University Class Sorting

[a_freyer]

My university has a single online file repository where all class files are stored, as many universities do. We use Blackboard, but I am sure that this can be accomplished with any like service.

If you look carefully, you can extract the class name from the source URL of the downloaded file using name matching.

Once the class name and number are extracted, I append the name to the front of the file, and another rule takes over: one that sorts into individual department and course number folders.

Once this whole thing got setup, I can do this:

Go to my class homepage and download a file name generically, "syllabus.doc"
Hazel isolates the class from the source URL and renames it: "EECS 399 - Syllabus.doc"
Sorted into: "Documents/University/EECS/EECS 398"
Growl Alert

All files for school are automatically sorted and renamed without me doing a thing. Its awesome.

[a_freyer]

For PDFs, Adobe plugin for safari does not fill "Where From" urls in metadata. If you want this rule to work for PDFs too, you'll have to use Preview instead (which, in my opinion is better, cleaner, and faster).