Thanks for the thoughtful response @Sal.
Sorry to hijack @nutellacrepe 's thread. Could the reason OO v 5.7 does not update be because 5.7 is the latest version supported on that version of MacOS?
My comments on the Omni Automation site are meant to be constructive. The site has offered a LOT of value in learning the little I know about Omni Automation. Many of the examples there are easier for a beginner to study than @draft8 's more advanced code in the great plug-ins he has posted in the forum (and I think on Slack).
But it is not just @draft8 arguing that var should be put out to pasture. I see that same advice in other sources about JavaScript. If following that advice means always putting (() => { })(); around the code, then no problem. There’s already a lot of stuff that has to be wrapped around the processing code in Omni Automation actions, so adding that is no big deal. I don’t want to worry I’m learning outmoded practices. Could the code in the template generators, great tools for beginners and probably more advanced users too, be modernized first?
I’m confused by point 4, on Handler. Its existence was first introduced by @kcase here: Dynamic Named Styles based on text or saved filter?
I followed up in that old thread, then (after receiving no responses) on Twitter, and then (when I became aware of that channel) on Slack. The takeaway in the end was that Handler didn’t work even though it is listed in the API.
Then to my surprise and delight @unlocked2412 posted a working example of Handler here: Dynamic Named Styles based on text or saved filter? .
Handler clearly works for some purposes, and is immediately useful. So why not document on the Omni Automation site how to use it? After all, Handler is already mentioned on the API page there in the new plug-in section. Presumably, all the Omni apps are always “under development,” so citing that as a reason not to include Handler doesn’t make sense to me.
I would guess there are quite a few would-be Omni Automation users like me who are intimidated about having to worry TOO much up-front about understanding terms like plug-ins, manifests, resources, metadata, wrappers, classes, elements, variable scope, objects, etc., etc. I mainly want to know how and where to put a little JavaScript into a text file, and where to save that file to add some functionality to the app cross-platform. The ability to do that is a powerful and unusual feature that differentiates the Omni apps.
