Today is my first day of even knowing AppleScript exists so I apologize if this is a stupid question. I've searched and can't find the answer on how to simply move a file with AppleScript
All I need to do is move a file from ~/Downloads/blank.potx to ~/Library/Application Support/Office/User Templates/My Templates
This is what I have in AppleScript right now:
tell application "Finder"
move "~/Downloads/blank.potx" to "~/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office/User Templates/My Templates/blank.potx"
end tell
When I run this it gives me an error:
error "Finder got an error: AppleEvent handler failed." number -10000
Again, first day using AppleScript and I'm lost. Any help you can provide would be awesome.
If there's a better way to do this please let me know as well.
Thanks!
Search is your friend. You can easily find the syntax on stack overflow. Such as here:
tell application "Finder"
move POSIX file "/Users/xx/Documents/img.jpg" to POSIX file "/Users/xx/Documents/State" with replacing
end tell
If you're gonna use Posix file paths, you need to indicate so, and you need to name the string as a file.
Related
First, I ran the script code in the script editor, and found that there was an error. The Numbers did not understand the save command, The script command was as follows:
tell application "Numbers"
set thisDocument to open alias "Macintosh HD:Users:admin:numbers-FATP.xls"
tell thisDocument
save thisDocument in file "Macintosh HD:Users:admin:NumbersTest.numbers"
end tell
close thisDocument
end tell
And the specific error information was as follows:
error "“Numbers” encountered an error：“remove id \"C76B3CB0-D007-46C4-BEB0-9C65D0E65767\"” do not understand “save” information." number -1708 from remove id "C76B3CB0-D007-46C4-BEB0-9C65D0E65767"
The point is, sometimes can execute the script code, sometimes can't perform, and it is puzzling, I try to change the computer version and version Numbers, but did not solve the problem, this is why, look forward to your reply, best regards!
I refer to this website: https://iworkautomation.com/numbers/document-save.html
I recently put together an AppleScript file which invloves reading a file at one point. The command I am using to do this is:
set paragraph_ores to read file "Macintosh HD:Users:MYUSERNAME:Desktop:ORES.txt" using delimiter linefeed
Now, whilst this works perfectly and as expected, the problem comes that I was hoping to integrate this into a separate application which would run this script when necessary but had the realisation that everybody who would need to use the code would have to go into this script and specifically put in their username which may be tricky or tedious for some people.
In an attempt to circumvent this problem I looked to Google where I found out some more information about HFS file paths to which I had no prior knowledge to find out that the general formula is:
<Volume Name>:<Directory Name>:...:<Directory Name>:<Filename>
And an example they give to use this type of file path is:
Macintosh HD:Applications:Safari.app
This proved confusing as it did not reference the username at all. Therefore I tried changing my original command line to:
set paragraph_ores to read file "Macintosh HD:Desktop:ORES.txt" using delimiter linefeed
However, this proved unsuccessful and I was presented with an error. My next thought was to set a variable to the current username and integrate this into the path as shown below:
tell application "System Events"
set username to name of current user
end tell
set paragraph_ores to read file "Macintosh HD:Users:" & username & ":Desktop:ORES.txt" using delimiter linefeed
Unfortunately, this too, for some reason, seemed not to work.
I would really appreciate it if someone could point me in the right direction of how to solve this problem of avoiding the username in the HFS file path.
Thank you in advance for your help,
Tom
Use the path to (folder) command, e.g.:
set paragraph_ores to read file ((path to desktop as string) & "ORES.txt")
Have a look at path to (folder) in the AppleScript Language Guide, which returns the location of the specified special folder.
I'm trying to create a simple script to delete files based on a custom label I've already assign.
I'm currently trying to limit the search for the script to a test folder, but ultimately I want the script to search in all the user folder and get all the files from several different locations. I may need authentication for the process.
But so far I have this
tell application "Finder" delete (every item of folder
"/users/ro/documents/Erase test" whose label is "test") end tell
and I get this error
error "Finder got an error: Can’t get folder
\"/users/ro/documents/Erase test\"." number -1728 from folder
"/users/ro/documents/Erase test"
As I said I don't really know much about scripts, so I don't know all the terms but I hope someone can point me in the right direction.
Saw this late.
Tested this on 10.6.8 and will jump on a Mavericks machine to test, but this should work:
set f to choose folder
tell application "Finder"
delete (every item of f whose label index is 1)
end tell
A few notes about your attempt:
1) AppleScript doesn't 'natively' understand POSIX paths (but coercion to/from is possible), so (as I have it) "choose folder" returns what is known as an alias (not to be confused with a string -- but again, coercions to/from strings/aliases are simple).
2) note that the label is recognized as "label index", which is an integer.
3) you could/should test by taking out "delete" in that line to return a list of those items.
[edit] yes, this is fine on Mavericks.
I'm starting to poke around with Applescript and am looking at writing a few scripts for managing windows. A common task they will all need is to get the current screen size.
I've created a screen_size subroutine that seems to work, and I want to be able to share that with all my scripts. However, I can't figure out a way to put that in a separate file that I can load in my other scripts. I tried creating a separate screen_size.scpt file and use load script "screen_size.scpt", but I get an error about "can't make "screen_size.scpt" into a type file".
There has to be a way to do this, but I haven't been able to find anything online about how to do it.
EDIT:
The POSIX stuff suggested isn't working for me. I'm able to create the file object, but it refuses to convert to an alias, saying it can't find the file (looks like the POSIX file stays relative instead of expanding fully).
I found a suggestion online to use Finder, and have gotten the following working to get an alias:
tell application "Finder"
set _myPath to container of (path to me) as text
end tell
set _loadPath to (_myPath & "screen_size.scpt")
set _loadAlias to alias _loadPath
However, the next line fails with a syntax error, claiming that _loadAlias isn't a variable:
property _ScreenSize : load script _loadAlias
Every variation of this I've tried (doing the alias in the load call, etc) fails, always claiming the variable doesn't exist, even though I know it's being set and working as I can display it. What's going on? Why is it claiming a variable doesn't exist when it obviously does?
AppleScript is doing some really weird things when saving and I haven't figured out what's going on, but I ended up getting something to work.
Here's what I have:
on load_script(_scriptName)
tell application "Finder"
set _myPath to container of (path to me) as text
end tell
set _loadPath to (_myPath & _scriptName)
load script (alias _loadPath)
end load_script
set _ScreenSize to load_script("screen_size.scpt")
set _bounds to _ScreenSize's screen_size()
-- ...
The other answers were saying to set _ScreenSize as a property, but that would cause a syntax error which prevented me from ever saving the file. When I did it just using set it worked.
I wasn't ever able to get the POSIX path stuff suggested to work, but poking Finder for the path worked fine.
In order to execute an action from another script, you'll have to create an handler in the script you're going to load (in your answer you already did this with "screen_size()".
In your case this script will be "screen_size.scpt".
So "screen_size.scpt" will have to look something like this:
on screen_size()
--your actions
return [yourvalue] --the value you want to pass to the other script
end screen_size()
The script you'll load it from will have to look like this:
tell application "Finder"
set _myPath to (container of (path to me) as text & "screen_size.scpt") as alias
end tell
set _ScreenSizeScript to load script _myPath
set _bounds to _ScreenSizeScript's screen_size()
If it doesn't work, or you don't understand me completely, feel free to ask (:
Yes there is a way to do this. Load the file into a property and access it that way
property _ScreenSize : load script (alias "pathtoscript")
_ScreenSize's doStuff()
and for relative paths try this:
set p to "./screen_size.scpt"
set a to POSIX file p
so perhaps this will work:
set p to "./screen_size.scpt"
set a to POSIX file p
property _ScreenSize : load script (alias a)
_ScreenSize's doStuff()
I have people using my libraries on a daily basis, so I first ensure the library is here before calling it.
Let's say I have a library "Lib.Excel.app" (save as non-editable application with Satimage's Smile).
At the beginning of a script that makes use of it, I "load" the library by using this code :
set commonCodeFile to (path to library folder as string) & "Scripts:CommonLibraries:Lib.Excel.app"
tell application "Finder"
if not (exists (file commonCodeFile)) then error ("\"Lib.Excel\"
" & "
should be found in folder
" & "
scroll > CommonLibraries")
end tell
global cc -- make it short and easy to write :)
set cc to load script alias ccFile
Then when I have to use a function from the lib, I just call it like this :
set {what, a} to cc's veryNiceFunction()
Yes you can. You need the full path to the script however.
I believe you can still use "path to me" to get the path to the app executing the current script, and you can then modify that path to point to your sub-folder containing the scripts.
I used this technique to get around AppleScripts (former) 32k text size limits years ago for some really large/complex IRC scripting.
I think I still have all those old scripts in my G4, which is under the desk in my office at work. Sadly it's behind a Enet switch and I can't VNC into it otherwise I'd have tons of sample code to post.
You CAN load the script in a variable, but you have to declare it first.
property _ScreenSize : missing value
tell application "Finder" to set _myPath to container of (path to me) as text
set _loadPath to (_myPath & "screen_size.scpt")
set _loadAlias to alias _loadPath
set _ScreenSize to (load script _loadAlias)
I need some way to determine if a particular file exists. If it exists do one script if not then do another script. Here was my logic in applescript:
If exists "File:Path:To:theFile"
tell application "Finder"
open "File:Path:To:the:script"
end tell
else
tell application "Finder"
open "File:Path:To:the:Anotherscript"
end tell
end if
The only problem is that sometimes when i use the above logic the script fails saying can't find the file. I need a full proof, never fails way to see if a file exists. I'm open to using the terminal, or applescript. I'm sure someone has run into this before but I have looked all over the web for an answer but could not find one.
In your original code you're giving the exists function a string, rather than a file, even though it's the path to a file. You have to explicitly give it a file, or it treats it the same as if you had tried to do
exists "god"
or
exists "tooth fairy"
The exists command won't know what you're talking about. You could use
return exists alias "the:path:to:a:file"
but aliases don't work unless the file actually exists, so a non-existent file will create an error. You could of course catch the error and do something with it, but it's simpler to just give the exists function a file object. File objects belong to the Finder application, so:
return exists file "the:path:to:a:file" of application "Finder"
I use the following to see if an item in the Finder exists:
on FinderItemExists(thePath)
try
set thePath to thePath as alias
on error
return false
end try
return true
end FinderItemExists
I think what you're missing is conversion of the path to an alias.
This sounds like a good place for a try...on error block. I believe the following should do what you want:
tell application "Finder"
try
open "File:Path:To:the:script"
on error
open "File:Path:To:the:Anotherscript"
end try
end tell