I want to select one or more tracks in my iTunes by their absolute location from the command line, so like:
osascript Refresh.scpt /Users/elliot/Music/iTunes/iTunes\ Media/Music/Apocalyptica/Apocalyptica/06\ Fisheye.m4a /Users/elliot/Music/iTunes/iTunes\ Media/Music/Apocalyptica/Apocalyptica/10\ Ruska.m4a
After the tracks are selected I can refresh their tags... or maybe their is another way to tell iTunes externally to refresh specific tracks?
You will find useful scripts and tools on this page.
Related
I am building a Delphi application which opens an image and its metadata and prints it. For the Windows version I build a form to generate the PrintPreview, but in Mac I can use the Print Dialog's 'Open PDF in Preview' instead. When I click on it, a PDF file is generated and I can see it, its OK. The problem is I want to access this option directly from a button, so when the button is clicked, the PDF in Preview is opened and the user does not have to open the Print Dialog, then click the 'PDF' and then select 'Open PDF in Preview'. How can I do this?
I read about using Automator, apple scripts etc, but I still can't find it.
Is there any path this generated PDF Preview is stored, so maybe I can open it from there?...
TIA
Possible duplicate of Using Automator or Applescript or both to recursively print documents to PDF but I'll answer anyways.
To answer your question directly see the question I linked to. Basically you need to use System Events from applescript to accomplish that exactly
However, there's a quicker solution using /usr/sbin/cupsfilter. Check the man page for more.
You can call cupsfilter <an-image-file> and you'll get a PDF on stdout, courtesy of OSX's printing daemon. It looks quite configurable but I just learned about it a while ago.
If you want this to open for the user you can save it in a nice place or you can do it the one-shot way and do cupsfilter <your-image> | open -f -a "Preview" to open the PDF right up.
Basically, if I'd like to be able to handle a print job initialization command. Like hitting Cmd+P on a document or something. I'd like to be able to access the data being printed and programmatically handle it rather than through a GUI.
Thanks!
You can possibly use the OSX automator to do what you need here. It depends on what you want to get out of the printed document. Automator allows you to create print plugins, which you can select from the system print dialog. I see you mentioned already that you don't want to use the "PDF" print menu as is, but perhaps some value can be added with extra automation in a print plugin. The plugin will create a .pdf of the printed documents, to which you can apply an automated sequence of actions.
Start /Applications/Automator
Under "Choose a type for your document:", choose "Print Plugin"
Then set up a sequence of actions you need to process your printed document. For example, you might want to do "Extract PDF Text" or "PDF to Images". Type "pdf" in the search field to see all the pdf-related actions available.
Save the automator workflow. You will only be able to give it a name, but not save it as a file in an arbitrary path.
You can use the plugin by opening the system print dialog in any given application, then dropping down the "PDF" menu in the bottom left-hand corner. You should see your plugin appear there.
So I have this idea for a handy little AppleScript which in my opinion would be very handy in speeding up the process of uploading a local file, to its same location on the server.
In other words, you have to specify the home folder on the server and locally, but once that's finished, it would be nice to just press like "Command" + "Shift" "U" for upload or some other hot key combination not in use by OS X for uploading the currently selected file in the Finder.
I find myself needing to do this a lot, and it will save a lot of time!
Someone please tell me if there is an easier way to do this, but I think this will be a good learning experience on top of it all.
I need some help on how I should get started however..
1) the command line program curl can upload files. 2) if you have a file selected in a Finder window applescript can get the selection. Using those 2 ideas you can automate your task. I don't know the exact curl command but that should be easy to find using google. So you select a file in the Finder and then run the script. The script can be run with a keyboard shortcut as you mentioned or just put it in the Script menu and run it from there.
tell application "Finder"
set selectedFile to item 1 of (get selection)
set selectedFile to selectedFile as text
end tell
do shell script "curl -switchesToUpload " & quoted form of POSIX path of selectedFile
I use Cyberduck which is an ftp client you can set it up so when you double click a file on the server it opens it up in your favorite editor.( textmate is my favorite.) it atuomagiclly downloads and uploads when you save.
this seems like a much better solution to the problem
I have opened the AppleScript Editor and pressed Record button.
Then I run TextEdit, create a file and put some text there.
When I click the Stop button in AppleScript Editor, nothing was recorded, the window is blank.
What is the problem?
You can use the Record feature of the Automator to record the UI interaction steps needed to do the relevant workflow. Then you can then literally select and copy the recorded steps in automator and paste them into a new Applescript Editor window. This will give you applescript which may or may not work. You'll probably want/need to edit the resulting script, but at least it should help give an idea what is needed to achieve your workflow programatically. This method is usable regardless of whether or not the target application has an applescript dictionary or supports the AppleScript Editor Record button, as it is the interaction with the underlying UI elements which is recorded.
Steps:
Open Automator
Start a new "Workflow"
Start recording
Perform whatever steps you require with your app (in this case typing into textedit)
Stop recording
This will create a list of actions in Automator like:
Select all these and copy (CMD+c)
Open the Applescript Editor app
Paste (CMD+v). The result will be valid applescript to perform the actions you just recorded:
Note that as is generally the case with UI automation, the automator records steps exactly and the script plays them back exactly. This my not be exactly what you want - e.g. if a different application were active, the text could get typed in there instead. The generated applescript should be used as a guide to the final applescript.
The problem is that applications need to explicitly support AppleScript recording in order for it to work, but almost no applications actually do. Finder still supports it a bit, and maybe a couple other apps (BBEdit comes to mind), but for the most part, AppleScript recording has been pretty useless for quite some time.
Not all apps are recordable (in fact, only a small handful are). Recordablity is something each app needs to implement, and I guess TextEdit isn't recordable.
OK, this feels like an idiot question, but I'm stuck - I don't know the first thing about AppleScript. I have a .scpt file and I want to double-click it and just have it run, but instead every time I click, it opens up the AppleScript Editor. This feels like it should just be an option on the file, but I'm missing something obvious.
Please help me feel less dumb, thank you.
From the “File” menu, choose “Export”; there’ll be a “File Format” dropdown underneath the file browser. To get a double-clickable application instead of a document, choose “Application”. This will produce a .app bundle like ordinary Mac applications (this will also let you package other resources with your script if you need to). You can choose “Run Only” or not; if you do, then anybody with just the .app won’t be able to edit your script further, since it’ll be compiled. (But if you’re saving a copy as the application, that might be what you want.)
Another option, as per an anonymous user on Ask Different, would be to save/export your file as a “Script” (.scpt) or “Script Bundle” (.scptd), save it in ~/Library/Scripts/, and check “Show Script menu in menu bar” in Script Editor’s preferences.
(If you’re running an old version of OS X, the first version of this answer has the information you’re looking for.)
There's more than one way to do it; i have found this to be the simplest:
In sum, you create an Automator application and place your applescript inside it (easier than it sounds, and it's not a hack either--there's actually a specific Automator action for this). Then when you are finished, you select "File" from the menubar, next "Save As Application", then select a location. Now check there and you'll see the newly-created Automator icon (little white robot holding a grenade launcher).
You can do anything that you would ordinarily do with this application icon--double click to open, drag it to your dock, etc.
Appstorm has created an excellent step-by-step tutorial for building an applescript-embedded automator action. On the page i linked to, the tutorial author has also supplied an Automator script that you can download and use as a template.
While it's certainly not the simplest route, one benefit to running your script from Automator, as doug suggested, is that you can set a hotkey or keyboard shortcut to execute your script if you hide it in an Automator Service (OSX 10.6+). See:
http://blog.fosketts.net/2010/08/09/assign-keyboard-shortcut-applescript-automator-service/
When you save a new script, a menu should appear asking what you want the file name to be, where it will be stored, any tags for it, and what script format you want it to be. There should be 4 scripts formats:
Script
Script Bundle
Application
Text
The script format you want to use would be "Application." This will turn it into a double-click application if its not in the dock.