I recently bought an iMac and am going to try to get back to doing some programming. I used to develop Cold Fusion web applications and did some programming with Cold Fusion, JavaScript, and SQL. I’m not, by any stretch of the imagine however, a programmer.
I wanted to learn how to develop AppleScript Studio applications by developing an application that I need but cannot find anywhere. I have three kids and want to be able to allow them to log on to the computer only between certain times of the day and only be able to be on the computer for a certain amount of time each day. I’ve searched all over for a utility that will allow me to do this, but cannot find anything. So I’ve decided to try to create one. But I don’t want to dive in if AppleScript can’t do what I need it to do.
So…can an AppleScript Studio application do the following:
- Open automatically when a user logs on, run in the background, and be untouchable by the user (except for the administrator).
- Upon starting, check to see if the user is allowed to be on at that time (by referencing parameters set by the administrator). If the user isn’t allowed to be on, automatically log the user out.
- If the user is allowed to be on, start a timer. When the timer reaches a set time, display a window telling the user he has X minutes left. At the end of the allotted time, automatically log the user off.
- Keep track of the time the user is logged on each day, so that the administrator can say, “X user can have 75 minutes a day in two or more sessions with no session lasting longer than 45 minutes.”
Basically, I guess I need to know if AppleScripts can talk to the system and keep persistent data between sessions. And other things…
Thanks in advance for any answers you can provide.
Jay
Model: iMac 17 (2.0 GHZ/2 GB)
AppleScript: current
Browser: Safari 419.3
Operating System: Mac OS X (10.4)