select all

[henrip]

How do I invoke "select all" in a workflow?

[deanishe]

Select all what?

[henrip]

I'd like to open a file, select all, copy the selection, close the file, and paste. 

 

It's not text. It's a jpg file, which is opened by Preview.

 

Is there a way to do that?

[deanishe]

In theory, yeah. The pitfall is that it's difficult to know when the file is open and therefore when to trigger select all and copy.
 
You probably have to simulate CMD+A and CMD+C for the select all and copy (and CMD+V for the paste).

[henrip]

So there's no way to simulate keypresses from within Alfred? For some reason, I interpreted a recent change log as saying you could do that, but maybe that was not the intended meaning of: "Update simulated key events throughout Alfred for improved reliability"

 

 

[deanishe]

Yeah, you can do it in Alfred, too. Probably.

 

As you want to perform multiple automation steps, my first instinct was to use AppleScript, as Alfred isn't really designed for that. This is probably doable, however.