Applescript programers help!

Every week i get a new vocabulary list to study for and i make flashcards on www.flashcardexchange.com. The process is i open image capture, select Document ADF tray, scan to desktop. Then i open it using acrobat (NOT current default PDF viewer)scan to OCR (using acrobat 8 pro). Then i open safari and go to flashcardexchange.com, log in, click make new flashcards, type in for all forms "Week * Vocab" (* meaning week it is) and click go. then i copy and paste the words (10 words) on the left side with the defenition on the other side, hit go, quit safari, then delete the file on my dekstop. If anybody could write a script to do that i will be VERY impresses and VERY greatful.

I don't think there's any way anyone can write that script for you without some of the components.
A lot of AppleScript development is going to be trial and error, and without all the components to test it will be a long, lengthy process to iterate through the various steps.
That's especially true of the web form element - unless someone can log into that web site to see the forms in question that's going to be especially hard to automate.

Similar Messages

How can I write an AppleScript to help organise my emails better?

Hello,
I have a situation that I think would be best solved with the use of AppleScript, however I have never programmed with it before. I've tried reading lots of sample code that does similar things, and playing around with the language, but I think it's time to ask for help!
(If there happens to be a good way to do this without AppleScript, I would be grateful to hear of it!)
_My problem is this:_
I have lots of email accounts, and I take great care to keep everything on my computer very well organised. I have many many Mail rules set up to organise my incoming mail into relevant folders on my Mac so that they are not only arranged relevant to their content, but also backed-up offline.
Since purchasing an iPhone last year, I have sought to make the mail integration between my phone and my computer as seamless as possible. I first changed all my accounts to use IMAP instead of POP so that when I read messages on one device it shows as read on the other. This was extremely handy, but when my Mac moved emails into folders on my Mac it removed them from the server so that I couldn't view them on my iPhone.
I got around this by changing the rule actions to copy messages rather than move them, but now every time I get an email both copies remain marked as unread. This may be a rather trivial problem, but I receive a lot of emails and it is quite frustrating to have to click both copies to remove its "unread" status.
Although I am aware that you can use a rule action to mark a message as read, this marks both copies as read. What would be nice would be a rule condition that specified all the messages in a given folder... oh well!
The solution I have been working on for the last couple of days involves creating an end rule that runs a piece of AppleScript. This script would select all the mailbox folders on my Mac with unread mail, and mark them as read. This isn't impossible, right? I really ought to properly sit down and learn the language, but I don't have any spare time, and I'm already trying to learn obj-c and cocoa!
Thanks for taking the time to read this.
Stuart

Do you mean like this? Run this and tell me if this is what you want.
Just make sure you plug in your email address and the signature names in the sigList
set senderList to {"<[email protected]>", "<[email protected]>"}
set sigList to {"gmail sig", "icloud sig"}
set fromSender to (choose from list senderList with prompt "Choose a Sender" OK button name "This Sender" cancel button name "Abort" empty selection allowed 0 without multiple selections allowed)
if result = false then
          return
else
          set fromSender to result as text
end if
set sig to (choose from list sigList with prompt "Choose a Sginature" OK button name "This Signature" cancel button name "Abort" empty selection allowed 0 without multiple selections allowed)
if result = false then
          return
else
          set sig to result as text
end if
tell application "Mail"
activate
          set newMSG to make new outgoing message with properties {sender:fromSender, visible:true}
          set message signature of newMSG to signature sig
end tell

Applescript beginner help

Hi
I am a new to applescript. I thought making a mini game using applescript might be a good starter. I know some of the basic commands.
Anyway, I thought of creating a mini game that generates a random number and then asks the user a basic mathmatical question regarding that number. Here is my script:
display alert "Lets play The random number game"
say "generating random number between 10 and 20" using "zarvox"
set firstVariable to random number from 10 to 20
display alert firstVariable
set Num1 to 42 - firstVariable
set answer1 to text returned of (display dialog "First question - 42 - random number" default answer (0))
if answer1 is Num1 then
display alert "You are correct"
else
display alert "You are incorret"
end if
end
When the user types in the correct answer an alert box should come up saying: You are correct. Instead is says: Your are incorrect. I
don't know where I have gone wrong. I have tried different things but still no go.
As I said, I am new to applescript I just created this basic script so I can practice managing inputs from the user. If someone can help me that
would be great.

Use the following line:
if (answer1 as number) is Num1 then
(95182)

AppleScript Editor help. How to make a script help.

I'm trying to make an AppleScript that will automatically perform and action then close a window. Every hour or so a window for an application pops up and I have to click on a button then close the window. (And yes, this window is important for me so it must continue to happen.) I'm wondering if there is a script I can make so that when this particular window pops up, it clicks the button, then closes the window? Also, the window pops up basically at random, I can't force it to pop up. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

what is the window that pops up, and what application or process is popping it up? there's no general solution to this problem, so details are important.

Mail APPLESCRIPT to help run a website.

Cross-post from EMAIL forum:
I get several hundred emailed press releases each day.
I would like an applescript to:
go into an IMAP mailbox (account "NEWMAIL" box "SORTED")
select the top 2 messages
move them to INBOX
wait 10 seconds
Open a web script (HTTP://WWW.MYSITE.COM/SCRIPT.PHP)
Wait 30 seconds
repeat.
I have NO IDEA where to start, other than open up applescript editor.

I have the following code which I have used to refresh every 45 seconds, up to 99 times.
I would like to modify it to also stop the script when the page returns the text "There is no more mail"
Is it possible?
----CODE:
repeat while _count ≤ 99
tell application "Safari"
open location _url
activate
end tell
set _count to _count + 1
delay (45) -- end repeat
-----end code
Again, I would also like to end if the text in the page is "There is no more mail"

Applescript/Automator help entering text

Hi. I have a terminal script: defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array-add '{tile-data={}; tile-type="spacer-tile";}'
(Enter)
killall Dock
This is to create a blank space in the dock. I would like to create an Automator workflow or Applescript to run this without having to remember the script or look it up. But the problem is, Automator cant enter text and if i try to enter it with Applescript, the quotation marks mess it up. What should i do other than copy and paste the script to a text document?

Try using:
do shell script "defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array-add '{tile-data={}; tile-type=\"spacer-tile\";}'"
do shell script "killall Dock"
(56374)

Applescript/Automator help needed.

I attempting to create an Automator Folder Action that will do two things. First, when an image is added to the “Upload” folder, a new mail message will be created. Second, it will run an applescript that allows me to select from a list of album names. This value will go into the title field of the new email. Here’s what the Automator Folder Action looks like so far:
1. Automator Action: Get Selected Finder Items - this will get the item just added to the “Upload” folder.
2. Automator Action: Set Value of Variable - Since I don’t see a way to save the image itself as a variable, I store the image name here and call it “Image Name.”
3. Automator Action: Run AppleScript - When run, this will bring up a list of album names. I click on the one I want and click OK.
4. Automator Action: Set Value of Variable - set the value that holds the album name from step 3.
5. Automator Action: Get Value of Variable - gets the value stored in step 2.
6. Automator Action: New Mail Message - Fills out the To: field, populates the Subject: field with the Album name. But here’s where it fails. It populates the message field with the name of the path where the image is located, not with the image.
Note the first and last actions are disabled.
It seems this would work if I could pass the image itself as a variable, but I see no way to do that. I apparently can only pass the name of the image.
Any ideas how I can fix this? Thanks!

There is an error in the AppleScript. It should read...
on run {input, parameters}
          set the_list to {"Album 1", "Album 2", "Album 3"}
choose from list the_list
          set album_name to result
          return album_name
end run
But the problem is still there.

Looking for AppleScript / Automator Help

I have a spreadsheet of 2000+ users which includes their user ID, email address and a temporary password. I need an automated way to individually e-mail each user their user ID and temporary password, along with a paragraph of login instructions. It doesn't seem too overly complex but I don't know where to start. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

All due respect to Camelot, working with Excel is not so bad, you just need to work around its limitations. the following should work, without the need of creating a tab-delimited file:
tell application "Microsoft Excel"
-- use the correct range for your data, obviously
          set theSpreadsheetPeople to value of range "A1:C2000" of worksheet 1 of document 1
end tell
repeat with thisPerson in theSpreadsheetPeople
          set {userid, email, pass} to items 1 thru 3 of thisPerson
          tell application "Mail"
                    set newMess to make new outgoing message at end of outgoing messages with properties {subject:"This is the Subject line", sender:"[email protected]", visible:true}
                    tell newMess
make new to recipient at end of to recipients with properties {address:email}
                              set content to "Text string with email contents, including user id: " & userid & " and password: " & pass
                    end tell
-- uncomment the following line to send automatically
-- send newMess
          end tell
end repeat
test it a few times on a short list of data lines (say 4 or 5 lines) with the send command commented out, so that you can make sure that the email is being structured properly and looks the way you want it to. Once you're satisfied, you can uncomment the send line and use visible:false in the make new outgoing message line. that will let Mail create and send the emails invisibly. but again, make sure the emails are being created correctly before you uncomment that send line - nothing worse then sending out a bulk message with errors in it.

Applescript: Need help to write a script that inputs an excel formula into multiple workbooks.

Don't know if I can do this with automator or if I need to write a scipt I have a folder which contains probably 20 excel workbooks and each workbook needs the formula "=CONCATENATE(E17, " ",TEXT(N11, "mm-dd-yy"))" into cell T18 in every sheet of each workbook. Any ideas?

well, the operative line is this:
set formula of cell "T18" to "=CONCATENATE(E17, \" \",TEXT(N11, \"mm-dd-yy\"))"
you just need to loop through the workbooks and worksheets and apply it to each. I think you can figure that out.

Newbe at Applescript - Need Help Getting Applescript to Auto-Run

Ok so I admit I'm new at creating Apple Scripts, but here's my dilemma:
I have created an Apple Script to mount and unmount my new LaCie d2 Quadra 1TB drive (For use with the LaCie "Shortcut Button), the script "runs" great in Script Editor. However, when finally saved to a newly created Mac HD>Library Folder>Scripts Folder>LaCie d2 Shortcut Button Scripts Folder ... when I use the LaCie d2 front panel "shortcut button", the script launches the Script Editor app and the script shows in the script window. If I select "run" in the window the script will mount and then unmount the LaCie drive (in the Finder), as designed to do.
My issue is, obviously, how do I get the script to run/activate "behind the scenes without always
launching the Apple Script Editor app.
Have I saved the script wrong or something else?
Is the script something to be "run" through Apple Automator?
Any assistance will be appreciated.
This is the script:
tell application "Finder"
if not (exists the disk "LaCie 1TB") then
do shell script "diskutil mount `disktool -l | grep 'LaCie 1TB' |
sed 's/.\(disk[0-9s]*\)./\\1/'`"
delay 2
else
eject "LaCie 1TB"
delay 2
end if
end tell

Ah yes ... changing the Apple Script from .scpt to .app., that works!
But I still notice that when the LaCie d2 Quadra 1TB drive "front short-cut button"
is selected, and it mounts and dismounts the drive from the finder as the Apple Script
was written to do .... that the Apple script still launches the "script icon and the script saved text title", briefly in the bottom dock. It then disappears out of the dock once the script has "run".
Is there any way to keep the "script icon and the script saved text title" from launching in the dock (when the script first runs), and just have it launch invisibly "behind the scene" so to speak?

Help me! Airport and Applescript problem

Hi all!
I'm here for a very silly question. I need to activate a "computer-to-computer" airport connection
automatically.
I thought Applescript could help me.
The thing to do is to click OK in the dialog box that appears when you click "create network"
Here what I've done:
tell application "System Events"
tell process "SystemUIServer"
tell menu bar 1
tell menu bar item 1
click
tell menu 1
click menu item 7
tell window "Computer-to-Computer"
click button 1
end tell
end tell
end tell
end tell
end tell
end tell
The Dialog Window appears but Applescript return an error:
NSreceiverEvaluationScriptError:4
What I can do?
Please helpme to solve this small script!
Many thankks in advance and all the best
Paul

The "Computer-to-Computer" window isn't a part of the menu, so you need to take that statement out of the "tell menu bar" statement:
<pre style="
font-family: Monaco, 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;
font-size: 10px;
margin: 0px;
padding: 5px;
border: 1px solid #000000;
width: 720px;
color: #000000;
background-color: #FFDDFF;
overflow: auto;"
title="this text can be pasted into the Script Editor">
tell application "System Events" to tell process "SystemUIServer"
tell menu bar 1
set menu_extras to value of attribute "AXDescription" of menu bar items
repeat with the_menu from 1 to the count of menu_extras
if item the_menu of menu_extras is "Airport Menu Extra" then exit repeat
end repeat
tell menu bar item the_menu
click
delay 0.5
click menu item "Create Network…" of front menu
delay 0.5
end tell
end tell
click button "OK" of window "Computer-to-Computer"
end tell
</pre>
Note that the menu extra can change location and the number of items in it can vary.

AppleScript open and save file with Numbers

Hi all,
I need to save an Excel .xls file as an .xls file in order to break the links that are included in the original Excel file. Since Numbers doesn't have any actions for Automator, I hoped someone could help me writing an AppleScript?
It needs to open (Numbers) and all the .xls files that are added to a specific folder on my Mac, then save them to another folder as .xls (not .xlsx) and overwrite any existing files with same name. Since this all should work automatically, warnings and pop-ups that need a user to click an option are not allowed.
Didn't think this could be too hard, but I'm just a noob when it comes to AppleScript. Help?
Thanks in advance

Check the attributes of the <textarea> tag. You can use wrap="no" or wrap="virtual" or wrap="hard" to define how the text area handles carriage returns.
Brian

8 devices, one account, iTunes being difficult - help?

OK, here goes:
We have two MacBook Pros, two iPhone3G, one iPhone 3GS, one iPhone 4S, an iPod Nano (1st gen) and an AppleTV (1st Gen).
Home network is on a Time Capsule (3rd Gen), which has USB connections for drives/printers/etc. I have two USB drives available to use.
The laptops are our main computers, used for everything including entertainment.
The 3G phones are used as iPod Touches by the kids (little kids, no phone service for them yet).
The 3GS is my active phone and the 4S is my wife's.
iTunes is kept updated to current versions: with 10,000 or so songs, 120 movies, many TV shows, many podcasts... etc etc.
We originally had two iTunes accounts, one mine, one my wife's. A long time back before even adding the 4G and 3GS into this mix, we abandoned using my wife's account because iTunes will not let HER listen to what I buy, and vice versa, becuase of the idiotic rules of purchase/licencing. So we have been just using my account for a long time. We have also been forced to sync the AppleTV to my laptop.
All this adds up to my laptop having to 'host' all the data for all the devices, which must all sync with it. This is a huge pain in my a*s, takes up a lot of my disk storage, and it seems dumb as dirt that we must use such an awkward method to use all of our devices.
Please note: I AM NOT GOING TO PAY TO USE 'THE CLOUD'. I have plenty of storage space of my own, thanks, and I don't need to pay subscription fees just to do what I can already do remotely - get to my data at home from elsewhere....
So here's what I hope to find out here in the support community:
Based on the equipment listed, and assuming I can manage configuring stuff (or will ask how),
1) Can I put the iTunes 'library' and data (the actual files) on a USB drive attached to the Time Capsule? {If Y goto A, if N goto 2.}
A) If yes to (1), can I then use iTunes from BOTH laptops and access this SINGLE library (assuming they both use the same iTunes account info)?
B) If yes to (1), can each laptop sync whatever device it wants to?
C) Can the AppleTV be told to sync itself to the library without iTunes running on a laptop? (Don't care if I need to hack it to do this, warranty is over)
2) If I cannot put the library and the files on a remote drive, HOW THE **** can I achieve this sort of functionality:
Access one library and one set of files from both laptops, sync any device from either laptop.
(Access WITHOUT having to have BOTH laptops on the same network, 'awake', and running iTunes)
BTW - "Home Sharing" does not seem to let me do anything more than "see" my library from my wife's laptop - useless for our needs unlessI'm missing something there. Seems to be set up for letting to teens access each others music.

Nixt wrote:
1) Can I put the iTunes 'library' and data (the actual files) on a USB drive attached to the Time Capsule? {If Y goto A, if N goto 2.}
Yes.
Nixt wrote:
A) If yes to (1), can I then use iTunes from BOTH laptops and access this SINGLE library (assuming they both use the same iTunes account info)?
Yes, but... the two iTunes will not necessarily automatically stay in sync. If music is added to the iTunes library of one computer that same music will need to be manually added to the iTunes library of the other computer. However you may be able find some scripts at Doug's AppleScripts to help keep things up to date.
Nixt wrote:
B) If yes to (1), can each laptop sync whatever device it wants to?
No. iOS devices and iPods can only be synced with one computer at a time. However one computer can sync to an unlimited number of iOS devices or iPods.
Nixt wrote:
C) Can the AppleTV be told to sync itself to the library without iTunes running on a laptop? (Don't care if I need to hack it to do this, warranty is over)
No. iTunes must be running for the ATV to sync.
You might want to think about getting a refurbished Mac Mini and making it your central media server. That would dramatically simplify your setup.

Applescript to add a note to multiple contacts

Hi
I wonder if someone well versed in Applescript could help me with this?
For each contact, I need to add their group names to the existing notes field, something like this:
Groups: Work, Christmas card
Why do I want to? Because I am moving to Kerio Mail Server but it has an unfortunate issue that it loses group memberships when syncing address book. I can work round this for now if I store the group memberships in the notes field - but I need to update all my existing contacts.
Can anyone help?
TIA

Try this:tell application "Address Book"
set r to display dialog "Do you want to change all people or just the selected people?" buttons {"All", "Selected"} default button "Selected"
if the button returned of r is "Selected" then
set thePeople to selection
else
set thePeople to people
end if
repeat with aPerson in thePeople
set oldNotes to note of aPerson
set theGroups to {}
repeat with aGroup in (groups whose people contains aPerson)
set theGroups to theGroups & (name of aGroup)
end repeat
if theGroups is not {} then
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ", "
if oldNotes is not missing value then
set note of aPerson to oldNotes & return & "Groups: " & (theGroups as string)
else
set note of aPerson to "Groups: " & (text items of theGroups as string)
end if
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to " "
end if
end repeat
save addressbook
end tell
It will ask if you want to do all or just selected contacts.
I don't know how long it will take to go through each contact. I only tested the "Selected" part as I didn't want to have to fix my entire address book.
Now, if you export them all to vCards, Address Book adds the groups to "CATEGORIES:" on the vCard. I don't know if you can make use of that, instead. Can you define anything on the import, like map Categories to some field in Kerio?

A sample AppleScript and some technical observations on Photos

Hi,
While I've had my own fair share of issues with Photos, I'm overall very happy with it. But I have noticed some quirks, so I thought I'd share them and also share an AppleScript I wrote to help out on some other discussions.
Don't add a KeyWord to more than 1,000 photos at a time as a precaution. Photos crashed when I tried a huge huge number! And it didn't recover, so good job I use Time Machine religiously.I've found KeyWord updates in chunks of around 750 to be the best optimum
Talking of Time Machine, I'd noticed that it doesn't backup the database files. I was going to try and research this, but when I lost 80% of my library (see point 1 above), it restored just fine.
After restoring, and starting Photos, it displays a message knowing it has been restored, and does some re-building of the database. But it was a perfect copy. So, kudos to Apple for at least not losing me my library!
On the two occasions in my life I have had to restore (one with iPhoto and the recent one with Photos), I find that the restore in Time Machine takes forever. So, I heartedly recommend this tip to use terminal to restore the library. With a USB3 hard drive, I restored an 85 GB library in around 25 minutes. Stack Exchange
Smart Albums are not visible to AppleScript
When changing or adding a title to an item in Photos, the change is not written to the database until you close Photos. Might be a good idea to close and reopen often if you are doing this much.
I got loads of duplicates when I converted my iPhoto Library. It was a combination of a sync problem I had with PhotoStream and thousands of Zombie files that were hidden in my iPhoto package and imported into Photos during the conversion.
I've been playing with AppleScript to help me tidy up my library. I wrote one script for another discussion, but I share it here, because it will give those that use AppleScript as an amateur (like myself) some clues on how to get a media item and do something with it.The documentation says that you can also process moments, but I haven't got that far yet!
I'll share the script and link in a separate post to make it easier to read!

I've been playing with AppleScript to help me tidy up my library. I wrote one script for another discussion, but I share it here, because it will give those that use AppleScript as an amateur (like myself) some clues on how to get a media item and do something with it. The documentation says that you can also process moments, but I haven't got that far yet!
There are some scripts about that use "get selection" but I have found this to be very buggy... as has the developer of Duplicate Annihilator. So, I recommend that you add the photos you want to process into an album and then use AppleScript on that album. Note: Applescript will not process SmartAlbums. You can use a SmartAlbum to get the selection of items you want... and then select all and add to a temporary album for AppleScript to use.
You can download this script from dropbox here, but I've also pasted the script below:
I personally don't run this script as an application or service... I prefer to open it in Script Editor and just hit run (or CMD/R). Make sure you have Photos open - I haven't put any checks in the script to wait for the app to open and be available to AppleScript.
Final warning: something odd about Photos: If you change the title of an item (either manually or with this script) it will not get written to the Photos database until you close the application. So, if you have changed any titles in preparation for running this script, make sure you close and reopen Photos. Also, if you are going to re-process any items that this script processed, you should as a precaution also close and reopen Photos. (BTW, for keywords, this is not a problem. They get written immediately.
-- Photos Filename to Title V1.0
-- Nic Fletcher - 17 April 2015
-- For a given album in a given folder, check if the image / video has a title
-- If not, make the title the same as the file name
-- NOTE: Photos does NOT write titles to the database (or at least so AppleScript
-- can see) until the application is closed. So, even after running the script
-- where you will see the new Titles displayed, if you re-run the script it will
-- reprocess the items. So always CLOSE and REOPEN if you have played with titles
-- before running this script.
tell application "Photos"
     -- Album name you want to process. You could use a temp album at the top
     -- level, and then you won't need to change the script every time
     set albName to "Test Album"
     -- If the albName is at the top level in Photos (i.e. not in a folder) then set this
     -- to "True" - Set it to false to allow the script to fidn the album in a folder.
     -- NOTE: This particular script will not process multiple levels in folders.
     set topLevel to false
     -- If the albName is in a folder (only one deep), set the name of the folder
     -- here and make sure the topLevel varaiable is set to "False"
     set albParent to "iPhoto Events"
     if topLevel is false then
           if exists container albName of container albParent then
                 set myContainer to container albName of container albParent
                 --display dialog "SecondLevel Variable set"
           else
                 display dialog "Folder or Album doesn't exist - Exiting" buttons ¬
                       "OK" with icon caution default button "OK"
                 return
           end if
     else
           if exists container albName then
                 set myContainer to container albName
                 --display dialog "TopLevel variable set"
           else
                 display dialog "Album doesn't exist - Exiting" buttons ¬
                       "OK" with icon caution default button "OK"
                 return
           end if
     end if
     set myCount to count of media items in myContainer
     display dialog "About to process " & myCount & " item(s) in the container" as text
     set n to 0
     repeat with img in every media item of myContainer
           set title to the name of img
           if (count of title) = 0 then -- See comment about bug at bottom
                 set the name of img to the filename of img
                 set n to n + 1
           end if
     end repeat
     display dialog n & " item(s) were processed" as text
end tell
-- Photos bug: If a title or keyword is deleted, Photos till thinks one exists!
-- So, need to count the number of characters to determine if it exists.
-- If a title or keyword never existed in Photos, then it will return not existing

Applescript programers help!

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