Applescript with Mail attachments and shell scripts (pdftk)

Question

I'm trying to create a script that I can call using mail rules that will:
1. save an attached PDF file to a folder (folder name is 'PDFs_from_Mail:')
2. save each page of the PDF as a separate file
3. delete the old file
so far, i used the script below called from mail to save the attachments to the
-- script called from mail
using terms from application"Mail"
  onperform mail action with messages theMessages
    tell application"Finder" to set ptd to (path to desktopfolder) as string
    tell application"Finder" to set pathToAttachments to(path to desktop folder as string) &"PDFs_from_Mail:"
    tell application"Mail"
       repeatwith theMessage in theMessages
            if theMessage's mailattachments is not {} then
                  repeatwith theAttachment in theMessage's mailattachments
                        settheFileName to pathToAttachments & theAttachment's name
                        try
                                 save theAttachment in theFileName
                          onerror errnum
                        endtry
                  endrepeat
            end if
         endrepeat
      end tell
  endperform mail action with messages
end usingterms from
tell application"Mail"
    setmyMessages to selection
    tellme to perform mail action with messages myMessages
end tell
-- end of script called from mail
after the file is in the folder, i'd like to automatically call a script that splits it in to pages and saves each file.  I found pdftk can do what I need.  I got the following working, which uses a folder action script to process the file:
-- burst script
on addingfolder items to this_folder after receiving added_items
   tellapplication "Finder"
       set fold_name tothe name of this_folder
           try
               repeatwith i from 1 to number ofitems in added_items
                      set theFile toitem i of added_items
                      set oldDelimiters toAppleScript's text item delimiters
                      set AppleScript's textitem delimiters to {":"}
                      set theFolder to(((text items 1 thru ((count everytext item of (theFile asstring)) -1)) of (theFile asstring))) as string
                      set AppleScript's textitem delimiters to oldDelimiters
                            --get the file name
                               set theFileName to the name of theFile
                                                 do shell script"/usr/local/bin/pdftk " & (POSIX path oftheFile) & " burst output " & (POSIXpath of theFolder) & "/" & theFileName &"_%03d.pdf"
                                                  delete theFile
                                                endrepeat
                                    end try
                     endtell
end adding folder items to
-- end burst script
the shell script that is called is in the format:
pdftk myfile.pdf burst
the output parameter basically adds the page number to the end of the original filename for each file that is created
my idea was to attach the folder action script to the 'PDFs_from_Mail' folder, and when the first script is called, the file would be saved to that folder and trigger the folder action script burst the file.  it works for individual messages, but when I try using it with the hundreds of messages that I have, all kinds of crazy things happen... the filenames are all wrong and it seems like it goes on infinitely.
My familiarity with applescript is somewhat limited (as you may have guessed) and I'm wondering if there is a better approach.  perhaps if I incorporate the shell script into the script called from mail it may streamline everything.
my problem is that I am not sure what code I need to keep in each script.
can anyone take a quick look at this and give me some advice?
my goal is to have these individual pages in a folder so that I can use quick view to page through them.  if the pdf is more than one page, then I have to get involved in scrolling up/down and it becomes difficult to find things efficiently.
thanks!

Answer 1

just a quick update and a general questions about applescripting with shell scripts...
i attached the above folder action burst script to a folder, and have been dragging pdf files into it, one at a time.
sometimes the script runs fine and the new files are created and the old pdf is deleted.  other times, there is a long delay between when I drop a pdf file into the folder and when the new files are created.  and sometimes nothing even happens at all (uaually if i dont wait for at least 30 seconds or so between dropping the files in the folder).  I also noticed that the window title text (area showing the folder name at the top of the finder window) becomes grayed out when the script is running and sometimes it remains grayed out for a few minutes after the script has run.
could it be that the shell script just takes a really long time to work?  i am afraid to drop more than one file at a time as the last time I tried that the output was all wrong and I had to force quit processes and shut down.