Save and restore Finder windows list - applescript

Question

I don't remember exactly how I did it but I used to have keyboard shortcuts mapped with Butler that ran some AppleScript I wrote thanks to multiple sources.
One script was used to save all Finder windows properties to a text file (prompt for name), and the other would read the file (prompt for name again) and restore Finder windows accordingly.
Text files would look like that:
{
{
folder "Desktop"
of folder "Me"
of folder "Users"
of startup disk of application "Finder", {
0, 0, 1200, 315
}, column view, 192
}, {
folder "Backups"
of disk "SAFE"
of application "Finder", {
0, 380, 1200, 685
}, column view, 192
}
}
From there, I know how to restore the windows. I just lost the script I made, that retrieves all these values...
To restore windows :
tell application "Finder"
set windowList to {
{
folder "Desktop"
of folder "Me"
of folder "Users"
of startup disk of application "Finder", {
0, 0, 1200, 315
}, column view, 192
}, {
folder "Backups"
of disk "SAFE"
of application "Finder", {
0, 380, 1200, 685
}, column view, 192
}
}
close every window
repeat with i from 1 to count of windowList
set theseProps to item i of windowList
make new Finder window at front to item 1 of theseProps
tell window 1
set bounds to item 2 of theseProps
set current view to item 3 of theseProps
set sidebar width to item 4 of theseProps
end tell
end repeat
end tell
My question :
How to get all Finder windows and properties with AppleScript?
And how to save those to a file?
[EDIT]
Here is how to get all properties needed :
set windowsList to {}
tell application "Finder"
set theWindows to windows
repeat with theWindow in theWindows
set t to target of theWindow
set b to bounds of theWindow
set v to current view of theWindow
set w to sidebar width of theWindow
copy {t, b, v, w} to end of windowsList
end repeat
end tell
Now I need a way to save this in a file, being able to load it as a list later on...
[EDIT]
I'm able to write to a file this way :
set prefs_folder to path to preferences folder as string
set prefs_file to prefs_folder & "finderwindows"
try
set open_file to ¬
open for access file prefs_file with write permission
-- erase current contents of file:
set eof of open_file to 0
write windowList to open_file starting at eof
close access open_file
on error
try
close access file prefs_file
end try
end try
But the file remains empty. The script is exiting with error -10004...
My question is now :
How to convert the windowList to a file savable format I can then retrieve by reading from another script??

Answer 1

FYI: I have a program called Simple WindowSets that does exactly this... save and restore sets of Finder windows. It's very popular. So although you can do as you ask using applescript, maybe you'd be interested. Find it here.
By the way, to answer your specific question, here's a handler I use for writing to a file. Good luck.
on writeTo(targetFile, theData, dataType, apendData)
-- targetFile is the path to the file you want to write
-- theData is the data you want in the file.
-- dataType is the data type of theData and it can be text, list, record etc.
-- apendData is true to append theData to the end of the current contents of the file or false to overwrite it
try
set targetFile to targetFile as text
if targetFile does not contain ":" then set targetFile to POSIX file targetFile as text
set openFile to open for access file targetFile with write permission
if apendData is false then set eof of openFile to 0
write theData to openFile starting at eof as dataType
close access openFile
return true
on error
try
close access file targetFile
end try
return false
end try
end writeTo