0562 Applescript Basics
0562 Applescript Basics
by Jerry Stratton
Copyright © 2011
http://www.hoboes.com/NetLife/AppleScript/
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the
GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 published by the Free Software Foundation; with
no Invariant Section, with no Front-Cover Text, and with no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the
license is included in the section entitled “GNU Free Documentation License”
Getting started ......................................................................... 1
Why AppleScript ......................................................... 1
Script Editor ............................................................... 1
Recording Actions ................................................................... 2
Carefully arrange the desktop ......................................... 2
Simple Scripts ......................................................................... 4
Comments .................................................................. 4
Dictionaries ................................................................ 4
Create a news screen .................................................... 4
Automatically Reload Web Pages .................................... 5
Shell Tell ........................................................ 6
Repetitive Tasks .............................................. 6
Talking Clock ............................................................. 6
Drag and Drop ............................................................ 8
Other Things You Might Do ........................................... 9
AppleScript and the Command Line .......................................... 10
Running AppleScript from the Command Line ................. 10
Calling the Command Line from AppleScript .................. 10
More Information ................................................................... 11
AppleScript: The Definitive Guide ................................. 11
AppleScript on Negative Space ..................................... 11
Introduction to AppleScript Overview ............................ 11
Open Source License .............................................................. 12
Gnu Free Documentation License .................................. 12
GETTING STARTED
Why AppleScript
AppleScript can automate monotonous, repetitive tasks, or tasks that need to be performed at a
specific time. Mac OS X can (using it’s built-in scheduler via programs such as Apple’s iCal or
Embraceware’s Awaken) run any script on the minute you need it to run.
AppleScript makes it easy to “talk” to standard Macintosh applications. It can “glue”
applications together so that each application does what it does best.
AppleScript is easy to understand; it’s almost English:
tell application "Safari" to make new document with properties {URL:"http://
www.hoboes.com/"}
This is a valid AppleScript statement. If you use it, Safari will create a new document, and inside
that document it will open the hoboes.com web site.
Script Editor
Every Macintosh comes with a program called “AppleScript Editor” that allows you to create
AppleScripts. AppleScript Editor is in the Applications folder, inside of the Utilities folder.
RECORDING ACTIONS
If an application supports it, recording actions allows you to quickly build up a basic
AppleScript. For example, if you go into AppleScript Editor and hit the “Record” button before
making a new folder, you might end up with something like:
tell application "Finder"
activate
make new folder at folder "Desktop" of folder "jerry" of folder "Users" of startup
disk with properties {name:"untitled folder"}
set name of folder "untitled folder" of folder "Desktop" of folder "jerry" of
folder "Users" of startup disk to "Quick New Folder"
end tell
This tells the program (“application”) called “Finder” to first activate, then make a new folder,
and then change the name of that folder to “Quick New Folder”.
Unfortunately, most applications don’t support recording; if they do, however, it is often the
easiest way to make a new script.
Comments
When you are writing your scripts, you will want to leave comments for yourself. You can
preface any line with two dashes and that line will be ignored by AppleScript. You can write
whatever you want on that line.
You can surround any set of lines with an open parentheses and two asterisks (close with two
asterisks and a close parentheses) to cause AppleScript to ignore all of those lines.
(**
This is a comment.
None of this is AppleScript
**)
make new document
--close all of the windows we’ve opened
close all windows
Dictionaries
A useful feature of AppleScript Editor is the ability to look at the “dictionary” of scriptable
applications. If you look at the dictionary for Safari, Word, or Finder, you can see what things
those programs can do, and what commands it takes to get them to do those things.
on idle
tell application "Safari"
repeat with overviewWindow in every window
tell document of overviewWindow
set URL to URL
end tell
end repeat
end tell
return 60
end idle
This is what is called a “handler” in AppleScript. It “handles” messages. When you handle a
message, you can send a return message. In this case, we’re telling the system that we’re done
with our idle, and we would like to have another idle message in 60 seconds (“return 60”). By
default, idle times are in 30-second increments. The first idle message is sent immediately after
the script first goes idle in order to set the idle time to a different default.
This just repeats through every window of Safari and tells the document in that window to reload
its URL (“set URL to URL”).
Shell Tell
You’ll notice that we have two tells, one inside of the other. First, we tell Safari to do something,
and inside of that we are telling one of Safari’s documents to do something.
Repetitive Tasks
One of the things you can use scripts for is to automate boring and repetitive tasks. One of the
features that AppleScript has to make it easy to automate repetitive tasks is the “repeat” structure.
(Other scripting languages might call it “while”, “for”, or “foreach”, among other names.)
Everything between “repeat” and “end repeat” will be repeated until our instructions are done.
We told it to repeat “with overviewWindow in every window”. Within that repeat “block”, the
variable “overviewWindow” will start with Safari’s first window the first time through, and then
repeat for each of Safari’s windows, until there are no more windows left.
We could have done the same thing by typing those lines between the “repeat” four times, as we
did when we opened the windows to load the web pages. But this makes it a lot easier. And it
means that if we later add a fifth web page (we’ll need an awfully big monitor) we won’t need to
change this part of the script at all.
Talking Clock
One of the features of the standard additions is the current date and the ability to speak out loud.
set volume 1
copy the (current date) to theDate
say theDate as string
Simple Scripts—7
This makes your computer quiet (so you don’t bother other people near where you are using this
tutorial), and then it copies the current date into a “variable” called “theDate”. Finally, it says
whatever is in the variable “theDate”. The “say” command can only say text. If you try to say
something other than text, AppleScript tries to send that thing a message called “say” instead of
sending that item to “say”. So you need to tell AppleScript to convert that thing to text first. This
is why we put the “as string” after “say theDate”.
You can look at what it is speaking by adding “get theDate” to the end of your script and then
looking at your window titled “the result” (pull down the Windows menu to see this listed).
What it is speaking is a overly complex. It is reading the numbers without recognizing what they
are. For example, it is reading 2002 as “twenty zero two” on the computer on which I’m writing
this, and it is trying to speak the letters “AM” as a word “am”. We’ll need to help it along.
--be nice to our neighbors
set volume 1
on idle
--get the current date and time
copy the (current date) to theDate
say theDay & ", " & theHour & ":" & theMinutes & " " & theAMPM
return 60
end idle
8—Simple Scripts
The “ampersand” or “&” character glues together two pieces of text. In this case, we’re putting
our variable “theHour” after our variable “theDay” and putting a comma and space between
them. Then, adding theMinutes with a colon in front of it, and then theAMPM with a space in
front of it. So it will end up looking like “Wednesday, 6:21 PM”.
Which then gets spoken.
Make sure you save your talking clock as an “Application” that will “Stay Open”.
on open (theItems)
repeat with anItem in theItems
tell application "Finder"
copy the name of item anItem to theName
copy the file type of item anItem to theType
end tell
on open (theItems)
repeat with anItem in theItems
tell application "Finder"
copy the name of item anItem to theName
copy the file type of item anItem to theType
end tell
If you use OS X and you use OS X’s command line or cron scripts, you can combine AppleScript
with the command line. If you have no idea what that last sentence means, you can safely skip
this chapter. This is not a tutorial on using the command line or on using Unix.
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