Selecting POSIX file based on file name - applescript

I'm having trouble accessing this file while trying to select it on the beginning characters basis...
set location to "/Users/myuser/Desktop/"
set bom to POSIX file (location & (first file of location whose name begins with "thisFile"))
tell application "Preview" to open bom
is it path/alias vs text type of a thing?

Only System Events and the Finder know what a file in the file system is.
The Finder has a property desktop which points always to the desktop of the current user.
tell application "Finder" to set bom to first file of desktop whose name begins with "thisFile"
tell application "Preview" to open (bom as alias)
Or with an arbitrary POSIX path
set location to POSIX file "/Users/myuser/Desktop" as text
tell application "Finder" to set bom to first file of folder location whose name begins with "thisFile"
tell application "Preview" to open (bom as alias)
The alias coercion is needed because Preview doesn't recognize Finder file specifier objects.

vadian's answer works well, but it's worth mentioning that:
you can get access to well-known folders even in the default context, outside the context of System Events and Finder; e.g.:
path to desktop
path to home folder
Use, e.g., POSIX path of (path to home folder) to get the POSIX path.
using context System Events is usually preferable to the Finder context, for reasons of both performance and predictability.
With an arbitrary target folder, using a POSIX path:
tell application "System Events"
set targetFolder to alias "/Users/jdoe/Desktop"
# equivalent of: set targetFolder to (path to desktop)
set targetFile to first file of targetFolder whose name starts with "thisFile"
end tell
tell application "Preview" to open targetFile
Alternatively, if you know your way around the shell, you could try:
set targetFilePosixPath to do shell script "fls=(~/Desktop/*.pdf); printf %s \"$fls\""
tell application "Preview" to open (POSIX file targetFilePosixPath as alias)

Related

AppleScript - Copy All files/folders from source folder to destination folder

I'm trying to write an AppleScript that will simply copy the contents (both folders and files) from a specified source folder to a specified destination folder. At the moment my script runs but only copies one file and I can't work out how to get it to copy all files in the folder.
Here's my script:
set sourceFolder to (POSIX file "/Users/benny/Desktop/Projects/Source/Project1") as alias
set destinationFolder to (POSIX file "/Users/benny/Documents/Masters/Project1") as alias
tell application "System Events"
set availableSourceFiles to every file of sourceFolder whose visible is true
set filesOfTargetFolder to files of destinationFolder whose visible is true
end tell
-- if no more source file is available, quit this script
if (count of availableSourceFiles) = 0 then
quit
end if
set sourceFile to (first item of availableSourceFiles) as alias
-- use the Finder to copy the file
tell application "Finder"
-- duplicate the file to the target folder
duplicate sourceFile to destinationFolder
end tell
I'm assuming I need to include a for each type loop but can't get the syntax correct here. Haven't written AppleScripts in many years so trying to remember how it all works.
If the destination "Project1" folder doesn't have stuff in it already, then duplicating the folder is likely to be quicker:
tell application id "com.apple.Finder" to duplicate folder POSIX file ¬
"/Users/benny/Desktop/Projects/Source/Project1" to the folder ¬
POSIX file "/Users/benny/Documents/Masters" with replacing
However, if that's not an option, then I'd stick with your method and copy the contents of the folder across instead:
set here to POSIX file "/Users/benny/Desktop/Projects/Source/Project1"
set there to POSIX file "/Users/benny/Documents/Masters"
tell application id "com.apple.Finder" to duplicate ¬
every item in the folder here to there
Bear in mind that if there's a file or folder at any of the destinations that intended to be occupied by one of the incoming source items, Finder will throw an error. You would typically incorporate some sort of check ahead of the copy.

Get the name of the parent directory of an applescript file

I'm making a small script that needs to use the name of the parent directory of the script itself (.scpt file) a variable.
For example, the script is located at /Users/spongebob/MyProject/myscript.scpt
I need to set the variable called myprojectdir to MyProject.
I've tried
set myprojectdir to parent of POSIX path of me
and other variations of this based on search results but I always end up with an error
Can’t get POSIX path.
Where am I going wrong?
Thanks
AppleScript itself has no idea.
You have to ask System Events
tell application "System Events" to set myprojectdir to name of container of (path to me)
or the Finder
tell application "Finder" to set myprojectdir to name of parent of (path to me)

Applescript trouble with moving files in script

this is the script I'm trying to use:
on open thisItem
set this_folder to (the POSIX path of thisItem)
set export_folder to "Macintosh HD:Users:j****.*******:Desktop:AUTOMATOR:export"
set pdf_folder to "Macintosh HD:Users:j****.*****:Desktop:AUTOMATOR:PDF"
tell application "Adobe Illustrator" to open thisItem
tell application "Adobe Illustrator" to save current document in export_folder as pdf with options {class:PDF save options, PDF preset:"Low res proofing"}
tell application "Adobe Illustrator" to close current document
tell application "UltraLowPDF" to open
tell application "Finder" to move every file of folder "Macintosh HD:Users:j*****.*****:Desktop:AUTOMATOR:PDF" to container of this_folder
end open
This script should do a few things:
1. It creates a pdf file from an .ai file using adobe illustrator.
2. It then runs that pdf file through an automator workflow, which then spits out a pdf into a folder on my desktop.
3. It then moves that pdf file from the desktop, back to the folder of the original .ai file.
Every part of the script works fine except for step 3, it just seems to ignore it entirely. I've tried adding a delay, thinking the script was getting ahead of itself.
I've also tried isolating the move part of the script, using this droplet:
on open thisItem
set this_folder to (the POSIX path of thisItem)
tell application "Finder" to move every file of folder "Macintosh HD:Users:j****.******:Desktop:AUTOMATOR:PDF" to container of this_folder
end open
But this just throws up an error saying that it can't get the «class ctnr» of the file dropped on it (-1728).
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
(note: I've starred out the user name part of the filepath for privacy)
EDIT: It seems that it's the Automator part of the script that is the problem, (the ''UltralowPDF"" app). After this runs, nothing after it in the script will run.
The problem is that thisItem is actually theseItems (aka a list). Either you need a repeat loop or – as in the following code – get the first item of the list.
The Finder does not accept (slash separated) POSIX paths. It works only with (colon separated) HFS paths.
The script uses the relative path path to desktop which point always to the desktop of the current user.
on open theseItems
set automatorFolder to (path to desktop as text) & "AUTOMATOR:"
set thisItem to item 1 of theseItems
set export_folder to automatorFolder & "export:"
set pdf_folder to automatorFolder & "PDF:"
tell application "Adobe Illustrator" to open thisItem
tell application "Adobe Illustrator" to save current document in export_folder as pdf with options {class:PDF save options, PDF preset:"Low res proofing"}
tell application "Adobe Illustrator" to close current document
tell application "UltraLowPDF" to open
tell application "Finder" to move every file of folder pdf_folder to container of thisItem
end open

AppleScript choose file or folder

can I use AppleScript to choose either file or folder in one time?
Now I could use
tell application "SystemUIServer" to return POSIX path of (choose file)
or
tell application "SystemUIServer" to return POSIX path of (choose folder)
to get file or folder. However I cannot get file or folder in one time.
No, you can't do it with "choose file" or "choose folder" verbs, but choosing a file or folder (or multiple files/folders) is supported by the underlying NSOpenPanel. So you can do it with AppleScriptObjC. Here's an example using ASObjCRunner (derived from here):
script chooseFilesOrFolders
tell current application's NSOpenPanel's openPanel()
setTitle_("Choose Files or Folders") -- window title, default is "Open"
setPrompt_("Choose") -- button name, default is "Open"
setCanChooseFiles_(true)
setCanChooseDirectories_(true)
setAllowsMultipleSelection_(true) -- remove if you only want a single file/folder
get its runModal() as integer -- show the panel
if result is current application's NSFileHandlingPanelCancelButton then error number -128 -- cancelled
return URLs() as list
end tell
end script
tell application "ASObjC Runner"
activate
run the script {chooseFilesOrFolders} with response
end tell
ASObjCRunner converts a NSArray of NSURL objects into an AppleScript list of files; the results can look something like:
{file "Macintosh HD:Users:nicholas:Desktop:fontconfig:", file "Macintosh HD:Users:nicholas:Desktop:form.pdf"}
Firstly, you don't need a tell for that.
POSIX path of (choose file)
Secondly, it is not clear why you need this. Do you mean you want to select a file and it's folder? That's not how you do it; you select the file then parse the file path for the containing folder or use one of the many methods to do that, like
set f to (choose file)
set posixF to POSIX path of f
tell application "Finder" to set filesDir to container of f as alias as text
set posixDir to POSIX path of filesDir
{f, posixF, filesDir, posixDir}
If you want to be able to select multiple folders and files at the same time, I don't think there is a "pure applescript" way to do this (aside from using a drag-drop aware script application).

move a file in finder with applescript

I just want to move an image from one folder to the other, replacing the one that's already in there:
tell application "Finder"
copy file "/Users/xx/Documents/img.jpg" to folder "/Users/xx/Documents/State"
end tell
When I run it, I get an error message saying
Finder got an error: Can’t set folder [path] to file [path]"."number
-10006 from folder [path]
Please help me!
Try:
tell application "Finder"
duplicate POSIX file "/Users/xx/Documents/img.jpg" to POSIX file "/Users/xx/Documents/State" with replacing
end tell
Or
tell application "Finder"
move POSIX file "/Users/xx/Documents/img.jpg" to POSIX file "/Users/xx/Documents/State" with replacing
end tell
As #adayzdone notes, the error appears because you're using a Posix-style path without declaring it.
Another approach is to use colon-separated HFS paths, like so:
move file "Macintosh HD:Users:xx:Documents:img.jpg" ¬
to "Macintosh HD:Users:xx:Documents:State:" with replacing
With colon-separated paths you need to include the whole thing, including the volume name (I'm assuming Macintosh HD here), otherwise it'll throw our good friend error 10,006.
It helped me:
set theSource to POSIX file "/Users/xx/Documents/img.jpg"
set theDest to POSIX file "/Users/xx/Documents/State"
tell application "Finder"
move theSource to folder theDest with replacing
end tell

Resources