Hi Frederico, thanks so much for your generous reply. It is encouraging to see individuals such as yourself and Paul B. contribute so much of their personal time towards helping others in the Entourage community.
As a small gesture of my appreciation I am going to send you and Paul B. each $50 via PayPal for the help that you have given me over the past few months. Paul was nice enough to write some AppleScripts specifically for me a while back and they have worked wonderfully. Please email your PayPal information off list and I will expedite getting you paid. I know that it is not a lot of money, but I will also contribute another $100 to whoever creates a viable GUI for executing rules via schedules, preventing someone like me from having to manually write AppleScripts. Now I can't afford to send ten different people $100 each, so we will have to work out how to pay out the money if multiple people decide to collaborate on developing this further. I'll leave it to the lead developer to determine what's fair. Thanks again for your contributions and I am sorry if I have been difficult or obnoxious in my previous threads. I have been having some problems with several other software products that seem more like beta releases than actual finished products. In these digital times it is far too easy to transfer your frustrations from one list to another. I guess that I can also tone down my Microsoft bashing for now, their tech support person (in India) misunderstood my request for a BlueTooth driver CD and UPS just delivered a "free" brand new wireless mouse and keyboard. Ironically, I called them and I tried to explain their error but they either did not understand, or it was too much trouble to figure out how to get it back. So much for saving money by outsourcing their tech support to India. :) Best of luck! -- Mark Goodman on 5/15/04 3:48 PM, Frederico <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > HI Mark, > > I'm sorry I failed to jump in on this thread earlier with a solution, and > that you hit the wall of 'you can do anything you want as long as you do it > our way' that seems to prevail on this list these days. I agree with you; a > schedule to execute a specific rule or set of rules is highly desirable; > indeed, I have feature-requested it numerous times over the years -- and not > so much that I can't personally figure out an AppleScript-direct solution to > overcome any need for it, but that I deal with lots and lots of users who > would like it, too. > > IOW, you are far from alone in your desire for what seems an obvious and > trivial feature to us; I disagree with the E'Rage Defenders that it would > overly complicate the program and tax the development schedule by > exponential quantities of time; the benefits from adding it would be > immeasurable to those for whom AppleScript, nor even requesting a kind soul > to write a script for them, is just not a practical, let alone desirable > option. > > The bad news is, no one seems to be listening; the good news is, it's > possible to do, anyway -- albeit in a somewhat kludgey manner. The still-bad > news is that it still requires some AppleScript, although once the basic > script is written, it should be trivial to modify it for additional specific > actions. It should even be possible to create a fairly generic script > generator to provide as an add-on "feature" to MSE for all users who never > want to have to learn AS. > > Basically, all one need do to start is create the rule that one wants > executed on a timed schedule. It may be left enable or disabled in the Rules > list as required (the sample Rule you provided would work best disabled/on > demand). Next, one need only write a simple AppleScript to find and execute > that Rule through the GUI. This may be done with straight GUI element > find-and-execute actions, or, optionally, a keystroke can be assigned (using > Menu Master in Jaguar or Keyboard prefs in Panther), and a System Event to > trigger the keystroke, as well as any potential need to select the correct > mailbox and item list in MSE itself. Finally, one then need only write a > schedule to fire off the AS that fires off the Rule. > > I already hear you, and those arguing with you, asking, "If you're going to > bother writing an AppleScript in the first place, why not just have it do > what you want to do without finding a Rule?". Well, as I stated above, there > are two points: > > � One, anyone can use the GUI to create a Rule fairly easily without knowing > much. > > � Two, I believe a single base script can be written and further > auto-generate additional scripts to execute specific Rules with specific > criteria at a specified time or times without needing to know all there is > to know about either AS or MSE, or duplicating in AS what can be done more > quickly and easily in a Rule. > > Indeed, in less than three minutes and only two lines, I wrote an > AppleScript that executes a single Rule (Menubar->Message->Apply Rule->Test > Rule) via keystroke (Option-D) which was assigned via Keyboard Shortcuts; > thus proving the ability to do what you want with minimal effort: > > tell application "Microsoft Entourage" to activate > tell application "System Events" to key code 2 using option down > > I then set it on a repeating schedule (every 1 minute), and listened to the > Rule play the New Mail sound every minute from there (when the criteria of > the Rule was met) until I got sick of it. > > Things to accomplish: > > � Find and generate a list of Rules to choose from, as opposed to requiring > the user to know and enter the *exact name* of the Rule (hard? Haven't > looked at how to do this yet) > � Find and generate a list of folders to choose from, on which to set focus > on and apply the scheduled Rule (easy) > � Build a generic Apply Rule ->[Rule]-script generator (fairly easy); best > done with GUI elements and not keystrokes (to avoid inevitable conflicts) > � Devise a method or application outline to avoid interference with the user > when timed Rules must be applied (given that application/window/message > focus seems to be required to execute the Rule) > > If this is something you or others (are you listening, Paul B.?) would like > to work on with me (non-commercial), I would be interested in tackling it. > > Cheers > > Frederico > > -- > To unsubscribe: > <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > archives: > <http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.letterrip.com/> > old-archive: > <http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.boingo.com/> > -- To unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> archives: <http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.letterrip.com/> old-archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.boingo.com/>
