» A few random AppleScript snippets

I was just writing an AppleScript to look up words on the excellent NinjaWords and decided to post it in case someone else needs something similar. Since one snippet of AppleScript is not a very meaty post, I’ll throw in a couple extra.

Look up word on NinjaWords

Select a word and copy it to the clipboard. Then invoke this script via Quicksilver or LaunchBar or whatever is your favorite tool for invocations.

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set clip_url to (the clipboard as string)
set lc_url to do shell script "echo " & clip_url & " | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]'"
set ninjaURL to "http://ninjawords.com/" & lc_url
do shell script "open " & ninjaURL

Wrap link in ‘a href…’

Note: This one will look slightly different depending on whether you are using Quicksilver, LaunchBar, whatever. The key is that you pass a string value into the script and it returns one back to you. This example is for LaunchBar.
Copy a link to the clipboard, invoke the script, paste your now a-tagged link.

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on handle_string(vanillaStr)
set quote to ASCII character 34

set openTag to "<a href=" & quote
set closeTag to quote & ">"
set finishTag to "</a>"

set TempTID to AppleScript's text item delimiters
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to space & ":" & space
if (count of text items of vanillaStr) is greater than 1 then
set urlStr to text item 1 of vanillaStr
set linkStr to text item 2 of vanillaStr
set returnStr to openTag & urlStr & closeTag & linkStr & finishTag
else if (count of text items of vanillaStr) is 1 then
set urlStr to text item 1 of vanillaStr
set linkStr to "linkage"
set returnStr to openTag & urlStr & closeTag & linkStr & finishTag
else
beep
return
end if
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""
tell application "LaunchBar"
perform action "Copy and Paste" with string returnStr
end tell
end handle_string

New File

Sometimes you just want a dang text file to magically appear.

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try
tell application "Finder" to set the this_folder ¬
to (folder of the front window) as alias
on error -- no open folder windows
set the this_folder to path to desktop folder as alias
end try
tell me to activate
set thefilename to text returned of (display dialog ¬
"Create file named:" default answer "filename.txt")
set thefullpath to POSIX path of this_folder & thefilename
do shell script "touch \"" & thefullpath & "\""
do shell script "mate \"" & thefullpath & "\""

That’s it for now. I have some gems saved for a later post, but they wouldn’t make sense out of context so you’ll just have to wait.

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2 Comments

Christian

Posted August 23, 2010 at 21:41 | Link

This is great! A few months ago, after hours of fiddling around with the weird-to-learn language, I managed to shuffle together some working AppleScript lines to create a MarkDown file by triggering a key (as a Snow Leopard Service, that is):

on run {input, parameters}
set theTitle to text returned of (display dialog "Title" default answer "new file" buttons {"Create"} default button 1)
set theName to (do shell script "date +%Y-%m-%d_%H%M") & "_?_" & quoted form of theTitle & ".md"
set theFile to null
tell application "Finder"
set theFolder to quoted form of POSIX path of (the insertion location as text)
set theFile to do shell script "echo \"... header ... \" > " & theFolder & theName & "; echo " & theFolder & theName
reveal theFile as POSIX file
end tell

return theFile
end run

I wonder how I came up with “POSIX path of …” and “quoted form of” and the like and actually make it work. With a few tweaks it now looks more like the following (relative) beauty of simplicity:

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on run {input, parameters}
tell application "Finder" to set theFolder to (the insertion location as text)
tell me to activate
set theTitle to text returned of (display dialog "Title" default answer "new file" buttons {"Create"} default button 1)
set theFileName to (do shell script "date +%Y-%m-%d_%H%M") & "_?_" & theTitle & ".md"
set theFullPath to POSIX path of (theFolder & theFileName)
do shell script "touch \"" & theFullPath & "\""
tell application "Finder" to reveal theFullPath as POSIX file
return theFullPath
end run

It even feels faster. But I guess that effect wears of if the script lies there for a while, unused. It’s weird how slow AppleScript execution is. Thanks for sharing your script!

Martin∞

Posted August 24, 2010 at 20:23 | Link

I’m glad you found some use for some of this stuff. :)