Learning AppleScript for Beginners » Tiger

Concatenation or Parsing and Editing of Text Strings

admin — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 19:34:31 +0000

In this section we deal with various methods to extract different parts of text from lists and other text and at the end, how to put it all together to make a new text string. This is sort of lengthy, but it is pretty easy to follow,

First, to extract text from a list. Both [...]

Using Say and Listen Commands with iTunes

admin — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:42:06 +0000

In this post we look at the say and listen commands. It is a natural transition from the previous iTunes script. Before you try to run this script, go to the Speech Preferences and click on the Speech Recognition tab and click speech on. Also, if you have not used speech recognition before, click [...]

An AppleScript for iTunes Playlists

admin — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:53:49 +0000

Here is a simple AppleScript for iTunes which chooses a pre-determined playlist from your iTunes library, then prompts for the volume level. After all of this is done, it plays the selected playlist at the specified volume level: tell application "iTunes" activate set visible of front window to true set view of front window to [...]

Choosing a Color from the Color Picker

admin — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 10:41:47 +0000

The final ‘choose’ command, ‘choose color’ will be covered here. The choose color dialog is somewhat obscure and you aren’t as likely to use it as the others, but it is worth mention. It is not complicated at all. The script below results in the color picker window, with the rainbow effect as in the [...]

Choose Application

admin — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:39:51 +0000

The ‘choose application’ command is very similar in syntax to the ‘choose file’ command, in fact, so similar that I will not go into too much detail. As in my post on the enhancements to the list dialog, I will present a script and then explain the purpose of the parameters used as needed:

set [...]

Enhanced Choose from List (Tiger and Leopard)

admin — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:04:25 +0000

In one of my early posts I outlined the basic syntax for the ‘Choose from List’ dialog. Here, I will present some of the new parameters that are available in Tiger (10.4) and Leopard (10.5).

In case you need to refresh your memory, here is the basic command:

set theName to (choose from list {"John", [...]

Choose File Name Command

admin — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:10:54 +0000

The ‘choose file name’ command is similar to the ‘choose file’ command. unlike the choose file command it returns a reference pointer to a file that does not yet exist without actually creating the file:

set theFile to choose file name with prompt "Set file name and location:"

With a result such as:file “Macintosh [...]

Choose File Dialogs

admin — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 01:23:56 +0000

In this post, we continue with the ‘choose file’ command. Like the ‘choose folder’ command, it returns a reference pointer to the actual file that it represents. In this case, it returns an alias reference to a document such as:

set theFile to choose file with prompt "Select a file to open:"

With the following [...]

Choose Folder Dialogs

admin — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:27:56 +0000

In the next few posts, we will look at dialogs where the user chooses among items in directories on the desktop that return reference pointers to the actual files (most are aliases) that they represent. The dialogs we will deal with here are ‘choose folder’, ‘choose file’, ‘choose file name’ and ‘choose color’.

First, a [...]

AppleScript – When to Use Set and When to Use Copy

admin — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 03:04:58 +0000

This one can be a difficult one, but if you have been following my posts so far, or otherwise are that much interested in learning AppleScript, this is an important issue to get straight.

Even if you have been using AppleScript for a while, as I have, you may still be unclear as to the [...]