running an automator applet as a login item

Please help.

The big problem I am attempting to address is to auto-select a USB device for sound input. Each time our Mac Pro, running ML restarts, it defaults to the Line In for the audio input device. Hence, I am trying to find a solution to automatically reselect the USB device with some type of script that will run at login.

I have found a couple of different methods to achieve this with Automator Watch me do workflows, saved as applications. They run when I click on them, but if I try to run them as login items, I always get an error with the Watch me do…

Is there a secret to having a watch me do run as a login item?

Thanks for any insight.
Dee Dee

Okay. I think the problem for the Watch Me Do action is that when it is called, the System Preferences window is not even open on the desktop yet, let alone being the front window. That seems to be a particularly important piece of this puzzle.

The solution we finalized with and a second working option:

First, to address the System Preferences window problem, it was suggested to put a pause command in the automator workflow, before running the watch me do actions. That works.

However, we found that it was easier/cleaner to watch me do: hold down the option key while clicking the volume button in the menu bar to drop down a menu of all the input and output devices the system knows of.

As a watch me do action, it only takes lkie 2 statements and it pretty quick.

We were able to save that as an app and it seems to work fine as a login item.

Thanks for listening.
Dee Dee

Hello.

Nice that you made it work. But have you considered that the placement of the volume icon on the menu bar isn’t static? That is, you can cmd - drag it around, or the user has some items, or lacks some items that skews the postion of te volume Icon. I wonder how well your “watch Me do” action performs then, does it adjust? -it may very well do it. Just wondering, thinking there isn’t any watch Me do action in Snow Leopard, so I can’t try that out.

Nice solution anyway :slight_smile: