I've had a request to post an example of making an AppleScript by recording. This is something that a low-power-user like me can do without knowing anything about AppleScript.
This works in OS8/9 and I presume that it will work in OSX although I am X-challenged (or, X'd out) and have not done much with it (my WallStreet is on 9.2.2 99% of the time, and 10.2.8 1% of the time). This little baby will put a divider on the clipboard so that you can paste it anywhere you like. But once you see this method, you should be able to, by analogy, find all kinds of other different uses. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This particular script depends on having an Apple-Scriptable text application on your hard drive. Mine is Tex-Edit Plus, which you can download from <http://www.tex-edit.com/index.html>. It's a $15 shareware and is more than worth it for all the tricks that it does. 1) Copy the divider above into a Tex-Edit Plus document (or a document of any other Scriptable text app which you might have). Name that document "Divider/Large/Wavy" and put that document into your Tex-Edit Plus folder. 2) Open your Tex-Edit Plus folder so that the Divider document's icon is visible. 3) Go to your AppleScript folder and open the Script Editor. Close the AppleScript folder but leave the Editor open. The Editor window will be named "Untitled." 4) If the Editor window "Untitled" covers up the Divider document's icon, move the "Untitled" window so that you can see the Divider document's icon. 5) Hit the "Record" button in your "Untitled" Script Editor window. (Everything that you do now will be recorded as a script.) 6) Open the document "Divider/Large/Wavy." "Select All" and "Copy." (The divider is now on the Clipboard.) 7) Quit Tex-Edit Plus. 8) Hit the "Stop" button in your "Untitled" Script Editor window. The script is now finished. The Editor window should look like this: tell application "Finder" activate select file "Divider/Large/Wavy" of folder "Tex-Edit Plus" of folder "Text/Write" of startup disk open selection end tell tell application "Tex-Edit Plus" activate select contents of window 1 copy quit saving ask end tell (I keep my Tex-Edit Plus folder inside a folder "Text/Write" which contains other text applications including SimpleText. Your script will describe whatever location into which you have placed your Tex-Edit Plus folder, so your "select file" line may not look exactly like mine.) Now, "Save" your script to the Desktop (until you decide where you want to keep it.) Just do a straight "Save," not a "Save as Run-Only," that will come later. Name the file "Divider/ Large/Wavy." OK, now do a test run. First, put anything else but the Divider on the clipboard. Then hit the "Run" button of the script. Now go into "Finder" and go down to "Show Clipboard" under the "Edit" menu. You should see the divider there, ready to be pasted wherever you want it. Now, go to the Script Editor's file menu and choose "Save as Run-Only." The name will say, "Divider/Large/Wavy copy." Change it to "Divider/Large/Wavy/app." There is a pull-down menu "Kind." In this case, you pull it UP to "Application." Check the box, "Never Show Startup Screen" and then "Save." (I found that if you try to name it "Divider/Large/Wavy.app," it will not work. The period must mean something special which interferes.) Now you have created a small application which will put the divider on the clipboard. Make a folder inside your AppleScript folder called "Joe's Scripts" (or whatever your name is) and put both the compiled version and the "app" version into it. Then make an alias of the "app" version and put it somewhere on your Apple Menu (thru the "Apple Menu Items" folder of the System Folder). There you can invoke it at any time with one click to put a divider into a document that you are working on. For convenience in putting dividers into Emailer messages, you can also put the original compiled version (or a copy, but NOT the "app" version) into the "AppleScripts" folder inside the "Claris Email Files" folder inside the "Claris Emailer" folder. Then the Divider option will appear on Emailer's AppleScript menu, ready to put a divider onto the clipboard, to be pasted into your email. That's the end of this mini-lesson. You should now be able to use the Script Editor to record a script for just about anything that you do repetitiously. (Incidentally, Emailer's spell checker choked on this last word, the first time in years of use. I verified the spelling in the dictionary.) For an Emailer-related example, I recorded a script which backs up Emailer's "Mail" folder (containing the Database and the Index) to an external backup hard drive. All you have to do is set the Script Editor to "record," and then go throught the same steps as you normally do. Eureka, a one-click backup which I use nightly. The only caveat is that if what you are doing involves an application, that application must be Apple-Scriptable. I remember once running into a situation where I had created by recording a script, and when I ran it, it came up with a dialog box that I didn't want. I re-opened the compiled (original) version of the script, and noted the line "quit saving ask." I just took a stab at it, and replaced the word "ask" with the word "no." Then there was a button, "Check Syntax." I clicked that, and it recompiled without noting any error. So evidently I had made a "lucky guess." Indeed the script then ran perfectly without the unwanted dialog box. This shows that the AppleScript method, although largely Greek to us low-power-users, when done by recording IS amenable to a bit of intelligent tinkering. If anyone finds a glitch in all this, please let me know so that I can correct it. If you have some repetitive thing that you want to put into an AppleScript by recording, and you get hung up, do not hesitate to email me and perhaps I can help out. This is the least that I can do for all the help which I have received over the years from this friendly list. Best regards, Bill _______________________________oOo______________________________ William D. Bandes [EMAIL PROTECTED] Zephyr Cove NV USA ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe send a mail message with a SUBJECT line of "unsubscribe" to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
