Using Shortcuts with Odyssey

Running Shortcuts from an Odyssey Workflow

Importing

You can import a shortcut into an Odyssey workflow through the Shortcut node. 

1. Find the Shortcut node in the sidebar under the Utilities category.

2. Drag the node onto the canvas.

   

3. Click on the node to select it.

4. In the inspector, click Choose Shortcut.

5. From the shortcut-selection window, choose the shortcut you want to import.

   

6. Click the Select button to import the shortcut.

   
   

Configuration (Node)

1. The Shortcut node offers two inputs: a generic input and a trigger.

2. The generic input can receive any type of data except for event data (such as triggers).

3. To specialize the generic input, drag an output from another node and attach it. Attaching an image output, for example, will configure the generic input as an image input. To revert the newly created image input to its generic status, detach the connection by dragging it away from the node and dropping it on the canvas.

4. You can similarly specialize the Shortcut node’s output by attaching an input of a particular type. The Shortcut node offers quite a bit of flexibility in this regard: it can receive, say, an image and output text — or vice versa.

Configuration (Shortcut)

To ensure that your shortcut works well with Odyssey, there are a few considerations to keep in mind.

1. If your shortcut requires input, you’ll need to add an input action to the beginning of the shortcut.

   • Click the Shortcut Details button in the inspector.

   • Enable Use as Quick Action. This will add an input action to the top of your shortcut.

     
     

     

   • In the input action, click Images and 18 More, then select the data type your shortcut needs. Ideally, select both a data type such as Images or Text as well as the Files option.

     
   

2. If your shortcut produces output of some sort, you’ll need to add a Stop and Output action. 

   • You can do so by clicking Shortcut Details in the inspector and enabling Provide Output. Alternatively, search for the Stop and Output action in the Action Library.

   • Select an output type that’s appropriate for your Odyssey workflow. Currently, Odyssey supports images, plain text, rich text, and numbers. Odyssey also supports images and text as files or documents.

     

3. Don’t name your shortcut Shortcut. Odyssey reserves that name for the Shortcut node itself.

4. If your shortcut performs long-running asynchronous tasks (such as downloading images from a website), select the Shortcut node and enable Run from Command Line in Odyssey’s inspector.

   
   

Execution

1. Once you’ve configured the Shortcut node, click Run in the inspector to run it.

2. Alternatively, connect a node that provides an event output. For example, the Timer node provides a Start output that you can use to trigger the Shortcut node.

Running an Odyssey Workflow from a Shortcut

You can run an Odyssey workflow from within a shortcut by using one of Odyssey’s shortcut actions. Odyssey provides four actions:

• An image-to-image action

• A plain-text-to-plain-text action

• A rich-text-to-rich-text action

• A generic action that can receive any supported data type and output any supported data type.

The action you select depends on your workflow’s input and output. For example, for image-based workflows that take in an image and produce an image, use the image-to-image action.

Configuring Your Workflow

Designating Entry and Exit Nodes

Once you’ve created a workflow (by clicking Save as workflow… in the File menu), ensure that your workflow contains the following:

• a designated entry node

• a designated exit node.

  
  

Odyssey uses these designations to identify the workflow’s entry and exit points. Not all nodes are a good fit for entry and exit points. The Batch (Images) node and the Batch (Text) node provide an easy way to receive a number of items and output a number of items.

To designate an appropriate node as an entry node, select the node, expand the Advanced panel in the inspector, then enable Entry Node, and select the input you want to designate as the workflow’s entry point. (Although, the batch nodes’ inputs distinguish between single and multiple items, in practice, Odyssey will pass single or multiple items to the entry node regardless of which input you’ve designated.)

Next, to designate an appropriate node as an exit node, select the node, expand the Advanced panel in the inspector, then enable Exit Node, and select the output you want to designate as the workflow’s entry point. In most cases, you’ll want to designate the output that provides multiple items.

A Note On Pooling

When running a workflow, nodes that have multiple inputs can receive those inputs out of order. Since most nodes will perform their task as soon as they receive an input, you might find your workflow producing outputs that are either unfinished or duplicated. To avoid this state of affairs, you can enable pooling for your node’s inputs. Pooling allows a node to wait until it has received a new value for each of its designated inputs before executing. To enable pooling, select the node, expand the Advanced panel, and enable the Pool checkbox. Then, select the inputs that you want to opt into pooling. In the example below, the Blend With Mask node requires a new value for each of its three inputs, and so we’ve enabled pooling for each of them.

Enable Automation

Once you’ve designated the appropriate nodes, select the Workflow option in the inspector, then click Enable Automation. Next, save your workflow, and open the Shortcuts app.

Configuring Your Shortcut

For the purposes of this guide, we’ll create a new shortcut called Blur Faces. The shortcut will rely on our Blur Faces workflow seen in the screenshots above.

1. Create the shortcut by clicking the + button in the toolbar. 

2. Give the shortcut an appropriate name (not Shortcut!).

3. Select the Shortcut Details inspector, then enable Use as Quick Action to add an input action to the shortcut.

   

4. Click Images and 18 More in the input action and enable only Images and Files.

   

5. Click the Action Library inspector.

6. Enter Odyssey in the search bar.

   

7. Drag the Run image workflow action from the inspector into the action editor.

8. Click Shortcut Input in the new action (now called Process Shortcut Input with Odyssey Workflow).

9. From the type drop-down menu, select Image.

   

10. Click Odyssey Workflow and find the workflow you want to use. By default, Odyssey stores workflows in your
    Documents folder under Custom Workflows.

    

11. Next, click the Shortcut Details inspector again and select the Provide Output checkbox.

12. Then, select Images (or an equivalent) in the Stop and Output action and ensure that the type drop-down is set to Image.

Running Your Shortcut

You can run your shortcut directly from the Shortcuts app. Alternatively, you can right-click a file in the Finder or on your Desktop, find the shortcut in the Quick Actions section of the file’s contextual menu, and run it from there. As we discuss below, you can also run a shortcut that uses an Odyssey workflow from within an Odyssey workflow.

Running a Shortcut from a Node’s Contextual Menu

Odyssey supports running shortcuts on the Image and Plain Text nodes. To run a shortcut on an Image node, select the node, ensure that the node contains an image, then right-click the node to open its contextual menu. From the Services section of the contextual menu, select your shortcut.

If your shortcut isn’t visible in the contextual menu, ensure that you’ve done the following in the Shortcuts app:

• In the Shortcut Details inspector, ensure that you’ve enabled Services Menu.

• In the shortcut’s Stop and Output action, ensure that you’ve set the output type to an appropriate type. For example, if you’re working with an Image node, the shortcut’s output type should be set to Image.