Limiting time that an applescript application can remain open

Question

I've written a short program to allow me to rapidly access and automatically logon to a number of servers that I frequently use. I got help from kel on setting up a user authentication requirement (in case I'm not at my computer) and have set up the window to close each time I select a server to mount (application remains open). I now am wondering if I could include a loop that will let the application remain open for 2-5 minutes (allows me to mount several servers with only one login for transfers etc.,) before automatically shutting down. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
intel mac mini   Mac OS X (10.4.8)  

Answer 1

Hi jar2005,
I'm not sure what you want to do, but you can usually use an idle handler for stuff dealing with time.
global target_date, delay_time
on run
set delay_time to 5 -- seconds
set target_date to (current date) + 5 * minutes
end run
on idle
set current_date to (current date)
if current_date > target_date then
set delay_time to 1
quit
else
-- do whatever
beep 1
end if
return delay_time
end idle
When you first run the script it initializes a delay time of 5 seconds and a target for quitting of 5 minutes from the time the scirpt is run. After it exits the run handler, it starts idling for 5 seconds on each run until 5 minutes has passed. Then it quits. You save idle handlers as stay open script application. You can use a repeat loop also, but the idle handler gives up the cpu during the delay.
I'm not sure if you wanted the script to wait or continue getting user input. If you mean that you want a dialog to quit, then you can use the 'giving up after' parameter.
display dialog "Enter something:" default answer "" giving up after 10
this dialog will wait for 10 seconds before closing. Note that you can find out if it gave up and have the script quit right there.
gl,