Obtaining file path through drag and drop

Scripting Forums AppleScript Studio & Xcode
,
#1

Hello all,

I am writing an app in Xcode with Applescript that would run a series of photoshop actions, and renaming functions and whatnot on images put into it. I already did the whole this as a standalone script, but I’m trying to beef it up with a full gui, which would allow me to make it much more dynamic.

I feel like I’m missing something right now. I have a table view set up that I can drop files into, and have it display their file names. Which is great. I had a lot of fun adding in neat little GUI elements like deleting from the database, deleting multiple files from the database, learning how to deselect files, etc. It was all cool, till I realized I had no idea how to link those database objects back with their parent files. I don’t even know where to start with this. I’ll post everything I have right now here, but it’s driving me crazy.


global theDataSource
global theTableView

property theImageFiles : {}


on awake from nib theObject
	-- Create the data source for the table view
	set theDataSource to make new data source at end of data sources with properties {name:"images"}
	
	-- Create the "files" data column
	make new data column at end of data columns of theDataSource with properties {name:"images"}
	
	-- Assign the data source to the table view
	set data source of theObject to theDataSource
	
	-- Register for the "file names" drag types
	tell theObject to register drag types {"file names"}
	
	set theTableView to table view "images" of scroll view "images" of tab view item 1 of tab view 1 of window "main"
end awake from nib

on drop theObject drag info dragInfo
	-- Get the list of data types on the pasteboard
	set dataTypes to types of pasteboard of dragInfo
	
	-- We are only interested in "file names" data types
	if "file names" is in dataTypes then
		-- Initialize the list of files to an empty list
		set theImages to {}
		
		-- We want the data as a list of file names, so set the preferred type to "file names"
		set preferred type of pasteboard of dragInfo to "file names"
		
		-- Get the list of files from the pasteboard
		set theImages to contents of pasteboard of dragInfo
		
		-- Make sure we have at least one item
		if (count of theImages) > 0 then
			--- Get the data source from the table view
			set theDataSource to data source of theObject
			
			-- Turn off the updating of the views
			set update views of theDataSource to false
			
			-- Delete all of the data rows in the data source
			delete every data row of theDataSource
			
			-- For every item in the list, make a new data row and set it's contents
			repeat with theItem in theImages
				set theDataRow to make new data row at end of data rows of theDataSource
				set tid to AppleScript's text item delimiters
				set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "/"
				set theItem to last text item of theItem
				set AppleScript's text item delimiters to tid
				set contents of data cell "images" of theDataRow to theItem
			end repeat
			
			-- Turn back on the updating of the views
			set update views of theDataSource to true
		end if
	end if
	
	-- Set the preferred type back to the default
	set preferred type of pasteboard of dragInfo to ""
	
	return true
	
end drop

on clicked theObject
	set lineCount to count every data row of theDataSource
	display dialog ("there are " & (lineCount as text) & " items in this list.")
end clicked

on keyboard up theObject event theEvent
	set keyPressed to (key code of theEvent)
	if keyPressed is 51 then
		set theSelectedRows to selected data rows of theTableView
		if (count of theSelectedRows) > 0 then
			if (count of theSelectedRows) is 1 then
				display dialog "1 item will be removed from the list." & return & "Continue?"
				set que to button returned of result
				if que is "OK" then
					set deleteQuery to 1
				else
					set deleteQuery to 0
				end if
			else
				set theCount to (count of theSelectedRows)
				display dialog ((theCount as text) & " items will be removed from the list." & return & "Continue?")
				set que to button returned of result
				if que is "OK" then
					set deleteQuery to 1
				else
					set deleteQuery to 0
				end if
			end if
			if deleteQuery is 1 then
				set update views of theDataSource to false
				repeat with i from 1 to (count of theSelectedRows)
					delete (item i of theSelectedRows)
				end repeat
				call method "deselectAll:" of theTableView
				set update views of theDataSource to true
			end if
		end if
	end if
end keyboard up

As you can see, there are a lot of references to “file Names” but no references to the files themselves. I feel like it shouldn’t be a problem to grab the path at the same time that it’s grabbing the file name, and run a seperate database file in the background, so that when I delete a row from the file names database, I can delete it from the path database as well, but I can’t find documentation on anything even close to this.

Hope someone can help me before I go insane.

#2

Here is your file path


.
-- For every item in the list, make a new data row and set it's contents
           repeat with theItem in theImages --> theItem contains the full path
.

you could add an extra column to your data source, which won’t be displayed

#3

Well, that was dumb of me.

Can I call upon that column the same as I could a list? so something like:


set theItems to data column "path" of theDataSource
repeat with anItem in theItems
--do some stuff like rename functions, open as alias, etc
end repeat
#4

Hmm.

This is weird. I’m just trying to be able to interact with these files now. I can get the path (minus the root, if it’s on the same drive as the app, is that ok?), but it says there is nothing there. I even ran a function to switch the back slashes out with colons, but it still doesn’t see the file.

on double clicked theObject
	set theSelectedRow to selected data row of theTableView
	if (count of theSelectedRow) > 1 then
		display dialog "Cannot open more than 1 file at a time!"
	else
		set theItem to (contents of data cell "path" of theSelectedRow)
		(*set tid to AppleScript's text item delimiters
		set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "/"
		set thePath to every text item of theItem
		set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ":"
		set thePath to thePath as string
		set AppleScript's text item delimiters to tid*)
		tell application "Finder"
			if exists theItem then
				display dialog "theItem exists"
			else
				display dialog "theItem does not exist"
			end if
			set theName to name of (theItem as alias)
			set theName to (theItem & " Processed")
		end tell
		
	end if
end double clicked

Any ideas?

#5

theItem is a POSIX path (slash separated)
AppleScript works only with HFS paths (colon separated)


.
set theItem to (contents of data cell "path" of theSelectedRow)
set HFSItem to POSIX file theItem as alias --> coerces a POSIX path to an alias
.