Batch convert to ascii using text wrangler

Question

I am trying to create an Apple script using Text Wrangler to do batch conversions of 8 bit to 7 bit plain text files. My current approach using Automator is:
1. Get specified Finder items
2. Get Folder contents
3. then run the Apple script to convert.
I recorded the actions and tried to modifiy the script but don't really know what I am doing. Here is what I have.
on run {input, parameters}
tell application "TextWrangler"
activate
repeat
convert to ASCII text of text document with replacing target
close {text document} saving yes
end repeat
end tell
return input
end run
I am not sure how to represent the name for the "generic" file in batch mode and also how to make sure it repeats through the entire folder. I know this is basic stuff, hope someone can help.
It is fine to convert, save, then close. Not worried about preserving the original.
Thanks ahead of time

Answer 1

Well, I downloaded TextWrangler 2.2.1 and tried to test this out. From what I can tell from Bare Bones's website, BBEdit would have Automator actions for this and the files wouldn't need to be opened individually. Though, that would cost a bit more than TextWrangler.
Anyways, since you're using Automator, getting the files has been simplified and so all you need to do is repeat it for each file. Here's the slight modification:
<pre>on run {input, parameters}
tell application "TextWrangler"
activate
repeat with this_file in input
open this_file
convert to ASCII text of text document 1 with replacing target
close {text document 1} saving yes
end repeat
end tell
return input
end run</pre>
I named the variable "this_file" to represent each of the files in the list it receives, but you can name it anything. If you use Automator's "View Results" before the "Run AppleScript" action, then you can see what is being passed into it. It seems like you need the "1" after "text document" because the windows in TextWrangler can have more than one document, even if you only have one document open at a time.
Since you have to have TextWrangler open, you could probably adjust the script to open all the files at once and then iterate through the contents of each. But it pretty much would do the same thing.
I couldn't figure out if anything was actually changing in the documents (i.e. does it look like 7-bit or 8-bit? don't know), but I did confirm the text of each document was being passed to the "convert to ASCII". So, it must be doing whatever it's doing.
(Oh, just for reference, the "return input" part of the script at the end sends the stuff in "input" to the next action. In this case, the "input" contains a list of files from the previous action, so returning that passes that list to the next action. This means you can do more to the files. Keep this in mind if you replace whatever is in "input" directly, for example setting "input" to the number 7 or something like that. You can also create some other variable and return that instead.)