Automation

Permute can be automated in several ways. Firstly, there is the option to use Apple Script - for more details, please see the Apple Script documentation which is viewable via the Script Editor (select Window > Library and double-click Permute on the list - if it’s not listed, use the + toolbar button to add it).

Additionally, more advanced workflows can be achieved using URLs with permute:// scheme. Downie uses this, for example, to send downloads to Permute. Here is an example of such link:

permute:///Users/charliemonroe/Downloads/file.mp4?action=convert&preset=MP4&source=MyScript

This will create a new group called From MyScript -> MP4 (if necessary), sets the preset to MP4 and adds a file with path /Users/charliemonroe/Downloads/file.mp4 (please note the 3 slashes in the URL - first two are part of the scheme deliminator and the third is the root of the file system, just like with file:///Users/...). Also note that any spaces need to be URL encoded (%20) and so do any special URL characters.

If you have the option to automatically start conversions from external sources enabled in Preferences > Advanced, the conversion will be started automatically.

You can open such link using command line open 'permute://...' (note that & is a special shell character so make sure that the URL is quoted in the command) or any other way you would instruct the system to open a link.

If you want to add a stitching conversion, use the path to the folder where are the files (all files need to be in the same folder), set the action argument to stitch and list the file names as file1, file2, … You also need to specify a stitched file name. Here is an example:

permute:///Users/charliemonroe/Downloads/?action=stitch&preset=MP4&source=MyScript&name=foo.mp4&file1=File1.mp4&file2=File2.mp4

Alternatively, if this seems to be too complicated, you can pass files to Permute normally (just open them with Permute, like open -a Permute\ 3 file.mp4), then add a one-second delay for the file to get processed by Permute and use this Apple Script:

tell application "Permute 3"
	 repeat with aGroup in groups
		start aGroup
	end repeat
end tell

Which will start any pending conversions.

Note: Setapp users need to use tell application "Permute" instead.