I'm making a Automator to jump from citation in Word to the reference software(Zotero). But I can't find a AppleScript to extract text of selected field code (the first step).
The field code in Word is
ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"AFUiwuqi","properties":{"formattedCitation":"[1]","plainCitation":"[1]","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":9752,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/6410528/items/YYTRWPHH"],"itemData":{"id":9752,"type":"article-journal","container-title":"Nature","DOI":"10.1038/s41586-019-1737-7","ISSN":"0028-0836, 1476-4687","issue":"7782","page":"324-329","title":"Controlled flight of a microrobot powered by soft artificial muscles","volume":"575","author":[{"family":"Chen","given":"Yufeng"},{"family":"Zhao","given":"Huichan"},{"family":"Mao","given":"Jie"},{"family":"Chirarattananon","given":"Pakpong"},{"family":"Helbling","given":"E. Farrell"},{"family":"Hyun","given":"Nak-seung Patrick"},{"family":"Clarke","given":"David R."},{"family":"Wood","given":"Robert J."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2019",11,14]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"}
Here is the script process:
Extract text from selected field code in Word (This is the question)
Get the uris text(http://zotero.org/users/6410528/items/YYTRWPHH)
Get the item-codes (YYTRWPHH).
Open url (zotero://select/library/items?itemKey=YYTRWPHH)
Now I use VBA to extract field code text, see below. But in this way, the file will be changed. So I want to do this via AppleScript.
Sub GetFiledsCodes()
Dim myRange As Range, myCodes As String
Set myRange = Selection.Range
With myRange
If .Fields.Count = 0 Then
MsgBox "No Code!", vbInformation
Exit Sub
Else
.Fields.Update
.TextRetrievalMode.IncludeFieldCodes = True
.TextRetrievalMode.IncludeHiddenText = True
myCodes = .Text
myCodes = VBA.Replace(myCodes, Chr(19), "{")
myCodes = VBA.Replace(myCodes, Chr(21), "}")
.SetRange .End, .End
.InsertAfter myCodes
.Font.Name = "Times New Roman"
.Font.Size = 12
.Cut
End If
End With
End Sub
PS:
Here is my process in Automator(it can work but using VBA):
Run AppleScript
on run {input, parameters}
tell application "Microsoft Word" to activate
tell application "Microsoft Word"
run VB macro macro name "GetFiledsCodes"
delay 0.5
end tell
return input
end run
Get contents from clipboard
Extract URLs from Text
Filter Paragraphs begin with http://zotero.org/users/
Copy to Clipboard
Run AppleScript
set myStr to do shell script "pbpaste"
tell application "Zotero" to activate
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "
"
set myList to every text item of myStr
set zoterocode to ""
set codes to ""
repeat with j from 1 to the length of myList
set itemValue to item j of myList
set zoterocode to (do shell script "sed -E 's#http://zotero.org/users/[0-9]+/items/##g' <<< " & itemValue)
if j = 1 then
set codes to zoterocode
else
set codes to codes & "," & zoterocode
end if
end repeat
tell application "System Events"
key code 18 using {command down, control down, option down}
delay 0.5
set collectionKey to do shell script "pbpaste"
if collectionKey = myStr then
set theurl to "zotero://select/library/items?itemKey=" & codes
else
set theurl to collectionKey & "/items?itemKey=" & codes
end if
open location theurl
end tell
That helps a lot. Okay, so this isn't a turnkey solution for your question but I don't think you really need that as you'd probably end up having to tell me more about how this app works than is really necessary. So this script focuses on your initial question about getting the field codes/result ranges from a merge document.
I put together a simple mail merge consisting of labels and a data file with 8 records, each of which have 5 fields: {"«LastName»", "«JobTitle»", "«Company»", "«City»", "«Web»"}. The latter is the key field.
Basically, the script runs through the data merge document and cycles first through its fields, then the web field, and finally the web addresses.
Based on your script, I can't really determine what you are doing with each address so it finishes by collecting just the final part of each address in a list. The obscure parts for me are the pbpastes, the codes and the whole System Events block. This area would need tweaking.
Incidentally, it's quite likely that you can avoid some of the shell scripts but I can't say how yet. Obviously the script has some redundancies and could be further refined but I think it demonstrates how to extract the information you need. Take a look at it and let me know what issues there are that need addressing.
tell application "Microsoft Word"
set d1 to document "cardo_labels.docx"
set fContents to {} -- list of mergefield
set fResRange to {} -- list of result range, i.e. field merge data
repeat with x from 1 to (count of fields of d1)
set fcs to content of field code of field x of d1 --> " MERGEFIELD LastName "
set frr to content of result range of field x of d1 --> "Smith"
if fcs is not " NEXT " then -- ignore «Next Record»
set end of fContents to fcs
set end of fResRange to frr
end if
end repeat
--> single record example
fContents --> {" MERGEFIELD LastName ", " MERGEFIELD JobTitle ", " MERGEFIELD Company ", " MERGEFIELD City ", " MERGEFIELD Web "}
fResRange --> {"Smith", "President", "Acme Screw & Gear", "Metz", "http://zotero.org/users/1234/items/smith-metz"}
-- NB when not displaying 'merged data', fResRange will appear thusly: {"«LastName»", "«JobTitle»", "«Company»", "«City»", "«Web»"}
set webList to {}
repeat with y from 1 to (count of fResRange)
if item y of fResRange begins with "http://zotero.org/users/" then
set end of webList to (item y of fResRange)
end if
end repeat
--> {"http://zotero.org/users/1234/items/smith-metz"}
--> {"http://zotero.org/users/1234/items/smith-metz", "http://zotero.org/users/4222/items/branson-metz", "http://zotero.org/users/3236/items/house-metz", "http://zotero.org/users/3342/items/kurtz-london", "http://zotero.org/users/12345/items/jones-london"}
set urlPiece to {}
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "/"
repeat with z in webList
set end of urlPiece to last text item of z
end repeat
-- contents of z
--> "http://zotero.org/users/1234/items/smith-metz"
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""
urlPiece
--> {"smith-metz"}
--> {"smith-metz", "jones-saopaolo", "branson-metz", "house-metz", "kurtz-london", "jones-london"}
end tell
Thanks to ideas from #Mockman.
Combining with the selection, here is the way to extract text from selected field code via AppleScript:
tell application "Microsoft Word"
tell selection
set fcs to content of field code of field of text object
end tell
end tell
fcs
I get the syntax error below with this script. It fails in the line beginning repeat with cell in rows. How can I get the script to compile?
Expected variable name or property but found class name.
-- Declare variables
property albumDescription : ""
-- Display input box to get album description
display dialog "Enter the album description:" default answer ""
set albumDescription to text returned of result
-- Open Excel
tell application "Microsoft Excel"
activate
end tell
-- Set variables for the active sheet and range of cells
tell application "Microsoft Excel"
set sh to active sheet
set rng to range of sh
end tell
-- Loop through each cell in the range, starting from row 2
repeat with cell in rows 2 thru (count of rows of rng) of rng
-- Check if the cell value is not empty
if value of cell is not "" then
-- Update the album description for the row
set value of cell to albumDescription
end if
end repeat
Actually there are three issues:
All terminology which belongs to a specific application (in this case rows, the content of rng and value) must be inside a tell application block.
You cannot use the reserved word cell as a variable name. Well, you can, but you have to wrap the word in pipes (|cell|). However I recommend to use a different name like aCell
range in set rng to... must be used range
-- Declare variables
property albumDescription : ""
-- Display input box to get album description
display dialog "Enter the album description:" default answer ""
set albumDescription to text returned of result
-- Open Excel
activate application "Microsoft Excel"
-- Set variables for the active sheet and range of cells
tell application "Microsoft Excel"
set sh to active sheet
set rng to used range of sh
-- Loop through each cell in the range, starting from row 2
repeat with aCell in rows 2 thru (count of rows of rng) of rng
-- Check if the cell value is not empty
if value of aCell is not "" then
-- Update the album description for the row
set value of aCell to albumDescription
end if
end repeat
end tell
I am trying to list all the reminders from the app where the due date is missing but I get the above mentioned error. Any body knows how to check for a missing value in such case?
Here is the code:
set remListOut to ""
set curDate to current date
tell application "Reminders"
activate
repeat with theRemList in remLists
tell list "#Call"
set remList to (every reminder whose due date is missing value)
repeat with theRem in remList
log (get properties of theRem)
set remListOut to remListOut & name of theRem & "
"
end repeat
end tell
end repeat
end tell
return remListOut
I regard this as a bug, the code is correct.
As a workaround use a second loop
set remListOut to ""
set curDate to current date
tell application "Reminders"
repeat with aList in lists
repeat with aReminder in reminders of aList
if due date of aReminder is missing value then
log (get properties of aReminder)
set remListOut to remListOut & name of aReminder & return & tab & tab
end if
end repeat
end repeat
end tell
return remListOut
I was wondering if anyone could help me. I'm trying to find and replace blank spaces in an excel workbook. I want it to search the current sheet I'm on in a workbook, find all instances of "" and replace it with " ".
Does anyone happen to know how to do this?
With Applescript:
searchAndReplaceTextInCells("hello", "world")
on searchAndReplaceTextInCells(search_str, replace_str)
tell application "Microsoft Excel"
set search_range to range "A:Z"
set all_found_ranges to {} -- store for the ranges, to manipulate after searching
set found_range to ""
set counter to 0
try
set found_range to find search_range what search_str with match case
on error
log ("No matches found")
end try
if (found_range is not "") then
set first_cell_address to (get address of the cells of found_range) -- we use this to break our loop
repeat while true
set counter to counter + 1
copy found_range to end of all_found_ranges
-- Now look for next result
set found_range to find next search_range after found_range
set cell_address to (get address of the cells of found_range)
if (cell_address = first_cell_address) then
-- have looped around so we are finished!
exit repeat
end if
end repeat
end if
-- walk all the ranges found and do the string replacing
repeat with r in all_found_ranges
set value of r to my replace_chars(the value of r, search_str, replace_str)
end repeat
log ("found and replaced " & counter & " items")
end tell
end searchAndReplaceTextInCells
on replace_chars(this_text, search_string, replacement_string)
set my text item delimiters to the search_string
set the item_list to every text item of this_text
set my text item delimiters to the replacement_string
set this_text to the item_list as string
set my text item delimiters to ""
return this_text
end replace_chars
How about Command + F, and hit the Replace button to give you this:
Have you tried the following:
replace range targetRange what searchStr replacement replaceStr
This should be rather straight forward replacement statement.
I've created the following AppleScript for deleting all the selected tracks:
property okflag : false
-- check if iTunes is running
tell application "Finder"
if (get name of every process) contains "iTunes" then set okflag to true
end tell
if okflag then
tell application "iTunes"
if selection is not {} then
repeat with this_track in selection
try
try
set cla to class of this_track
set floc to (get location of this_track)
delete this_track
on error error_message number error_number
display alert error_message message ("Error number: ") & error_number & "."
end try
if cla is file track then
my delete_the_file(floc)
end if
end try
end repeat
end if
end tell
end if
to delete_the_file(floc)
try
-- tell application "Finder" to delete floc
do shell script "mv " & quoted form of POSIX path of (floc as string) & " " & quoted form of POSIX path of (path to trash as string)
on error
display dialog "Track deleted, but could not be moved to trash" buttons {"Hmm"} default button 1 with icon 1
end try
end delete_the_file
It works fine when I select a single item, but when I select more than one I get: "Can't get location of item 2 of selection" (error number -1728). I believe this is because by deleting a track, the script's index into the selection is corrupted.
I thought I'd try making my own list of tracks to be deleted first:
tell application "iTunes"
if selection is not {} then
set to_delete to {}
repeat with this_track in selection
try
set cla to class of this_track
set floc to (get location of this_track)
if cla is file track then
set pair to {this_track, floc}
set to_delete to to_delete & pair
end if
end try
end repeat
repeat with pair in to_delete
set the_track to item 1 of pair
set floc to item 2 of pair
delete the_track
my delete_the_file(floc)
end repeat
end if
end tell
But then I get 'Can't get item 1 of item 1 of selection of application "iTunes".' I think the problem is "this_track" is not an object of class Track, but an item of a selection. How do I get the actual track object from the selection item?
If you don't see the solution, I'll welcome tips on debugging or any other suggestions.
The variable this_track is a reference to an object specifier. You have to use the contents property to get the enclosed object specifier. The same is true for accessing the variable pair in the second loop. See the class reference section on the class reference in the AppleScript language guide.
Another problem exists in the way the list to_delete is being built. The statement set to_delete to to_delete & pair will not produce a list of pairs but a flat list. See the class reference section on the class list in the AppleScript language guide.
Here's a version of your second script, where these bugs have been removed:
tell application "iTunes"
if selection is not {} then
set to_delete to {}
repeat with this_track in selection
try
set cla to class of this_track
set floc to (get location of this_track)
if cla is file track then
set pair to {contents of this_track, floc}
copy pair to end of to_delete
end if
end try
end repeat
repeat with pair in to_delete
set the_track to item 1 of contents of pair
set floc to item 2 of contents of pair
delete the_track
my delete_the_file(floc)
end repeat
end if
end tell