OK, I have some beginner questions. I never touched AppleScript before last week and suddenly I can’t tear myself away from it. 
My first script is a background application to take a photo of my room every 10 minutes using the built-in iSight camera, and then save it in /Pictures/Look. My top priority is low CPU/memory use. I chose an idle handler because I read here it uses hardly any resources between calls. The script works, and it even does Growl! But…
…it won’t work in any other folder than /Applications/Look/, because I’m not sure how to properly refer to icons I put inside its bundle (Look.app/Contents/Resources/), so I keep them in the app folder
- It launches, runs a shell script called looklaunch to work, and looklaunch then runs a shell application called isightcapture which I found online.
Can you help me make the shell script do the same thing as fast in AppleScript, and give me any suggestions for cleaning up my code a bit?
tell application "GrowlHelperApp"
set the allNotificationsList to {"Next", "Status"}
set the enabledNotificationsList to {"Next", "Status"}
register as application "Look" all notifications allNotificationsList default notifications enabledNotificationsList icon of application "Look"
notify with name "Status" title "Look is now running." description "" application name "Look" icon of file "/Applications/Look/applet.icns"
end tell
on idle
set NextPhotoText to ("Next photo at " & (time string of ((current date) + 600)) as string)
set PictureSavedTo to do shell script "/Applications/Look/looklaunch"
tell application "GrowlHelperApp"
notify with name "Next" title NextPhotoText description "" application name "Look" icon of file "/Applications/Look/lens.icns"
end tell
return 600
end idle
Here’s looklaunch:
myimg=${HOME}/Pictures/Look
if [ ! -d $myimg ]
then
mkdir "$myimg"
fi
myimg=${myimg}/`date "+%y%m%d.%H%M"`.jpg
/Applications/Look/isightcapture $myimg
if [ ! "$1" = "quiet" ]
then
if [ -f $myimg ]
then
echo $myimg
else
echo "error"
fi
fi
unset myimg
Thanks for your help
Hi,
this is the AppleScript equivalent of your script. As you can see, there are anyway a few shell script calls.
Requirements
¢ Save the script as application bundle with option Stay Open
¢ Open the application bundle in Finder with the contextual menu > Show Package Contents
¢ Copy the isightcapture executable and the icons lens.icns and your custom applet.icns into /Contents/Resources of the application bundle
At the first run (or the folder doesn’t exist) you will prompted to select the destination folder.
If you want to change it later, delete the folder
Instead of the lens icon you will see the recent taken picture in the Growl notification.
You can change the time interval in the first line
property interval : 600
property tempFolder : missing value
property iSightCapture : ""
property lensIcon : ""
try
POSIX file tempFolder as alias
on error
set tempFolder to POSIX path of (choose folder with prompt "select destination folder")
end try
set the allNotificationsList to {"Next", "Status"}
set the enabledNotificationsList to {"Next", "Status"}
tell application "GrowlHelperApp"
register as application "Look" all notifications allNotificationsList default notifications enabledNotificationsList icon of application "Look"
notify with name "Status" title "Look is now running." description "" application name "Look" icon of application "Look"
end tell
set iSightCapture to quoted form of (POSIX path of (path to me) & "Contents/Resources/isightcapture")
set lensIcon to POSIX path of (path to me) & "Contents/Resources/lens.icns"
on idle
set NextPhotoText to "Next photo at " & (time string of ((current date) + interval))
set timeStamp to do shell script "/bin/date +%y%m%d.%H%M"
try
do shell script (iSightCapture & space & quoted form of (tempFolder & timeStamp & ".jpg"))
tell application "GrowlHelperApp"
notify with name "Next" title NextPhotoText description "" application name "Look" image from location (tempFolder & timeStamp & ".jpg")
end tell
on error e
tell application "GrowlHelperApp"
notify with name "Next" title NextPhotoText description "an error occured: " & e application name "Look" icon of file lensIcon
end tell
end try
return interval
end idle
Note: except while running the isightcapture executable there is no further error handling like checking the existence of the resource files or the iSight camera
To make the application running in background only hiding the main menu and from the dock,
open Info.plist in /Contents of the application bundle and add this key right before the NSMainNibFile key
<key>LSUIElement</key>
<string>1</string>
disadvantage: You can quit the application only in Activity Monitor or in Terminal.app
Wow, thanks Stefan, that rocks!
I noted what you said about no error handling, so I’ve been working a bit on it, to introduce error handling in case of no Growl, and to allow the interval to change.
The problem I’m having is that Look now always asks me to choose the folder to store the files when it starts up, even if the folder hasn’t changed since the last time it ran. How can I make it remember the folder store setting?
Also, any idea how to change the contents of the File > About box from the default applescript placeholder text?
Here’s how the script looks at the omment:
property intervalSeconds : 600
property tempFolder : missing value
property iSightCapture : ""
property lensIcon : ""
global hasGrowl
set iSightCapture to quoted form of (POSIX path of (path to me) & "Contents/Resources/isightcapture")
set lensIcon to POSIX path of (path to me) & "Contents/Resources/lens.icns"
try
POSIX file tempFolder as alias
on error
set tempFolder to POSIX path of (choose folder with prompt "Look! Choose where to save Look's photos...")
set intervalMins to (text returned of (display dialog "Look likes to take photos every 10 minutes. Or you can set a new interval here." giving up after 30 default answer "10" with icon 1))
set intervalMins to intervalMins as real
set intervalSeconds to ((intervalMins * 60) as integer)
tell application "Finder" to activate
end try
tell application "System Events" to set hasGrowl to ((application processes whose (name is equal to "GrowlHelperApp")) count)
if hasGrowl ≥ 1 then
tell application "GrowlHelperApp"
set the allNotificationsList to {"Next", "Status", "Error"}
set the enabledNotificationsList to {"Next", "Status", "Error"}
register as application "Look" all notifications allNotificationsList default notifications enabledNotificationsList icon of application "Look"
notify with name "Status" title "Look is now running!" description "" application name "Look" icon of application "Look"
end tell
end if
on idle
set NextPhotoText to "Next photo at " & (time string of ((current date) + intervalSeconds))
set timeStamp to do shell script "/bin/date +%y%m%d.%H%M"
if hasGrowl ≥ 1 then
try
do shell script (iSightCapture & space & quoted form of (tempFolder & timeStamp & ".jpg"))
tell application "GrowlHelperApp"
notify with name "Next" title NextPhotoText description "" application name "Look" icon of file lensIcon
end tell
on error e
tell application "GrowlHelperApp"
notify with name "Error" title "Look must quit. :(" description e application name "Look" icon of file lensIcon
end tell
quit
end try
return intervalSeconds
else
return intervalSeconds
end if
end idle
when you save the script as application bundle and run it always by launching the app,
the saved folder path persists. But it does not as an AppleScript Studio application
A more reliable way to check the presence of Growl is this subroutine
set growlExists to check_Application_exists("com.Growl.GrowlHelperApp") --> true or false
on check_Application_exists(theApp)
try
tell application "Finder" to application file id theApp
return true
on error
return false
end try
end check_Application_exists
I don’t know how to change the about window in AppleScript,
maybe it works the same way as in AppleScript Studio, which is described in the documentation