Can I name a combination of effects for AppleScript?

Acorn
1

Hi. Is there a way to name a collection of effects – eg, to blur, darken, and do a halftone effect – and name this collection so that an AppleScript can call it by name to apply it? I have to do this same exact combination to about 1,000 images.

MBP 2023, Sonoma 14.5, Acorn 7.4.4 non-App Store version

Thanks in advance!

2

Yep, you can do this by saving your filter as a preset (using the cog/action menu in the filter palette) and then calling it in AppleScript like so:

tell application "Acorn"
	tell document 1
		load filter preset name "MyPreset"
	end tell
	
end tell

I should note that we have another app named Retrobatch which was specifically made to deal with this many images: Retrobatch 2, from Flying Meat

You might check that out as well.

3

Nice! I simply did:

tell document 1 to do filter name “bblur” – I created bblur

I don’t understand why there is a “load filter” command. Normally I just want to use a filter. Is this to make the script faster by not having Acorn internally locate and use a filter multiple times?

Also, is there a way to suppress the image window during an AppleScript repeat operation? Many thanks!

4

It’s historical baggage. load filter will only do presets. do filter will allow you to pass in a Core Image filter name. At some point I made do filter also handle presets.

I’d love to completely revamp Acorn’s AppleScript interface, but I’m not sure there’s much point in that right now since Apple doesn’t seem to keen on improving it themselves.

There’s no way to suppress the image window from coming up.