I am new to Applescript. I read somewhere that somebody had a fantastic idea to use Applescript to do a number of cool things. I just don’t know how to make it happen. The idea is this:
I want my iMac to power up in the morning at a certain time as my alarm clock. I heard that through audio speech you can get you Mac to greet you. “Good Morning it’s 6:15 AM and time to get up.” From there I would like iTunes to begin playing and the audio speech to start reading me the headlines like sports, international news and the the local weather overtop of the music. I then would like to have the whole system shut down at a certain time.
I know this is pretty complicated but I know some of us out there are having their Mac do these amazing things. I can’t stop thinking about how great this idea is. Kinda like when in Iron Man that chick wakes up in Tony Stark’s bedroom and everything powered up. Remember that? That is what I want to happen to me! Please help me - let’s work on it together!
My Timer program will do most of what you’re after (except read the headlines). But it can be set to wake to music, sound, or speech (or all three). It also will let you sleep to music and turn iTunes off when the sleep timer is up.
That being said, there are easy ways to get what you want. For example, the Energy Saver preference in System Prefs can be set to wake and shut down your Mac. If the Mac is already running but in sleep mode, it will wake the system. If you have your Mac set to automatically log you in, then you can shut the machine down at night - if not, you’ll need to just put it in sleep mode with you already logged in.
You can set iCal to run an Applescript at a given date/time. This could launch your speech and headlines script. It could also launch iTunes and start playing a playlist (or an album). I have a calendar named “Applescript” for this purpose. I also keep a playlist called “Applescript” in iTunes for creating “on the fly” playlists via scripts.
The best place to start if you’re new to Applescripting is Applescript for Absolute Starters (PDF file). Also, my tutorial on how to use application dictionaries (the commands an application understands) would be helpful. I also have a set of beginner’s scripts called SHAZAM that will give you some ideas.
There are LOTS of great scripters here, so try some experiments and let us know how they turn out. If they don’t do what you want, post back here and we’ll try to help.