set contents of text view in iTunes tell block

Scripting Forums AppleScript Studio & Xcode
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#1

the following line does not work with in iTunes tell block:

tell application “itunes”
do some stuff
set ts to “some string”
set contents of text field “status2” of tab view item “actions” of tab view “maintabs” of window “main” to ts
end tell

it gives me an error at compile time in XCode.

Also, this does not compile in the same tell block:

tell me to set contents of text field “status2” of tab view item “actions” of tab view “maintabs” of window “main” to ts

putting it outside the tell block works.

putting it in a subroutine, and calling that subroutine from within the iTunes tell block compiles, but does nothing at run time. ie,

on showstatus2(ts)
set contents of text field “status2” of tab view item “actions” of tab view “maintabs” of window “main” to ts
end showstatus2

i have no easy way to escape from that tell block. any ideas what’s going on or how to solve it?

#2

Have you tried declaring ts as a property at the top level of the script?

property ts : ""

tell application "iTunes"
	--do some stuff
	set ts to "some string"
my showstatus2(ts)
end tell

on showstatus2(ts)
set contents of text field "status2" of tab view item "actions" of tab view "maintabs" of window "main" to ts
end showstatus2

(Note: this solution is untested; I’ve got too much going on in AppleScript Studio at the moment. :confused: )

#3

setting ts as a property seemed to have had some effect in getting the status message to appear eventually, but the timing is way off. the program seem to go way beyond the points it is supposed to show a status message. it’s rather strange.

any other clues?

#4

Could you tell the window/object to update at the right time to keep the update messages in synch?

#5

sorry but how do you tell the window, or a text view, or a progress bar, to update? (other than just setting the new value).

The parts of these routines that I’m trying to “update” return errors (the rest don’t):

on doprog(v)
if v = 1 then
tell tab view item “actions” of tab view “maintabs” of window “main” to start progress indicator “prog”
else if v = 0 then
tell tab view item “actions” of tab view “maintabs” of window “main” to stop progress indicator “prog”
else
tell tab view item “actions” of tab view “maintabs” of window “main” to set content of progress indicator “prog” to v
end if
–tell tab view item “actions” of tab view “maintabs” of window “main” to update progress indicator “prog”
return true
end doprog

on showstatus2(ts)
tell me
set contents of text field “status2” of tab view item “actions” of tab view “maintabs” of window “main” to ts
–tell (text field “status2” of tab view item “actions” of tab view “maintabs” of window “main”) to update
–tell window “main” to update
end tell
end showstatus2

#6

Here is some code I’ve used before that does an update -

tell window "mainWindow"
	tell progress indicator "progressSpinner" to start
	set contents of text field "progressLabel" to "Preparing files..."
	update
end tell
#7

I did it for an iTunes contorller, like so:


on idle theObject
	tell application "System Events"
		set iTunes to ((application processes whose (name is equal to "iTunes")) count)
	end tell
	if iTunes is greater than 0 then
		try
			using terms from application "iTunes"
				tell application "iTunes" to get player state as string
			end using terms from
			if result is not "stopped" then
				tell application "iTunes"
					set j to (duration of current track) / 60 as string
					set k to (player position) / 60 as string
                            end tell
                                   update_progress(k, j)
	end if
		on error
			return ""
		end try
	end if
	return 1
end idle
                                   
on update_progress(iteration, total_count)
	tell window "mainWindow"
		if iteration = 0 then
			tell progress indicator "progress" to start
			set indeterminate of progress indicator "progress" to true
		else
			tell progress indicator "progress" to stop
			set indeterminate of progress indicator "progress" to false
		end if
		set maximum value of progress indicator "progress" to total_count
		set content of progress indicator "progress" to iteration
		update
	end tell
end update_progress

It updates the progress every second. Hopefully that helps :slight_smile:
and as for your first question, try:

tell application "itunes"
do some stuff
set ts to "some string"
set contents of text field "status2" of view of tab view item "actions" of tab view "maintabs" of window "main" to ts
end tell

adding “of view” should make it work properly.

as for putting it in a subroutine, try

on showstatus(ts)
tell window "main"
set contents of text field "status2" of view of tab view item "actions" of tab view "maintabs" to ts
end tell
end showstatus

Let me know if this works :slight_smile:

#8

I think I had it worked out already, but thanks for this. In particular the idea to tell window “main” to update within the idle handler is a good one, and should help with the interface lag I think.

cheers.