Changing background via apple script

Hello,
I manage a small deployment of different macintosh products and I currently have to run 5 different images so that the background images look right on all the various resolutions. I have been working on a piece of applescript to prompt the user on first startup to select their hardware type to apply the proper background image but I am running into a few issues.
Firstly the method I am using limits me to three options and I cant seem to find any documentation on how the list function works.
Second, I keep getting errors saying the files can't be found.
Here is the code (with personal details removed) that I am working with
display dialog "Choose your hardware type" buttons {"17MBP", "15MBP", "iMac21"}
set situation to the button returned of the result
tell application "Finder"
set desktop picture to {"MacOSX:Users:USERNAME:Technical:Backgroundimages:" & situation & ".gif"} as alias
end tell
I would really like it to automatically detect the hardware type but I don't think that is possible. The error I currently get says:
error "File MacOSX:Users:USERNAME:Technical:Backgroundimages:15MBP.gif wasn’t found." number -43 from "MacOSX:Users:eventequipment:Technical:Backgroundimages:15MBP.gif"

Applescript panels are limited to three buttons. if you need more than three choices, use the choose from list command:
choose from list {"alpha", "beta", "gamma", "delta", "epsilon"}
however, you ought to be able to gather the information you need without user interaction. you can base a choice on machine type using code like the following:
set machineType to paragraph 6 of (do shell script "system_profiler SPHardwareDataType")
if machineType ends with "MacbookPro2,2" or machineType ends with "…" then
          set situation to "MBP15"
else if machineType ends with "…" or machineType ends with "…" then
          set situation to "MBP17"
else if machineType ends with "…" or machineType ends with "…" then
          set situation to "iMac21"
else
-- set default or throw error
end if
or it might be more convenient to base it on screen resolution using something like the following
set displaySize to paragraph 17 of (do shell script "system_profiler SPDisplaysDataType")
if displaySize ends with "1440 x 900" then
          set situation to "MBP15"
else if displaySize ends with "…" or displaySize ends with "…" then
          set situation to "MBP17"
else if displaySize ends with "…" or displaySize ends with "…" then
          set situation to "iMac21"
else
-- set default or throw error
end if

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Automatic graphic switch via Apple Script

hi community,
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click checkbox 2
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quit

Hello
You may try this. It works with MacBook Pro 2010 under 10.6.5.
tell application "System Preferences"
    set current pane to pane id "com.apple.preference.energysaver"
end tell
tell application "System Events"
    tell process "System Preferences"
        tell window 1
            tell group 1 -- automatic graphics switching
                tell checkbox 1 -- automatic graphics switching
                    click
                end tell
            end tell
        end tell
    end tell
end tell
And the script below will set the option to the specified value.
set_automatic_graphics_switching(0)
on set_automatic_graphics_switching(i)
        integer i : status of automatic graphics switching
            0 : off (unchecked)
            1 : on    (checked)
    if i is not in {0, 1} then error "Invalid argument: " & i number 8000
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        set _was_running to running
        set current pane to pane id "com.apple.preference.energysaver"
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    tell application "System Events"
        tell process "System Preferences"
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H

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How do I get my messages to come through on my ipad Via my mobile number? They always used to but I've had to change all my Apple ID if that has anything to do with it? In iMessages it will only take an email address!

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the following should work then
<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: #ADD8E6;
overflow: auto;"
title="this text can be pasted into the Script Editor">
on run {input, parameters}
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repeat with cur_file in input
set fname to (name of (get info for cur_file) as text)
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Apple Script/Program start through link on HTML page

Dear Apple Gurus
Probably I'm asking something silly, but I don't know any other way to solve my problem.
I have to do some training videos about the finder and system tools. To have it easy, I would like to ad some buttons to the project where you can start an apple script which does execute some commands just explained in the video. Untill know I'm intend to do the hole thing inside QT but maybe a HTML page does the job too.
My problem is now, how can I start a AppleScript out of a Movie or HTML page.
Is this possible at all or are there any other solutions to to the job?
Best regards
Thomas Thaler

Hi Thomas,
Yes, you play movies in a smil presentation.
You can define as many regions as you want. You difine regions in the layout:
<layout>
<root-layout background-color="blue" width="320" height="290"/>
<region id="videoregion" top="0" left="0" width="320" height="240" fit="meet"/>
<region id="textregion" top="240" left="0" width="320" height="30"/>
<region id="linkregion" top="270" left="0" width="320" height="20"/>
</layout>
I got part of this from the internet, but here's a quick explanation. The root-layout part defines the whole area. Within this area you have regions. The first region defines the video region and you can give it any id. The origin of the screen is upper-left. fit="meet" means the the movie will be proportional to fit the whole movie. You can change it to other parameters (read the link from the last post). So here, three regions are defined. The first is for the movie (I used a slideshow from iPhoto), the second is for captions in the middle, and the third region is for the link region at the bottom of the screen. You can use any region as a link. Within these regions you place your movies, text, etc. (see the link for more types).
You next place your types in the body:
<body>
<par>

<video src="slideshow.mov" region="videoregion" id="mov"/>

<textstream src="caption.txt" region="textregion" system-language="en" system-captions="on" title="english captions" alt="english captions"/>
(a href="file://localhost/Users/kel/Desktop/linkapp" show="new")
<text src="text.txt" region="linkregion" end="id(mov)(end)"/>
(/a)
</par>
</body>
video src says what type of object, slideshow.mov is the name of my movie. If you place the movie in the same folder as the smil file, you can use just its name like I did. Then you enter what region you want the movie in. The id="mov" part is to give this video a reference for later use. I used it to keep the text in the link area running until the movie ended. You don't need captions if you don't want, but if you do here's an example of my captions.txt file:
{QTtext} {font: Arial} {justify: center} {size: 12} {backcolor:0, 0, 0} {timescale: 30} {width: 320} {height: 60}
[00:00:00.00]
Kelvin: Here is my movie.
[00:00:04.15]
{justify:left} {italic} Here is more text. {plain}
[00:00:07.04]
After 4 15/30 seconds the text changes.
So altogether, I had five files in the same folder: the smil file (slidshow.smil - plain text), the movie (slideshow.mov), the caption text (caption.txt - plain text), and the text file for the link region's text (text.txt - plain text). The script application was on my desktop:
"file://localhost/Users/kel/Desktop/linkapp"
It's easy to get a local file url through applescript:
set f to choose file -- the script app
tell application "Finder"
set the_url to url of f
end tell
and the the local file url is returned in the result.
The movie needs work. I was playing around with the colors. blue is not a good background color.
One thing I forgot to say is that you need to read more about the timing (duration). There are a lot of examples and tutorials on the Internet also. It's not that hard though. One thing you might have trouble with is getting repeats to work. I don't think they do.
gl,

Help with moving contact info using Apple Script in Address Book

Hi folks,
I wonder if someone can help? I imported a few hundred contacts via a Gmail created vCard into my Address Book. The problem is that instead of inserting the email addresses into one of the email fields for each record, it has inserted the email address into the Notes field as follows: "EmailAddress: [email protected]".
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Thanks in advance,
ayworld

This should work:
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activate
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Normally when I post an AppleScript like this I tell the user to test it out before using it on the actual data but in this case I don;t know how you'd do that given there is only one Contacts and only one Contacts database.
Just make sure you have a backup just in case. I tried it here on some dummy entries in my Contacts and it worked OK.
Again this totaly relies on the data you presented. The Notes field has to be in the format
EmailAddress:[email protected]
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regards
Message was edited by: Frank Caggiano - If you select all the text in the box, then right click and select Make new AppleScript the script will open in the AppleScript editor. Just make sure you get all the text it is easy to drop the first or last char when selecting.

Apple script hang up

When i run an applescript it does it's job (runs a shell script) but then hangs up and i have to force quit it. Is there a shell script or apple script i could run to tell it to force quit without knowing the number of the running process? This is as i would like to not have to find out the process id number each time i run the script as it changes each time...
thanks - 7;^')

There are two elements here.
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Changing background via apple script

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