How do I add text to a new BBEdit document at creation? - applescript

Question

I open a lot of new documents in Textwrangler/BBedit and I would like them to always have the date printed at the top. I would like this to be automatic so that I don't have to remember to run a script each time.
I'm new to BBEdit but I really like Textwrangler and have used it for years. I read some of the documentation on BB and I think that attaching some Applescript to an event might be the way to go. However, none of the listed events seem quite right, and I don't really want to add dates to existing documents.
I found the following page which was a good starting point:
http://bbeditextras.org/wiki/index.php?title=Scripting_and_Automation
I also found these relevant hooks from the BB docs:
App attachment points
applicationDidFinishLaunching: called when the application has completed
startup.
applicationShouldQuit: called when you choose the Quit (or the application
receives a ‘quit’ event for any other reason).
applicationDidQuit: called when the application has finished shutting down and is about to exit.
applicationDidSwitchIn: called when BBEdit has been brought to the foreground.
applicationWillSwitchOut: called when BBEdit is being put into the background.
Document attachment points
documentDidOpen: called when a document has been opened and is ready for use. (Since BBEdit supports multiple types of documents, your script should allow for the argument to be a document of any type.)
documentShouldClose: called when the application is preparing to close a
document.
documentDidClose: called when the application has closed a document.
documentShouldSave: called when the application is trying to determine whether a given document should be saved.
documentWillSave: called when the application is about to begin saving a
document. (note that this will only be called after a successful return from a
‘documentShouldSave’.
documentDidSave: called after a document has been saved successfully.
documentWillUnlock: called when BBEdit is going to make a document writeable. (For example, when you click the pencil to unlock a document)
documentDidUnlock: called when BBEdit has successfully made a document
writeable.
documentWillLock: called when BBEdit is going to make a document read-only.
documentDidLock: called when BBEdit has successfully made a document readonly.
I don't know if any of those really fit, though. I could also try adding some scripts into the startup folder, but I'm not sure how I would go about say, adding a date to all open documents. I've never done applescript before so it's a little trial and error.
I have this code that I've tried running by itself, and it works fine:
tell application "BBEdit"
tell text window 1
select insertion point after (last character)
set selection to ((current date) as string)
end tell
end tell
I'm just a little lost as to how to get the above code to execute on file creation.

Answer 1

Open Script Editor and paste the following code in a new script document:
use BBEdit : application "BBEdit"
use scripting additions
on documentDidOpen(doc)
set n to the doc's name
set t to the doc's text as string
if n does not start with "untitled text" then return
if t's length > 0 then return
set the contents of the doc to (the (current date) as text) ¬
& linefeed & linefeed
end documentDidOpen
Save it as type script (extension .scpt), and name it Document.documentDidOpen.scpt. Either save it directly, or move it subsequently, to the folder ~/Library/Application Support/BBEdit/Attachment Scripts/; if the folder doesn't exist, create it.
Restarting BBEdit ought not to be necessary, but also couldn't hurt. Now, whenever you create a new document (of any type), it will be headed with the current date and time.

Answer 2

Try using BBEdit's 'Attaching Scripts to Menu Items' feature (p 295 of the v11 User Manual). In a nutshell, if you save a script to the Menu Scripts folder with a name based on the menu/command, then this script will run when that menu item is selected. So in your scenario:
Save the script below to BBEdit's Menu Scripts folder with the filename 'New•Text Document'.
tell application "BBEdit"
set cDate to ((current date) as text)
make new document with properties {contents:cDate}
end tell
As an aside, you can generally avoid using selection with the insertion point, for example:
tell document 1 of application "BBEdit" to set text of ¬
first insertion point of text 1 to ((current date) as text)
In your second 'question' scenario, you could probably cycle through all existing windows with that, for example:
tell application "BBEdit"
set tdCount to count of text documents
repeat with i from 1 to tdCount
set text of first insertion point of text 1 of ¬
text document i to ((current date) as text) & linefeed
end repeat
end tell