Trying to close an Entourage event window

Question

Hi
My overall task is to open an entourage event window, change the Status to 'Out of Office' and then close the window. I can open the window, I can change the status (by allowing UI scripting and setting a specific key combination for the out of office setting). But then I have problems closing the window ie I can't do it.
I have tried a number of different approaches which seem to work as code fragments but when I embed them in my main code they do not work. My guess is that I am losing focus on the window somehow without realising it - or knowing how to keep focus.
Below is the code I have used (in full in case I am doing something dumb far away from my problem area):
<pre style="
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title="this text can be pasted into a text editor">
tell application "Microsoft Entourage"
activate
set theSelection to selection --current messages
-- if there are no messages selected, warn the user and then quit
if (count of theSelection) is 0 then
display dialog "Please select an event before running this script." with icon 1
return
end if
display dialog "How long is the travel time (mins)?" default answer "60"
set travelDuration to (text returned of the result) + 0
if travelDuration = 0 then
display dialog "No travel time specified." with icon 1
return
end if
repeat with theMessage in theSelection
if class of theMessage is not event then
display dialog "Please only pick events when running this script." with icon 1
return
end if
-- This only works on events which are not recurring, so don't even do anything if they do recur
if recurring of theMessage is true then
display dialog "This facility only works with events which are not recurring." with icon 1
return
end if
-- get the information from the message, and store it in variables
set theName to "Travel"
set meetingStart to start time of theMessage
set meetingEnd to end time of theMessage
set beforeTravelStartTime to meetingStart - (travelDuration * minutes) as Unicode text
set beforeTravelEndTime to meetingStart as Unicode text
-- create travel event for before the meeting
set newBeforeEvent to make new event with properties {subject:theName, content:theContent, start time:date beforeTravelStartTime, end time:date beforeTravelEndTime, remind time:5, free busy status:busy}
open newBeforeEvent
tell application "System Events" to keystroke "O" using {command down, shift down, option down}
tell application "System Events" to keystroke "S" using {command down, shift down}
--tell application "System Events" to perform action "press" of menu item "Close" of menu 1 of menu bar item "File" of menu bar 1
--perform  action "close" to  frontmost window of application "Microsoft Entourage"
tell application "System Events" to click button 4 of window 1
close newBeforeEvent saving yes
tell application "System Events"
tell process "Microsoft Entourage"
click button 4 of window 1 -- close the window by pressing its close button
end tell
end tell
tell application "System Events"
tell process "Microsoft Entourage"
keystroke "W" using {command down}
end tell
end tell
end repeat
end tell
</pre>
At the bottom, and in comments, are two other ways I have attempted to get this to work.
Any thoughts very gratefully received.
Graeme

Answer 1

This will not work if you get one of those time popups... alarms goes off.
Seems to work for me. Not sure exactly what is your goal.
don't know how you got all the modifiers on your key strokes. The key strokes are listed in the menu pull downs. Key presses are in lower case. Just as you would type in finder. Try keys to see if you get the correct key combo. Well, keys are documented as upper case in pulldowns, but that isn't correct.
This stuff isn't documented well or good.
Robert
tell application "Microsoft Entourage"
   activate
   set theSelection to selection --current messages
   -- if there are no messages selected, warn the user and then quit
   if (count of theSelection) is 0 then
      display dialog "Please select an event before running this script." with icon 1
      return
   end if
   display dialog "How long is the travel time (mins)?" default answer "60"
   set travelDuration to (text returned of the result) + 0
   if travelDuration = 0 then
      display dialog "No travel time specified." with icon 1
      return
   end if
   repeat with theMessage in theSelection
      if class of theMessage is not event then
         display dialog "Please only pick events when running this script." with icon 1
         return
      end if
      -- This only works on events which are not recurring, so don't even do anything if they do recur
      if recurring of theMessage is true then
         display dialog "This facility only works with events which are not recurring." with icon 1
         return
      end if
      -- get the information from the message, and store it in variables
      set theName to "Travel"
      set meetingStart to start time of theMessage
      set meetingEnd to end time of theMessage
      set beforeTravelStartTime to meetingStart - (travelDuration * minutes) as Unicode text
      set beforeTravelEndTime to meetingStart as Unicode text
      set theContent to "Travel time"
      -- create travel event for before the meeting
      set newBeforeEvent to make new event with properties {subject:theName, content:theContent, start time:date beforeTravelStartTime, end time:date beforeTravelEndTime, remind time:5, free busy status:busy}
      open newBeforeEvent
      tell application "System Events"
         tell process "Microsoft Entourage"
            --keystroke "o" using {command down, shift down, option down}
            keystroke "s" using {command down}
            --tell application "System Events" to perform action "press" of menu item "Close" of menu 1 of menu bar item "File" of menu bar 1
            --perform  action "close" to  frontmost window of application "Microsoft Entourage"
            delay 5
            beep 5
            say "pressing w key"
            keystroke "w" using {command down}
         end tell
      end tell
      --close newBeforeEvent saving yes
   end repeat
end tell