I have a program that reads the data in a file, changes certain elements, and creates a new file. The code looks like this:
lines = IO.readlines('single_before_CAP.txt').map do |line|
a = line.split.each { |i| i.capitalize! }
a2 = a.join(" ")
File.open('single_after_CAP.txt', 'w') do |file|
file.puts lines
end
How can I use Xcode and MacRuby to get this program to run as a GUI app? If not Xcode and MacRuby, is there another simple task I can do to make this a standalone GUI app?
One good way to do it:
http://macruby.org/
Sample application:
https://github.com/MacRuby/MacRuby/wiki/Creating-a-simple-application
It sounds like what you want is basically a simple wrapper app that runs your script when double-clicked, rather than a full GUI. Platypus is the easiest way to do that. You just give it your script, set up a couple of parameters (e.g. whether your script wants a file as an argument) and it'll give you a double-clickable app that optionally includes a simple interface such as a progress bar or text output.
If you just want to run a headless ruby application, you can use Automator. Simply create a new workflow, add a line to execute your application, and save it as a ".app". I can give you more specific instructions if you like.
#jmitchell1009
Specific Instructions: If you don't need to input anything to your program (like files or arguments) the simplest way would be to:
Open Automater
Select new "Application" (This will save your final output as a .app, you can choose another option if you want something else)
Select the "Run Shell Script" action, and drag this into your workflow.
Select a shell to run it in (shouldn't matter too much if you're just running a ruby application).
Select where input should go (again, if you have no input, it should matter too much)
Enter the command for your ruby application. Something like "ruby commandpath" etc. (without quotes of course)
You may want to run it a few times to make sure it works. Once you're done, you can save the workflow and it will create a .app for you.
If you have any issues, let me know.
Related
I am fairly new to Mac OSX, and am trying to create an .app file to run in the Applications folder. I'm using MacOS Big Sur, and this will just be run on a Mac (it doesn't need to be cross platform). There is a jar file that executes by running a shell script, as well as a few extra resource files, so ultimately I'd like to bundle this all together in something like a dmg so that I can share it easily with a few other people.
I followed the advice given here and here to set it all up, and almost everything works. The program starts when I double click on the .app file, but without a terminal window. Unfortunately I need the terminal window to open because I use it to log messages to the user.
Terminal is the default app for the shell script, and a terminal does open when I run the shell script directly by double-clicking on it. The script file works with an .sh extension and without one, though I get an error trying to run the .app if the script has an .sh extension. Everything has execute permissions. I went through the Info.plist docs but couldn't find anything about the Terminal. I also tried creating the .app with Automator, but with the same result.
Any suggestions would be very much appreciated, as at the moment I'm completely stuck. As I said, ultimately I want to have a way of sharing this with others who may not be very computer-savvy (e.g. they're used to just downloading things from the App Store and wouldn't be able to install things using the command line). So if I'm going about this all wrong or there's an easier way, then let me know that too.
Unfortunately I need the terminal window to open because I use it to log messages to the user.
If this is all you want the Terminal app for then you don’t need it all.
The Terminal app is a GUI app which runs a shell using standard OS calls, passes keyboard input to that shell (and hence any commands it in turns invokes) via a pipe, and reads the output of the shell (and hence...) and displays it in a window.
You can run your shell script direct from your own app, collect the output, and dimply that output in a window in your app.
In Objective-C the classes you want to look up are NSTask, to run a shell passing it your shell script, and NSPipe, to create pipes needed.
There are plenty of Q & A’s on SO about NSTask/NSPipe, here is one and here is another which uses Swift.
Note that both of the above read all of the output before converting it to a string which can then be displayed in a window or otherwise processed. This is not required and if you have a long running shell script and wish to display output as it runs you can read shorter chunks from the pipe. Read the documentation to see how to do this.
I'm posting my solution in case it helps anyone in the future. As the comments/answers said, what I really needed to know was how to get my app to open a terminal window. Obviously by creating the app manually (creating the folder structure and minimal Info.plist) I was missing some key elements.
I tried to generate one using Xcode. I'm sure it's pretty straightforward, but I got bogged down trying to work out the Swift code.
What worked for me was creating an AppleScript using Script Editor. The script simply tells the Terminal program to run my bash script:
tell application "Terminal"
do script "/Applications/{name of app}/Contents/MacOS/run.sh;exit"
end tell
The key is that Script Editor can save this as an app to the Applications folder, which means it creates the necessary folder structure and files. After that I could just copy my program files into the MacOS folder, which is where my bash script looks for everything.
One option might be to give the script file the extension .command, e.g., and then open that, e.g.:
open myscript.command
The myscript.command file needs execute permissions (chmod a+x myscript.command).
These .command files can also be double-clicked in Finder to execute them in a new Terminal window.
Im new to watir and running scripts from it. Just want to ask if how can I get or extract the error messages Scite displays on the left panel and import it to a textfile? or is it really possible to do? Thanks.
I am not sure how would you do it from Scite, but if you execute Watir script from command line, you can redirect output to file:
$ ruby watir_script.rb > results.txt
If you use test framework like RSpec, there are a lot of options for storing test results in files.
From Scite, you click in the output frame, Ctrl-A (to select all), Ctrl-C (to copy), then paste into what every application you like such as notepad.
I agree with Zeljko, you should use a good framework like rspec or testunit. Goodluck.
I wanted to have a GUI front-end for a script that accepts numerous command-line options, most of them are UNIX paths. So I thought rather than typing them in (even with auto-completion) every time, I'd create a GUI front end which contains text boxes with buttons beside them, which when clicked will invoke the file browser dialogue. Later, I thought I'd extend this to other scripts which would sure require a different set of GUI elements. This made me think if there's any existing app that would let me create a GUI dialog, after parsing some kind of description of the items that I want that window should contain.
I know of programs like Zenity, but I think it's doesn't give me what I want. For example, if I were to use it for the first script, it'll end up flashing sequence of windows in succession rather than getting everything done from a single window.
So, basically I'm looking at some corss-platform program that lets me create a window from a text description, probably XML or the like. Please suggest.
Thanks
Jeenu
Mozilla's XUL is a cross platform application framework - . You could write an app as a Firefox plugin or a standalone XUL application.
mono and monodevelop could work for this. Or even something super simple like shoes.
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.
I have a user script that would be much more useful if it could dynamically change some of its execution dependent on what the user wanted. Passing simple switches would easily solve this problem but I don't see any way to do it.
I also tried embedding a keyword in the script name, but Xcode copies the script to a guid-looking filename before execution, so that won't work either.
So does anyone know of a way to call a user script with some sort of argument? (other that the normal %%%var%%% variables)
EDIT:
User scripts are accessible via the script menu in Xcode's menubar (between the Window and Help menus). My question is not about "run script" build phase scripts. My apologies for leaving that somewhat ambiguous.
You can't pass parameters to user scripts — instead, user scripts operate on the context you're working in (e.g. the selected file, the selected text, etc.).
You should use the context to determine what the user really wants.
User scripts are accessible via the script menu in Xcode's menubar (between the Window and Help menus). Wasn't sure what else to call them. What I'm asking about are not "run script" build phase scripts.
I suppose you could do something like this:
#!/bin/bash
result=$( osascript << END
tell app "System Events"
set a to display dialog "What shall be the result?" default answer ""
end tell
return text returned of a
END
)
# do stuff with $result
There are built in utility scripts that allow you to prompt the user and capture the reply.
You could prompt for a string, for example, then based on that perform a certain task.
The String prompt is:
STRING = `%%%{PBXUtilityScriptsPath}%%%/AskUserForStringDialog "DefaultString" "DefaultWindowName"`
If you notice, you're just calling an applescript they wrote using a static path. You could write your own applescript dialog and place it there if you want and bypass the need for cumbersome osascript syntax. There are others (for files, folders, applications, etc)
User Scripts Documenation