Is there a way in bash on a mac to draw a pretty info box that displays a simple message like "please save all files to /Users/......"
You can run fragments of applescript from you bash scripts.
A simple popup would look like this:
#!/bin/bash
/usr/bin/osascript <<-EOF
tell application "System Events"
activate
display dialog "Hello world"
end tell
EOF
This will feed the applescript between the EOF tags to osascript and execute it
(resulting in a Hello World popup).
An alternative to osascript "System Events" would be to install cocoaDialog.
cocoaDialog has the disadvantage that it must be installed, but it seems to be much more flexible than the "System Events".
The license is GPL, so you can freely redistribute it, since it is a separate application.
(osascript was littering my terminal with error messages (at least under Lion) and with return values, it didn't let me do popups with timeouts, and seemed to require specific quoting which made it hard to use variables in the texts.)
Related
I'm running OS X 10.10.2. I'm facing a weird issue where AppleScript won't launch applications from shebang'ed scripts while working fine everywhere else (Script Editor, piping to osascript, etc.). Specifically, consider the following example script named launch-app:
#!/usr/bin/osascript
launch application "TextEdit"
When TextEdit is not running and I do
./launch-app
I get
./launch-app:0:29: execution error: An error of type -10810 has occurred. (-10810)
When I do
<launch-app osascript
Well, it works just fine; which means the following Bash script will also work:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
osascript <<EOF
launch application "TextEdit"
EOF
Really weird. (By the way, a tell ... activate ... end tell block results in the same error. I'm using launch here just to keep to example minimal.)
I have some old scripts that involve activating an application (well, practically all my old scripts involve tell ... activate ... end tell) that definitely worked in the past. I can't tell when things began to fall apart because when I run those scripts, most often the applications to activate are already launched. I have the impression that the issue dates back at least to 10.10.1.
I have looked at several related posts here on SO, e.g., this one, but they don't help. I also tried to understand error -10810 by reading articles like this one, but my problem definitely doesn't look like a filled process table (otherwise why does directly calling osascript works while running osascript from a shebang doesn't?).
Update: The bug has been fixed in OSX 10.10.3.
Just to provide a state-of-the-union post:
The behavior observed is a bug in OSX 10.10 still unresolved as of OSX 10.10.2 (as of 10 Mar 2015):
Anyone interested in getting this fixed should file their own bug at http://bugreport.apple.com.
It applies to executable scripts that are directly or indirectly passed to osascript - whether:
explicitly (osascript launch-app)
or implicitly, via the shebang line, by direct invocation (./launch-app)
The specific form of the shebang line is irrelevant (whether #!/usr/bin/osascript or #!/usr/bin/env osascript or #!/usr/bin/env osascript -l JavaScript or ...), what matters is whether the file has the executable bit (permission) set (e.g., via chmod +x).
Workarounds:
As suggested by the OP, feed the file to osascript via stdin: osascript < launch-app
This has side effects; for instance, name of me will report msng instead of the name of the script.
Remove the executable bit from the script and invoke it explicitly with osascript:
chmod -x launch-app # a one-time operation
osascript launch-app # with the executable bit unset, this should work
Looking at the man page for osascript, when you send lines of applescript code you should put the "-e" option infront of each separate line.
So here's what I tested. I made a bash script with the -e option...
#!/bin/bash
osascript -e 'launch application "TextEdit"'
And one without.
#!/bin/bash
osascript 'launch application "TextEdit"'
The one without the -e option does not run. As such I think this could be a cause of your problem... there's no -e option in your code.
Note that I tested your code too and got the same error as you. There's a command line utility "/usr/bin/macerror" and I entered your error code into that. Here's the result.
Unknown error (-10810) at /usr/bin/macerror5.18 line 40, <DATA> line 1.
Good luck.
There is no need for using osascript to launch applications. There is a built in command line utility named open, that will open your app from the terminal commandline, or a shebanged script. For doucumentation, enter "man open" in a terminal window. It is a really nifty utility, with a lot of options. :)
The open utility, will lauch applications that are not running, but I also wonder out of curiosity: have you tried "tell application appname to run", or just "tell application appname to activate"?
The osascript below, works for me, on 10.9
#!/usr/bin/osascript
tell application "TextEdit" to launch
I guess you'll have to commmand the app to do something, and not just try to "launch" it. Maybe "tell me to launch application appname also works".
Edit
I prefer to use open -b "com.apple.textedit", because then I also get the front window of textEdit, brought to front.
By the way, with the open -e command, you can open a textfile directly into TextEdit from the commandline. open is not totally as good as the plumb utility of plan-9, but it is really nifty.
Osascript in terminal always returns this error for the simplest function.
When i run the script in ApplescriptEditor it runs fine…
e.g.:
$: osascript -e 'tell application "iTerm" to display dialog "Hello World"'
2014-01-22 11:59:19.822 osascript[665:707] Cannot find executable for CFBundle 0x7fa3f42032e0 </Library/ScriptingAdditions/AeroFSFinderExtension.osax> (not loaded)
osascript: OpenScripting.framework - scripting addition
"/Library/ScriptingAdditions/AeroFSFinderExtension.osax" declares no loadable handlers.
button returned:OK
I already reinstalled XCode and CLL (Using Appcleaner)
Does anybody know how to fix this error? (Or at least silence it…)
I'm on 10.8.5
What is /Library/ScriptingAdditions/AeroFSFinderExtension.osax?
Looks like it's a broken scripting addition, and if it's not actually needed, simply try to remove the file (you'll need admin privileges), then run osascript again.
I am trying to use Platypus to create an app launcher for an interactive command-line program on OSX 10.8. I want to be able to double-click on my application, and have a Terminal window open, running my program. The problem is that my Applescript, (borrowed from Octave, and adapted for Julia) launches a Terminal window and attempts to spit some commands into it, however I have a rather hefty ~/.bash_profile that interferes with this. Is there a way to get my Applescript to open a non-login shell, or not source ~/.bash_profile, etc?
Here's the script that Platypus runs:
# This is the startup procedure written as AppleScript to open a
# Terminal.app (if the Terminal.app is not already running) and start
# the Julia program.
# 20071007 removed: open -a /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app
osascript 2>&1>/dev/null <<EOF
tell application "System Events" to set ProcessList to get name of every process
tell application "Terminal"
activate
if (ProcessList contains "Terminal") or ((count of every window) is less than 1) then
tell application "System Events" to tell process "Terminal" to keystroke "n" using command down
end if
do script ("exec bash -c \"PATH=${ROOT}/julia/bin:${PATH} OPENBLAS_NUM_THREADS=1 FONTCONFIG_PATH=${ROOT}/julia/etc/fonts GIT_EXEC_PATH=${ROOT}/julia/libexec/git-core GIT_TEMPLATE_DIR=${ROOT}/julia/share/git-core exec '${ROOT}/julia/bin/julia'\"") in front window
end tell
EOF
# Quit the Julia.application immediately after startup (ie. quitting
# it in the taskbar) because once it is started it cannot be restarted
# a second time. If Julia.app stays (eg. because of a crash) opened
# then restarting is not possible.
osascript 2>&1>/dev/null <<EOF
tell application "julia"
quit
end tell
EOF
In general, you don't need a Terminal window to execute command line stuff. You would only use the Terminal if there was information you need to manually type in by hand. So you can probably just run the command using "do shell script" instead of "do script" in a Terminal window. Note that doing it this way won't use your bash profile file. So try this command all by itself in the applescript...
do shell script ("exec bash -c \"PATH=${ROOT}/julia/bin:${PATH} OPENBLAS_NUM_THREADS=1 FONTCONFIG_PATH=${ROOT}/julia/etc/fonts GIT_EXEC_PATH=${ROOT}/julia/libexec/git-core GIT_TEMPLATE_DIR=${ROOT}/julia/share/git-core exec '${ROOT}/julia/bin/julia'\"")
Then you can add your other applescript commands as needed, just don't use the Terminal and thus your bash profile won't be used.
I've got a setup procedure for a project that involves me using multiple terminal windows. The start up procedure is sort of messy and involves me tabbing between the terminal windows (different tools running) and sequentially inputting commands into each terminal.
Applescript is useful for getting the first run of commands out and opening all my terminals with the:
do script "echo blablablabla"
These are decent because they open new terminal windows each time I "do script". This is actually more beneficial to me than tabbing (although, I couldn't quite figure out tabbing between terminal tabs).
However, I'd like to keep track of these windows since I need to go back to specific ones and input more commands. Any ideas?
More specifically:
Is there a way I can add an alias for each window to track it and tab back to it in the Applescript? If so, how do I implement it?
do script has an in specifier:
tell application "Terminal"
set t to do script "echo a"
do script "echo b"
do script "echo c" in t
set index of window 2 to 1
end tell
Or using tabs:
tell application "Terminal"
activate
set t to do script "echo a"
tell application "System Events" to keystroke "t" using command down
do script "echo b" in window 1
set selected tab of window 1 to t
end tell
2 part question:
I'm simply trying to run programs using applescript from the terminal, so I tried:
$ osascript tell application "iTunes" to activate
and get the error:
osascript: tell: No such file or directory
Giving the full path to the program did not work either. What am I missing? The second part of the question is what I eventually want to use applescript for. I would like to use it to open an application I built using py2app. Can applescript open any mac app or just certain ones that are already compatible.
Thanks
Try this. Notice you use "-e" when you are writing the command. Without "-e" you would give a path to an applescript to run. Also notice the string command must be in quotes.
osascript -e "tell application \"iTunes\" to activate"
And if you have a multi-line applescript you use "-e" before each line like this...
osascript -e "tell application \"iTunes\"" -e "activate" -e "end tell"
If you want to open an application just use the unix "open" command...
open "/path/to/application"
If you wanted to open an application using applescript and the "activate" command doesn't work (it should work for almost everything though) then tell the Finder to open it. Remember that applescript uses colon delimited paths...
osascript -e "tell application \"Finder\" to open file \"path:to:application\""
In a bash shell (like in Terminal), you can send multiple lines to osascript by using a "here document".
osascript -e "tell application \"iTunes\"" -e "activate" -e "end tell"
becomes
osascript <<EOF
tell application "iTunes"
activate
end tell
EOF
As an old-skool Unix hacker, I save these little snippets in my $HOME/bin directory and call them from the command line. Still learning the particulars, though.
Alan
an alternative to osascript:
open -a Calendar
close by:
pkill Calendar
Try:
do shell script "open /Applications/iTunes.app"
you need to put single quotes around the tell:
osascript -e 'tell app "iTunes" to activate'
otherwise you're defining a variable when you run -e
I'am new to script too.
I am confused to so I scan an essay named AppleScript Language Guide
and when I go through script commands items, I learn that if you want to activate an application in mac os with applescript editor you should type beneath code in your editor and then compile and run them! may this answer will help you, here's code:
// applescript editor code
----------
activate application "iTunes" line 1
----------
tell application "iTunes" to activate line 2