I don’t know if it is appropriate to ask for help in this forum. I’m sure someone will let me know if it’s not 
I have a system set up where I can voice dictate on my iPhone into the programs Jott or ReQall, and then have those programs transcribe my notes into text. The services will then send the transcribed text to my email (Mac Mail). I have a script that takes the added items and turns them into to do’s in my project manager program “Things.”
The problem is that the services add a bit of text before the to do. For example, ReQall adds the phrase “Added:” in front of the dictated text.
The script works fine bringing the items over to Things, but I would like to strip the added text before it posts. Is there any way to do this? I have tried a variety of approaches, but none work. I would appreciate any help.
Here is the script that takes the text from mail and adds it to Things:
using terms from application "Mail"
on perform mail action with messages MessageList for rule Things
tell application "Mail"
activate
set thisVar to (count message viewers)
if (count message viewers) = 0 then make new message viewer
set thisMessage to item 1 of MessageList
set taskName to the subject of thisMessage
set taskDesc to the content of thisMessage
if thisVar = 0 then quit message viewer 1
tell application "Things"
set newToDo to make new to do with properties {name:"New to do"} at beginning of list "Today"
set name of newToDo to taskName
set tag names of newToDo to "ReQall"
set notes of newToDo to taskDesc
end tell
end tell
tell application "System Events"
set processID to name of every process
end tell
if "GrowlHelperApp" is in processID then
tell application "GrowlHelperApp"
set the allNotificationsList to {"Things Notification"}
set the enabledNotificationsList to {"Things Notification"}
register as application "Remote Things Script" all notifications allNotificationsList default notifications enabledNotificationsList icon of application "Things"
notify with name "Things Notification" title taskName description taskDesc application name "Remote Things Script"
end tell
end if
end perform mail action with messages
end using terms from
Perhaps something like this will work for you
set someText to "beginining Added: other"
set tid to AppleScript's text item delimiters
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {"Added:"}
set someItems to text items of someText
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {""}
set strippedText to someItems as string
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to tid
return strippedText -- "beginining other"
Thank you for the reply. But I need some help showing me exactly where the new script needs to be added to the script I posted. Perhaps you could cut and paste the two together to give me the idea?
Thanks,
Kevin
Perhaps
using terms from application "Mail"
on perform mail action with messages MessageList for rule Things
tell application "Mail"
activate
set thisVar to (count message viewers)
if (count message viewers) = 0 then make new message viewer
set thisMessage to item 1 of MessageList
set taskName to the subject of thisMessage
set taskDesc to the content of thisMessage
set tid to AppleScript's text item delimiters
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {"Added:"}
set someItems to text items of taskDesc
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {""}
set taskDesc to someItems as string
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to tid
if thisVar = 0 then quit message viewer 1
tell application "Things"
set newToDo to make new to do with properties {name:"New to do"} at beginning of list "Today"
set name of newToDo to taskName
set tag names of newToDo to "ReQall"
set notes of newToDo to taskDesc
end tell
end tell
tell application "System Events"
set processID to name of every process
end tell
if "GrowlHelperApp" is in processID then
tell application "GrowlHelperApp"
set the allNotificationsList to {"Things Notification"}
set the enabledNotificationsList to {"Things Notification"}
register as application "Remote Things Script" all notifications allNotificationsList default notifications enabledNotificationsList icon of application "Things"
notify with name "Things Notification" title taskName description taskDesc application name "Remote Things Script"
end tell
end if
end perform mail action with messages
end using terms from
Thank you very much. I think one of the problems was when I added your text originally, I didn’t notice that the script was effecting the task description and not the task name. But I tweaked it and it’s working fine. For my future knowledge, is there a way to avoid the space that the script adds at the beginning of the task? Its not important here, but I would like to know for future reference. I tried elimination the two quotation marks that were the substitute for the string we were stripping, but it made no difference.
Once again, thank you. I really appreciate you taking the time to help me.
I don’t know, but it is possible that “task” is a reserved word in AppleScript. If that is the case, avoiding variable names that start with “task” would be a good idea.
In a similar vein, I once wrote a method “CommonElementsOf”. A space kept getting put in from of the “of”, so I don’t end names with “of” any more.
That makes sense. Thanks again.