Help needed: search finder through applescript

Scripting Forums AppleScript | Mac OS X
#1

Hi Everyone,

I’m looking for a way to use the search field in the top right corner of the finder through applescript.
I couldn’t find any articles on this task online so I hope you can help me.

the idea is that I can create a search query in finder through applescript.
so say I want to search for all pictures associated with the word “mango” in the folder “fruits”.

I haven’t got a lot of experience with applescript…

my OSX is 10.6

your help would be very much appreciated.

Kind regards,

J. Aanen

#2

Hi,
you can search with Spotlight using the shell command mdfind.

For example this script searches the main library for all images


do shell script "mdfind -onlyin " & quoted form of POSIX path of (path to library folder) & " 'kMDItemContentTypeTree == \"*image*\"'"

Look also here

#3

Hi Stefan,

Thank you for your quick reply.
I know this code, it returns the query in the result window, however I need it to show the selected files in the finder window.
and one other thing. this search only returns literal matches, such as the exact file name if type specification. I i use spotlight it also searches through the metadata of files such as keywords assigned in photo library applications such as Picasa.
I hope you can help me with these matters.

Kind regards,

Joost

#4

A behavior like in a Finder window is not possible with AppleScript unless you create a custom .search file (which is actually a xml file) place it in the appropriate folder and select it in the Finder window like a smart search section.
but this is quite complicated.

The search parameters of mdfind can be combined in various ways, the result is always a list of file paths

#5

I’m not sure that I understood well your question but maybe this piece of code may help :


set le_dossier to (path to desktop as text) & "Plants"
tell application "Finder"
	set mes_fichiers to every file of folder le_dossier whose name contains "leave"
	if (count of mes_fichiers) > 0 then
		reveal (mes_fichiers as alias list)
	end if
end tell

As I have no folder named Fruits containing files related to mangos, I tested on a folder named Plants containings some pictures of leaves.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) jeudi 24 janvier 2011 17:14:26