Script / Automator for conversion of Apple Works docs to .odt docs

You can simply pass the selected folder to the shell script by selecting "as argument" from the "pass input:" dropdown-menu and then adding "$@" at the point in your script where you want the folder path to be used.

To use drag&drop, just remove the "ask for finder items" action and let the "run shell script" receive the input from "application can receive files and folders as input".

The Automator “Run Shell Script” action runs the script in a non-interactive shell (for an explanation of the difference between interactive and non-interactive shells, see the pertinent section of the Advanced Bash Scripting Guide) – there is, simply spoken, no terminal to get user input from. I suppose the gpg utility recognizes this and skips the password prompt (else your script would hang).

You should be able to pipe your passphrase to GPG inside such an action using the --passphrase-fd 0 option (see gpg’s man page) , however, i.e.

echo "passphrase" |  gpg  --passphrase-fd 0 --output $outfile --decrypt /path/to/file.gpg

You can securely store your passphrase in the OS X Keychain and retrieve it from there. Although possible via a shell script (the TextMate blog has details on how to achieve that – be sure to read the comments), there are so many gotchas to that I’d recommend using a bit of AppleScript and Daniel Jalkut’s excellent Usable Keychain Scripting app. Once installed, the following bit of AppleScript will retrieve your password (assuming the account name is “GPG”):

tell application "Usable Keychain Scripting" to get password of first generic item of current keychain whose account is "GPG"

Either wrap it in an osascript shell command, i.e.

passphrase=$(osascript -e '<command above>')

or, as you are using Automator, add an AppleScript action, retrieve the passphrase inside it and pass it to the shell script.