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Revealing Hidden PDF Services in Mac OS X 10.2.4
cspiff writes "In Mac OS X 10.2.4, Apple quietly added the ability for users and developers to enhance the standard Print dialog with custom PDF-handling options. To enable it, just create a folder '~/Library/PDF Services' and populate it with aliases to applications, scripts, Unix tools, or other folders. Those items then show up in the Print dialog as optional handlers for Mac OS X's built-in 'Save as PDF' feature. Drop a renamed alias to your mail client in there, and you've added convenient 'Send PDF as Email' functionality to every application."
AppleScript is not secure, it simply is not so frequently exploited.
- Anonymous Coward
I couldnt agree more. Services are very immature on OSX but will surely evolve into one of those things we just take for granted. The ability to have a nifty little "Applescript convert PDF to text and email that file to _X_" systemwide script always waiting for your command (in a clean GUI manner) is to me amazing . As the Finder and other key apps move to the cocoa enviroment (where services are much more intergrated and shared with negligable extra work on the programmers side) this technology will really take off.
But excuses aside, carbon based programs can now access the Services menu its just a matter of getting developers interested. This is one of the NeXT features that always intruiged me, im glad to see it gaining a little momentum.
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Nice generalization. As a "Corp IT exec," I can say that I would love to be on a reliable, secure, easily supportable personal computer environment... *that supports our applications*. Microsoft did a great job of marketing to developers in the early 90's (that's you guys) so now we are limited in our choices. Suggestion: show more developers how to build great end user applications that are platform independent, or multiplatform capable with minimal effort. How: 1. Pure HTML apps with ECMAscript (that javascript standard). Look at Konfabulator as an example. 2. Build java apps that run anywhere (don't use the fancy stuff, just the solid, version-independent simple stuff). 3. Build Fat server/thin client applications that are transportable. Build code that has a transportable GUI across platforms that use a well-designed TCP -based protocol. 4. Spend a little time with IT executives to understand better what problems they are paid to solve, then help them solve them.