Things Migrator 2

by Martin on 14/12/2009

I noticed that my little app for migrating your data from Things to The Hit List still gets some hits. I haven’t really looked at it for ages, but I wasn’t terribly surprised to see that it’s broken under Snow Leopard.

I decided to fix it, expecting AppleScript projects in Xcode to work pretty much the same that they did before, and brother was I mistaken.

It seems that Apple decided AppleScript as a simple to grasp scripting language really has no place in Xcode anymore, and Cocoafied the bejeezus out of it. On the surface using the new Cocoa / AppleScript bridge feels like playing a nazi in most hollywood war movies. You’re still speaking English (Cocoa), just with a horrible German (AppleScript) accent.

The Migrator is just a little quick and dirty utility app, which AppleScript is perfect for, but rewriting this for 10.6 I felt I might as well have ported it to Cocoa (since I’m in the process of learning Objective C anyway). I didn’t though. I hacked my way through it using the Bridge, and I felt like Xcode was berating me the whole time.

I’m excited about Cocoa and Objective-C, but I loved AppleScript for what it was. I’m still going to be using AppleScript a lot, but unless I “See the light” of the Cocoa Bridge, I don’t think I’ll be making any GUI apps with it anymore. I also find it telling that there seems to be no documentation for the Cocoa / AppleScript Bridge except for the release notes that I can find.

Rant over.

Disclaimer:

This works fine for me. I make no guarantees that it’ll work for you. I think it will, and I’ll try to help you out if it doesn’t, but I’m not liable if your Mac explodes.
Caution: If you check the “Delete items from Things” option your items will be deleted from Things.
In order for this to work the app will empty your Things trash can regardless. If you really need the stuff in the Things trash can, perhaps it shouldn’t be in the trash.
I don’t have a Leopard machine handy, so I haven’t tested the Leopard version since I first posted it in May. It worked then, so it should work now.

Github
App – Leopard
Source Code – Leopard
App – Snow Leopard
Source Code – Snow Leopard

There are 3 comments in this article:

3/06/2011Scott James says:

Terrific idea! I’ve tried all options within the tool, but get no love for any combination. I get the spinning wheel of color for several minutes, but then…nothing.

Have tried with apps open, closed, and any other possible combination. Perhaps did the new 1.0.2 (181) version of THL break something?

Would *love* to not migrate my 800 tasks with extensive notes by hand!
6/06/2011Martin says:

Thanks Scott. I’m afraid I gave up on THL a while back now, so I haven’t been keeping up with the updates. I’ll see if I can find the time at some point to go through any changes and update the code, but for now I’m still too disillusioned with THL to muster the enthusiasm.

The source code is freely available though, so perhaps someone else could have a gander if they so fancy.
25/01/2012venture says:

Do somebody know where can I find a migrator from Things to The Hit List, which will work for latest version of these applications?
Thx in advance!

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