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Managing Omni Automation Plug-Ins on iPadOS

Omni Automation Plug-Ins and solitary actions are designed to be easily installed and accessed. The following documentation details how to install and manage Omni Automation Plug-Ins locally on your iPadOS device.

Installing/Managing Plug-Ins Stored on the Device

The following describes how to create a new folder on the iPad, which will become the linked source folder for the Omni Automation plug-ins used by the Omni applications installed on your iPadOS device.

The Files app on iPadOS:

The Files app in iPadOS

 1  The current location in the Files app is set to On My iPad which will display the files stored locally on the device.

 2  The Favorites sidebar category displays aliases to folders you want to access easily.

 3  The on-device Downloads folder. You can set it to be the default downloads directory in the System Preferences app: Safari > Downloads > On My iPad

 4  The New Folder button for creating a new directory in the directory or location whose contents are currently displayed in the view. TIP: if the New Folder button is not visible, swipe down within the contents view to make the control bar appear.

The first step is to create a new folder in the file storage area on the device.

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In the Files app, select the On My iPad location  1  and then tap the New Folder button  4  to create a new directory.

A new folder will be created and the iPadOS naming sheet will be displayed:

Naming the new folder
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In the naming sheet, enter the name for the new folder, for example: Omni Plug-Ins (iPad)

The newly named folder is created on the iPad:

The newly named folder

For the sake of providing convenient access to the created folder, let’s add it to the Favorites section in the Files sidebar.

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Long-press the created folder until the contextual menu appears. Then tap the Favorite menu item to add the folder to the Favorites section in the sidebar.

The folder’s contextual menu

Once the Favorite menu item is chosen, the folder will be added to the Favorites section of the Files sidebar:

The folder in the Favorites section in sidebar

Now that the Plug-Ins folder has been created, we need to designate it as a plug-in source folder for each of the installed Omni apps. For the purposes of example, the following illustrations will show the linking process from within OmniFocus.

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From with the Omni app, select “Configure Plug-Ins” from the Automation menu to summon the Plug-In Management sheet:

The Plug-In Management sheet will be displayed, listing all plug-in source directories and installed plug-ins.

An option for adding another source directory (linked folder) will be available:

The plug-in management sheet in OmniFocus
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Tap the “Add Linked Folder…” button to display a folder picker view in the sheet:

The folder picker sheet in OmniFocus

 1  The current location (On My iPad) displayed in the Files app

 2  The previously created plug-ins folder

 3  The Done button for accepting the currently selected directory as the chosen item

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To designate the created folder as a plug-in source directory, select the folder and tap the “Done” button.

The folder picker view will be dismissed and the chosen directory will now appear as a linked source folder in the Plug-Ins Management sheet:

The plug-in management sheet

 1  The new plug-in source directory (Linked Folder)

 2  Any Omni Automation actions placed within the source folder and targeting the host Omni application, will be listed below the Linked Folder item.

 3  An “Unlink” button for removing the linked folder as a plug-in source. NOTE: un-linking a folder will not effect it or its contents.

Omni Automation plug-in bundles or files placed within the designated plug-in source folder (Linked Folder):

A plug-in file in the linked folder

Will appear in the Plug-In Management sheet:

A plug-in file in the linked folder

 1  The new plug-in source directory (Linked Folder)

 2  An Omni Automation action targeting the host Omni application (OmniFocus) placed within the linked source folder.

 3  An “Unlink” button for removing the linked folder as a plug-in source. NOTE: un-linking a folder will not effect it or its contents.

 4  Button for revealing the selected action’s metadata..

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Tap the arrow button 4 to display the selected plug-in’s metadata (details) in a slide-over sheet.

The plug-in details

The action’s metadata may include: file name, identifier, version, author, and description.

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To optionally assign a keystroke shortcut to the installed action, tap the arrow button (>) at the right of the name of the installed action to reveal the key assignment interface for that action:

The plug-in details

The installed Omni Automation action will be displayed in the host application’s Automation menu, and may be executed when appropriate:

The plug-in in the Automation menu The results of the plug-in execution