In the initial section of this post, I leave the AppleScript code formatted as it would appear in the Script Editor pane to show that keywords, statements and other expressions that appear in blue in the Script Editor are part of the AppleScript language and syntax and knowing that is helpful when writing scripts.
Let’s start with this statement:
set theFile to choose file with prompt “Please select a file:”
set fileInfo to info for theFile
The first statement get the full path to a document, in this case, “My Document.cwk” and the second, all of the information on the document:
{name:”My Document.cwk”, creation date:date “Monday, June 8, 2009 8:24:34 AM”, modification date:date “Monday, June 8, 2009 8:24:34 AM”, icon position:{0, 0}, size:1.9715E+4, folder:false, alias:false, package folder:false, visible:true, extension hidden:false, name extension:”cwk”, displayed name:”My Document.cwk”, default application:alias “Macintosh HD:Applications:AppleWorks 6:AppleWorks 6.app:”, kind:”com.apple.appleworks.document”, file type:”CWWP”, file creator:”BOBO”, type identifier:”com.apple.appleworks.cwk”, locked:false, busy status:false, short version:”", long version:”"}
This all looks pretty intense, but some of the info is only relevant for certain types of files (folders as opposed to documents, for instance) and although Applescript will return info in the form of an empty string or ‘false’ on some items, the info is usually of little use unless you are targeting the right file type.
With that in mind, let’s look at some of the results that are relevant for the file “My Document.cwk” which is an AppleWorks Document:
Creation Date:
set filedate to creation date of (info for theFile) result–> date “Monday, June 8, 2009 8:24:34 AM”
Modification Date:
set fileModDate to modification date of (info for theFile) result–> date “Friday, July 17, 2009 10:48:20 PM”
File Size:
set fileSize to size of (info for theFile) result–> 1.9715E+4
Miscellaneous Info:
set isFolder to folder of (info for theFile) –all of these return a boolean (true or false) value and some are only relevant when the target is a folder.
set isAlias to alias of (info for theFile)
set isPackage to package folder of (info for theFile)
set isVisible to visible of (info for theFile)
set extHidden to extension hidden of (info for theFile)
set fileLocked to locked of (info for theFile)
The following, I find the most useful for what I usually need to do:
set extName to name extension of (info for theFile) –> result: “cwk”
set displayName to displayed name of (info for theFile) –> result: “My Document.cwk”
set defaultApp to default application of (info for theFile) –> result: alias “Macintosh HD:Applications:AppleWorks 6:AppleWorks 6.app:”
set fileKind to kind of (info for theFile) –> result: “com.apple.appleworks.document”
set fileType to file type of (info for theFile) –> result: “CWWP”
set fileCreator to file creator of (info for theFile) –> result: “BOBO”
set fileTypeIdentifier to type identifier of (info for theFile)
Just something to note on a similar subject:
short version of (info for theFile) and long version of (info for theFile) are mainly only relevant for applications such as this case with AppleWorks 6:
“AppleWorks 6.2.4 for Mac OS X Copyright Apple Computer, Inc. 1991-2002″ –> the long version of AppleWorks 6
If you get the info for a file and place it into a variable, then you can use that to simplify and extract specific items of the info variable and place them into their own specifice variables such as this one using our original document:
set theFile to choose file with prompt "Please select a file:"
set fileInfo to (info for theFile)
set fileDate to creation date of fileInfo
Here’s an ‘all purpose’ script to open a document. It gives you some idea of how you can use data from a documents ‘Get Info’ window. What is shown here will work with most documents, provided you have the application on your desktop.
set theFile to choose file with prompt "Please select the file you want to open:"
set fileInfo to info for theFile
set theFile to theFile as alias
set defaultString to ((default application of fileInfo) as string)
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ":"
set AppString to (text item -2 of defaultString)
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "."
set theApp to (text item -2 of AppString)
openDoc(theFile, theApp)
on openDoc(fileName, defaultApp)
tell application defaultApp
activate
open fileName
end tell
end openDoc
Contact me if you have any questions or comments at: hyperscripter@gmail.com or http://twitter.com/hyperscripter.
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