatelly I have to let down Action(s), at least for a while.

As per money, I was hoping that donations would help to pay the expenses associated with the development of Action(s): hosting, software etc. Unfortunately, over 4 years and with all the users that show support, donations have always remain very low. Not enough the pay the bills. Far from it.

It is therefore time to put the Action(s) project on hold. Hopefully not for ever, but for a while. The time for me to concentrate on my carreer and my family.

The project will remain online, but no more support or new version will be posted in the coming future. Our forum will also stay online. It will remain a place where users can assist each other.
I however remain open to hear you if you are interrested to take over the work under one form or another. Feel free to contact me.

Thanks again to all of you for your interrest, support, ideas, donations... It was a great time for me. Hopefully Action(s) has been usefull for you too.

Regards,

Jean-Baptiste Bres

Yes, we're still there!

Some of you have been wondering why there were not much news posted in the last months and if we were still working on Action(s).
Well, be reensure that we still are. We are currently working on Action(s) 1.2 that will bring you will a lot of new actions and functionalities.

As you know, Action(s) is a free tool. Therefore we cannot work on it full time. We have another professional life. You know, the one that pays the bills. So depending on things are going, we are able to spend time on improving Action(s). And sometime it is more difficult. Lately, it has been more on the « difficult » part. Not much time. But hopefully, it will be better soon.

Until then, do not hesitate to continue keep us posted with your ideas and comments, and we’ll do our best to find time to improve Action(s) and make it even better!

Action(s) 1.1.8 released

Action(s) 1.1.8 is now available for download.

The update will download automatically next time you will start Action(s) from your desktop or by clicking on this the launch button below:


Action(s) 1.1.8 contains minor bug corrections. Find all the details regarding this release in the release notes page.

Certificate for Action(s)

Updated: issue corrected in new version of Action(s) 1.1.8 - sorry for the inconvenience

Since a few days, some users might have a warning message displayed when launching Action(s):

expired-windows

or

expired-mac

This is due to the fact that our current certificate has expired and is currently being renewed. It will be updated in a few days and the message will not appear anymore.

In the meantime, we suggest useds to select the "Allow trust content from this publisher" option or the "Allow all applications from app.jbbres.com with this signature" option and click on the "Run" or "Allow" button.

Sorry for the inconvenience

Triggering workflow on folder events

Rengel published a very interresting article on how you can trigger the execution of an Action(s) workflow when an event occurs on a folder.

Have a look at http://app.jbbres.com/forum/index.php?topic=236.msg430#new for the full article.

Action(s) 1.1.7 released

Action(s) 1.1.7 is now available for download.

The update will download automatically next time you will start Action(s) from your desktop or by clicking on this the launch button below:


Action(s) 1.1.7 contains minor bug corrections. Find all the details regarding this release in the release notes page.

Action(s) 1.1.6 released

Action(s) 1.1.6 is now available for download.

The update will download automatically next time you will start Action(s) from your desktop or by clicking on this the launch button below:


Action(s) 1.1.6 contains minor bug corrections. Find all the details regarding this release in the release notes page.


Mouse and Keyboard Pack updated

Today we published a small update of the Mouse and Keyboard pack for Action(s) (1.1.6). It corrected a small bug with the move cusor action.
The update is recommended for all users using this pack.

Send a file via FTP and much more

We are pleased to present the work of an independant developper that has decided to enrich the Action(s) experience by creating some additional actions!

redwarp has created a great collection of actions for Action(s), including some amazing feature such as:
  • Send files via FTP. (yep, a lot of you have been waiting for this one since a very long time!)
  • Convert a text into a QR code (you know, those square bar codes that you find a little bit everywhere now)
  • Produce the MD5 hash of a file

So do not hesitate and go download this new collection!

And if you too you want to create your own actions, remember, it is very easy. Simply visit our More Actions webpage for more information.

New tutorial video: Using Variables in Action(s)

This video requires a more recent version of the Adobe Flash Player to display. Please update your version of the Adobe Flash Player.

New tutorial video: Creating Loops with Action(s)

This video requires a more recent version of the Adobe Flash Player to display. Please update your version of the Adobe Flash Player.

Action(s) is on Serbian TV

Action(s) got the honors of the Serbian TV in the Interfejs [Interfaces] TV program.
Interfejs is one of the most popular program on Serbian TV, with 400.000 viewers every week, so we are very proud that they decided to present our application in their show:

If, like me, you unfortunatelly do not understand Serbian, you can still discover the content of the article in English with Google Translate.

At app.jbbres.com, we found their introduction very interresting as it reflects exactly what we have been trying to achieve with Action(s):

If you ask customers what is the most important thing that has changed with the usage of computers, we believe that in many cases the answer will be: "Now it is possible to do many tasks and routines much faster and with more efficiently than before." A statement with which we entirely agree. Nevertheless, the degree of automation depends on the capabilities of your tools. If you have to perform a set of actions and steps, and nobody has ever written a program with such a purpose, you’re left with not some many solutions.

Action(s) 1.1.5 released

Action(s) 1.1.5 is now available for download.

The update will download automatically next time you will start Action(s) from your desktop or by clicking on this the launch button below:


Action(s) 1.1.5 contains minor bug corrections. Find all the details regarding this release in the release notes page.


Action(s) 1.1.4 released

Action(s) 1.1.4 is now available for download.

The update will download automatically next time you will start Action(s) from your desktop or by clicking on this the launch button below:


Action(s) 1.1.4 contains minor bug corrections. Find all the details regarding this release in the release notes page.


More Internet Actions

Today we are proud to announce a new set of actions available from the More Actions website:
The Additional Internet Actions Pack offers a brain new action, Get icon URLs from Webpage, that allow you to download the favicons of a website. This action event manages the website icon for Apple iOS devices (iPhone, iPad) if any.

Thanks to Enzyme for the idea.

Tips & Tricks: File Renaming and Date Format

One of the great actions that Action(s) provides is the Rename Files action.


Especially, using the add date mode, you can add a date to the file name using various date formats. By default, Rename Files provides 7 formats:

Date and Time Format Example
dd MMMMM yyyy 29 March 2011
dd-MM-yy 29-03-11
MM-dd-yy 03-29-11
yyyyMMdd 20110329
dd-MM-yy hh.mm.ss 29-03-11 17.42.12
h.mm a 5.42 pm
hh.mm 17.42


But you can also create your own format if the ones provided does not answer your need. It is very easy. Action(s) interprets different letters as date and time codes and replaces them by their values. You can combine the codes to create your own format.
Here are the available iddentifiers:

Code Date or Time Component Examples
G Era designator AD
yy Year (2 digits) 96
yyyy Year (4 digits) 1996
MM Month in year (2 digits) 07
MMM Month in year (3 letters) Jul
MMMM Month in year (full) July
w Week in year 27
W Week in month 2
D Day in year 189
d Day in month (1 or 2 digits) 5 ; 23
dd Day in month (2 digits) 05 ; 23
F Day of week in month 2
EEE Day in week (3 letters) Tue
EEEE Day in week (full) Tuesday
a Am/pm marker PM
H Hour in day (0-23) (1 or 2 digits) 0 ; 14
HH Hour in day (0-23) (2 digits) 00 ; 14
h Hour in am/pm (1-12) (1 or 2 digits) 12 ; 3
hh Hour in am/pm (1-12) (2 digits) 12 ; 03
k Hour in day (1-24) (1 or 2 digits) 24 ; 3
kk Hour in day (1-24) (2 digits) 24 ; 03
K Hour in am/pm (0-11) (1 or 2 digits) 0 ; 11
K Hour in am/pm (0-11) (2 digits) 00 ; 11
m Minute in hour (1 or 2 digits) 30 ; 5
mm Minute in hour (2 digits) 30 ; 05
s Second in minute (1 or 2 digits) 55 ; 8
ss Second in minute (2 digits) 55 ; 08
S Millisecond (1, 2 or 3 digits) 978 ; 78 ; 9
SSS Millisecond (3 digits) 978 ; 078 ; 009
zzz Time zone (short name if available or GMT based) PST ; GMT-08:00
zzzz Time zone (full name if available or GMT based) Pacific Standard Time ; GMT-08:00
Z Time zone (RFC 822 format) -0800


Text can be quoted using single quotes (') to avoid interpretation. '' (2 quotes) represents a single quote.
All characters which are not letters (from 'A' to 'Z' and from 'a' to 'z') are not interpreted and so do not need to be put between quotes.

The following examples show how date and time patterns are interpreted in the U.S. locale. The given date and time are 4 July 2001 at 12:08:56 local time in the U.S. Pacific Time time zone.

Date and Time Format Result
yyyy.MM.dd G 'at' HH:mm:ss z 2001.07.04 AD at 12:08:56 PDT
EEE, MMM d, ''yy Wed, Jul 4, '01
h:mm a 12:08 PM
hh 'o''clock' a, zzzz 12 o'clock PM, Pacific Daylight Time
K:mm a, z 0:08 PM, PDT
yyyy.MMMM.dd GGG hh:mm aaa 2001.July.04 AD 12:08 PM
EEE, d MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss Z Wed, 4 Jul 2001 12:08:56 -0700
yyMMddHHmmssZ 010704120856-0700


Using Action(s) with your iPhone

Enzyme, one of the most active member of our forum, has published on his blog a tutorial showing how you can use Action(s) with DropBox and your iPhone. Its shows how you can very easily apply effects on pictures taken from your iPhone.
Have a look, it will for sure give you some ideas!

iPhone and DropBox hack: WATCH and EXECUTE
http://enzyme-play.blogspot.com/2011/02/iphone-and-dropbox-hack-watch-and.html

Action(s) 1.1.3 released

Action(s) 1.1.3 is now available for download.

The update will download automatically next time you will start Action(s) from your desktop or by clicking on this the launch button below:


Action(s) 1.1.3 contains minor bug corrections. Find all the details regarding this release in the release notes page.


You asked, we listened: Action(s) 1.1 available

Action(s) 1.1 is now available for download.

The update will download automatically next time you will start Action(s) from your desktop or by clicking on this the launch button below:



You asked, we listened: Action(s) 1.1 contains next to a 100 new functionalities, improvements and bug corrections, including:

  • 9 new actions to efficiently manage email messages. Compatible with Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Live Mail and more.
  • 3 new actions to improve the dynamic of your workflows: Condition, Loop and Dispense items incrementally.
  • Execute scripts within your workflow, using JavaScript or AppleScript*.
  • Variable edition
  • Improved security. Application signed with a 2048 bit certificate.

Find all the details of this new release at http://app.jbbres.com/actions/about/1.1/1.1.html

In the coming weeks, we will come with even more new stuffs, so stay tune!

*AppleScript requires Mac OS X.


Action(s) 1.1 Release Candidate available now!

Today, we are very happy to make available a release candidate for Action(s) 1.1. Version 1.1 has been in the works for a long time and we decided to make a release candidate available before we make the final release, so you get the chance of giving us your feedback about it.

Release Candidate (RC) refers to a version with potential to be a final product, ready to release unless fatal bugs emerge. In this stage of product stabilization, all product features have been designed, coded and tested through one or more beta cycles with no known showstopper-class bug.

Click on the Launch button to try Action(s) 1.1 release candidate:


So what’s new in version 1.1? Well, it contains next to a 100 new functionalities, improvements and bug corrections, including:

  • 9 new actions to efficiently manage email messages. Compatible with Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Live Mail and more.
  • 3 new actions to improve the dynamic of your workflows: Condition, Loop and Dispense items incrementally.
  • Execute scripts within your workflow, using JavaScript or AppleScript*.
  • Variable edition
  • Improved security. Application signed with a 2048 bit certificate.

Find all the details of this new release at http://app.jbbres.com/actions/about/1.1/rn/rn.html

During the next two weeks, you will be able to try this new release, while we will be performing additional tests to ensure the quality before the official release of version 1.1.

More info at http://app.jbbres.com/actions/beta/beta.html

*AppleScript requires Mac OS X.

Action(s), as seen on TV

Action(s) is on French TV


source: GameOne

💡 The Robot, the Apple and the Coffee Bean

Article

For a change, let’s talk about technologies…
Have you heard about Java? No? Well, even if you don’t know it, you are probably using Java everyday: On your computer, your mobile phone, your TV and more. Action(s) is made with Java, and it is the reason why you can run it indifferently on Windows, Linux or Mac OS X.

Apple made recently two big announcements regarding Java:

  • The creation of a Mac App Store where Java applications will not be accepted
  • The end of Apple’s support of Java on Mac OS X

The question that a lot of you have been asking us is: will these announcements impact the existence of Action(s) on the Mac OS platform?
The answer is No. We are still very committed to the Mac OS platform. We do not believe that Java will disappear from Mac OS X and we will continue to provide a high-quality – fully integrated version of Action(s) for Mac users.

Read More…

Help us to make Action(s) better

Action(s) is free to download and use, but it still costs money to write, support, and distribute.

This is why we are opening today a donation program. Donations are used towards hosting costs for this website, licences and hardware, and also encourage further development! That way, you can donate if you think that Action(s) worth it.

You can do your donation via PayPal. To donate, click the button below and you will be directed to the Paypal site. Donations are taken in US$, but if you have an account in any other currency, PayPal will automatically convert the sum for you.


Thanks for your support and your help,

app.jbbres.com team

Convert to JPEG

Today we are introducing a brain new action: Convert to JPEG.
If you are using Action(s) to work on your pictures you probably know that Action(s) is providing by default an action to change the type of image. It allows you to easily convert any picture, whatever its format is, to another format, including JPEG.
For most of us, this action is just what we need: easy to use and easy to configure. But if you are an advance user, you for sure have noticed that "Change the Type of Image" apply a default quality rate to the JPEG pictures it creates (usually 80%), and you might want to be able to define a quality rate that fit your needs.

Convert to JPEG


The Convert to JPEG action is for you. It converts any picture into a JPEG file with the quality rate indicated. Download it right now from the More Actions webpage or by clicking on "Get more actions..." in the "Help" menu of Action(s).

A new video tutorial from Lifehacker.com

If you are a beginner with Action(s), this is for you!
The excellent LifeHacker.com website has published a very well done tutorial of Action(s) today, with video demonstration and advises.



Read the article at: http://lifehacker.com/5669762/automate-just-about-anything-on-your-windows-pc-no-coding-required

Action(s) 1.0.1 released

Action(s) 1.0.1 is now available for download.

the update will download automatically next time you will start Action(s) from your desktop or by clicking on this the launch button below:



Action(s) 1.0.1 release content:

  • "Copy file" action: Now prevent from coping a folder into itself or one of its sub-folders. Prior to this release, Action(s) was generating an infinite number of sub-folders within the destination folder.
  • "Get URL" action: Selected lines backgrounds were white instead of using the system colors.
  • "Show notification in tray bar" action: Mac OS X - The notification windows is now using the system colors.
  • Variable selection combo box: Selected lines backgrounds were white instead of using the system colors.
  • Some actions were displaying an incorrect version number (1.1 instead of 1.0.1)
  • "Split files" additional actions: An error message was displayed when adding one of the actions in the workflow. Users of the "Split files" additional actions can download the latest version at http://app.jbbres.com/actions/more
  • Action(s) plug-in folder now support jar file as well as actc files
  • New version of the Action(s) API (v1.0.1) available. Users of the API can download the latest version at http://app.jbbres.com/developers/libraries/actions/

FreewareGenuis pick



Action(s) has been selected freewaregenuis pick by the famous freewaregenuis.com blog. As we are reading this website since a long time at app.jbbres.com, and loving what these guys are doing, you can imagine that this has been a great surprise for all of us.

A few selected lines:
« The range of options that Actions supports, I will say, is truly impressive »
« What can this program do for you? Most anything you can think of. »
« Very user friendly and goes a long way towards making this application accessible and easy to learn »
« There’s no syntax to learn and no libraries or functions to deal with; the experience is closer to building a Lego than writing code. »
And my personal favorite Laugh: « I’ve been playing with this software for a couple of days and I just love it. The developers have done an astounding job making this software both powerful and accessible. »

Read the full article at http://www.freewaregenius.com/2010/10/13/actions-automate-all-kinds-of-tasks-via-drag-and-drop-without-writing-a-line-of-code.

Action(s) turns 1

It’s a double one for Action(s) today:
First, Action(s) turns one this month. Even if most of you know Action(s) only since June (when we released the first public beta), we started working on Action(s) in September 2009. Already one year ago.
And the second one is the official release of Action(s) 1.0 today. From now on, no more beta! We are officially live!



If you were already using the beta or release candidate version of Action(s), the update will download automatically next time you will start Action(s) from your desktop or by clicking on this the launch button below:



A Video Introduction to Action(s)

This video requires a more recent version of the Adobe Flash Player to display. Please update your version of the Adobe Flash Player.

Last Stop before the Big 1

It has been almost a month since we haven’t post anything on the blog. Well, it’s always like that in summer, everything is a little bit slow... (note: this is a bad excuse: we are located in Sydney, Australia and it isn’t summer here...).

Anyway, we are publishing today a new version of Action(s). You will spot immediatly what this version brings:


Yep, you can now search the library of actions. That’s a very useful function, so we hope you will like it.

Plus, this version is tagged RC. This means that, except for major issue, this will be the last version before the final 1.0. We are very excited about that!

So, as always, the update will download automatically next time you will start Action(s) from your desktop or by clicking on this the launch button below:

Action(s) hits the top 5% rated on developer.com

Great new! Action(s) has been reviewed and rated 950 / 1000 by JARS, the Java division of developer.com. With this great rating, Action(s) has entered the prestigious top 5% best rated softwares by the website.

Action(s) has beed rated 950 over a possible 1 000 points. The rating is divided in tree parts:
  • Presentation: 350 over 400 possible points
  • Function: 300 over 300 possible points
  • Originality: 300 over 300 possible points

Find more information at http://jars.developer.com/utilities/other/resource.php/41601.

News collections of actions

This week have been very busy for us at app.jbbres.com, but we are proud to release today two new great free collections of actions:
  • The first collection gives you control over the mouse and keyboard of the computer: the 9 actions included into this pack allows you to move the mouse over the screen, click a mouse button, press a combination of keys etc.
  • The second one is a little action that might be a great help for HTML developers: it converts the received text into the ISO 8859-1 charset for HTML: with this action, no more problem of accents and special characters in your web pages!

Those great collections of actions are available in the More Actions webpage or by clicking on "Get more actions..." in the "Help" menu within Action(s).

A Little Update

Today we are releasing a little update of Action(s) (beta 15). It contains some bugs corrections and user interface updates. But stay tune: new stuffs are coming tomorrow...

Get More Actions

Some of you may have notice a strange little option in the Help menu named "Get more actions...".



Action(s) provides a lot of built-in actions to work with files, images, Internet... but depending on what you want to do, this might not be enough. Fortunatly, Action(s) is also made to support additional actions, which means that anybody with some knowledge in computer programing can create new actions and add them into Action(s).
In order to help you find new actions, we have create a dedicated webpage where all extentions for Action(s) are available. You can access it by clicking on the "Get more actions..." menu in Action(s) or simply by following this link.
One on the webpage, simply download the new actions you are interrested in, open the actc file and and the new actions will be instantly available within Action(s). Et voila.

But wait, that’s not all: today we are providing the very first extention for Action(s). We named it Split Files because it’s a set of actions to split big files in smaller files. It is very usefull if you want to sent files via the Internet but have a size limitation. We’re sure you gonna love it! It is available in the Get more actions webpage.

If you are a developper and you want to know how to create your own actions, remember that everything you need - API, documentation, tutorial and much more - are available in the Resources for developpers webpage.

The Community Forums are open

Today we are opening the community forums for app.jbbres.com.

It's a great place for community interaction, discussion and learning about any and all things Action(s). Our team read the forums frequently, as well as post responses. We hope to learn a lot about what you think of Action(s) and used many ideas posted here on the forums to make it better.

The forums are still a little bit « under construction », but we hope we will make them look better. Your comments to make them better are also very welcome.

The app.jbbres.com team

New Action(s) beta

Two weeks that Action(s) has been released now and we are still surprised every day by the incredible success it has been. You have been thousands to come give it a try and we got a lot of great reviews and feedbacks from all around the world.

During this time, we have been busy at app.jbbres.com to continue improve Action(s). We have listen to your feedbacks and have designed some new great functionalities to make workflow creation easier and safer. They are available right now in the new beta version we are releasing today. This update will download automatically next time you will launch Action(s).


Among all the new functionalities and bug corrections of this new beta version, there is one that we are very proud and that we would like to present you: in Action(s), you might have noticed that a lot of the actions need to receive input to work properly. For example, if you add an “Add Border to Image” action into your workflow, it requires to receive image files to work on, otherwise the action will have no effect.
Well now, if you add such an action at the beginning of your workflow, Action(s) knows that it will have no effect and suggests you to add a matching action in front of it.



Creating your workflow and automation has never been easier.
And more than ever, continue to send us your comments and feedbacks!

Introducing Action(s)

Today is a great day for us at app.jbbres.com. We are releasing the first public beta of our new software, Action(s).

Action(s) lets you build workflows that accomplish manual chores quickly, efficiently, and effortlessly. You don’t have to know any scripting languages or write any code. Instead, you create and execute automation “workflows” simply by dragging and dropping each individual step of a process. It’s like creating a kitchen recipe.

We are very proud of our baby. Here are some of the great features that Action(s) offers:
  • Easy-to-use interface: Action(s) comes with a library of dozens of actions that users can browse or search to find exactly what they need. Actions are dragged and dropped from the library to create workflows.
  • Complete control: the pre-installed actions allow manipulation of files and folders, image cropping, scaling, conversion, and adjustment, command line execution, variable storage and access and much more.
  • Extendable architecture: Developers can easily create and share their own actions.
  • Re-usable: Display controls allow action parameters to be customized each time a workflow is executed; encapsulated flow design enables workflows to be used within other workflows.
  • Portable: Java and XML format used by Action(s) ensure that workflows can be shared with others, whatever their operating system is.

Action(s) is available in English and French and is free.

Simply click on the launch button. Action(s) will download and start.



Read More…