Help with download script

Question

Greetings all. Fairly new to scripting but I built the below script to automatically download a file and print it. It works, but what I want to do is eventually turn it into an .app that will run on a schedule (determined by the user). I'm not quite there yet, but what I haven't been able to figure out is how to set a default save location so that once the dialog box asks for the first save location for the file, it will remember that instead of asking every time the script runs (that way when it runs when it is scheduled there is no human input needed). Does this mean i need to run two scrips or can I use an "if then" statement that I haven't figured out. Lastly, if I want to turn it into an app, what's the best way, xcode?
I pasted the script below. Thanks for the help!
set d to ((do shell script "date '+%b%d%y'") & ".puz")
set Puz to "http:[website]" & d
set dest to (choose file name default location (path to desktop) default name d)
do shell script "/usr/bin/curl " & Puz & " -o " & quoted form of POSIX path of dest
delay 5
tell application "[App]"
activate
open (dest & d)
delay 2
tell application "System Events"
keystroke "p" using command down
delay 8 -- (seconds)
keystroke return
delay 8 -- (seconds)
keystroke return
delay 8 -- (seconds)
keystroke return
end tell
delay 30
quit
end tell
Message was edited by: cloongoon

Answer 1

If you want to save data between executions of your app you have two basic approaches.
One is to store a property in your app - the property can be treated like any other variable, except that its value is retained when the app executes/restarts.
The other approach is to write the data out to a file - kind of how any other app would save its own preference/settings data.
Of the two, the property approach is the easier. Just declare a property at the beginning of your script:
property dest:missing value
This will declare dest as a property with an initial value of missing value (essentially null or blank). Your script can now check this variable, and set it to new values, and whatever its value is when the script exits will be saved.
So all you need now is to check the property to see whether it's been defined or not:
if dest = missing value then
  -- value has never been set, so set it:
  set dest to (choose file name default location (path to desktop) default name d)
end if
Of course, you might want to consider the case where the user wants to change the value - that's not so easy to do
if I want to turn it into an app, what's the best way, xcode?
XCode is the way to go if you want your app to have its own user interface, windows, buttons, widgets, etc. If all you're doing is driving some other app to do your work then saving the script as an app (via File -> Save As... in AppleScript Editor) should do the trick.