Applescript Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Thought experiment: hacking Siri to control your TV

by Erica Sadun (Oct 28th, 2011)

Yesterday, our lead editor Mike Rose sidelined me to ask, "Could we tell Siri to control Apple TV?" Just as a thought experiment. After a bit of investigation, I had an answer for him, which was "Yes, you could, but no, you probably don't want to." That's because the degree of hacking necessary ...

TUAW's Daily Mac App: Shuttie

by Samuel Gibbs (May 11th, 2011)

Ever wanted to leave your Mac running unattended at night, but don't want it running all night long? Today's Daily Mac App will help you do just that. Shuttie allows you to bind one of six actions to a countdown timer, allowing you to shutdown, restart, sleep or logout of your Mac, or fire ...

Ask TUAW: AppleScripting coolness

by Justin Esgar (Apr 27th, 2011)

It's Tuesday Wednesday, which means it's time for Ask TUAW Video Edition. We've gotten great comments and questions coming in, and we have been trying to get to them all. Some of them are just too hard to show in a video format such as Ask TUAW, so today I have decided to do a little AppleScript ...

Ask TUAW Video Edition: PDF and Scripting

by Justin Esgar (Mar 29th, 2011)

Andrew asked us about how to have a folder convert documents to PDF format so that he can sync them to his Dropbox. Today's show goes into how to use Automator and AppleScript to do some scripting, and we're going to demonstrate an iPad app that will convert documents for you on your ...

Use AppleScript to open current Safari URL in Google Chrome

by TJ Luoma (Mar 14th, 2011)

I've been using John Gruber's suggestions from Going Flash-Free on Mac OS X, and How to Cheat When You Need It to avoid installing Adobe Flash by using Google Chrome (which includes its own version of Flash) whenever I run into a page that has Flash I want to see. To make this easier, John ...

Sparrow gets AppleScript support, immediately put to use with OmniFocus

by Steven Sande (Feb 15th, 2011)

Sparrow, the sleek new email client for Mac OS X, was updated yesterday to improve speed, fix some minor bugs and add some limited AppleScript support. While the changes might not be apparent to many Sparrow users, they were apparently an inspiration to Don Southard, who immediately figured out a ...

Mobiola WebCamera gets localization, AppleScript support

by Steven Sande (Dec 3rd, 2010)

It's always nice when developers respond to the suggestions of reviewers. A few weeks ago, I wrote a review of Mobiola Web Cam from SHAPE Services. It's a combination of an iPhone app and a desktop (Windows and Mac) client that turns your iPhone into a webcam. At one point in my review, I suggested ...

Fake.app makes powerful Web automation easy

by Brett Terpstra (Sep 6th, 2010)

Todd Ditchendorf (Celestial Teapot Software) is probably best known for creating Fluid, a Site-Specific Browser app that we love to talk about. While Fluid was a great and well-executed idea, Todd's latest app, Fake, is truly inspired. The easiest way to describe Fake is to say it's Automator for ...

Create keyboard shortcuts to jump to Safari 4 tabs directly

by TJ Luoma (May 13th, 2010)

My friend Steve (no, not that Steve) just solved a problem I've had for awhile now: how to jump to a specific tab in Safari using the keyboard. Turns out that it's possible, and it's free, and it works pretty well. What else could you ask for? The solution comes from Paul Kretek's website where ...

Former Apple Store employee creates Iron Man's J.A.R.V.I.S. using a Mac mini

by Michael Grothaus (Apr 6th, 2010)

Okay, there's no HUD display like Tony Stark had and it isn't voiced by Paul Bettany, but former Apple Store employee Chad Barraford has created Project Jarvis, a digital assistant that greets him, Tweets for him, and can even tell his family when he has a headache and dim the lights of his ...

SDK devsugar: Re-signing applications

by Erica Sadun (Feb 9th, 2010)

TUAW's devsugar series helps introduce developers to tools and tricks that they might not yet be familiar with. Today's tip centers on signing already-compiled and already-signed applications with a new custom signature. A while back, I posted about a way to sign already-compiled applications ...

Send tweets automatically during a Keynote presentation with Keynote Tweet

by Sang Tang (Jan 21st, 2010)

Imagine if, as Steve Jobs moves through each slide of his Keynote presentation, he also has the telepathic powers to automatically tweet information related to the slide. But even the almighty Steve Jobs can't do that. Fortunately for him, there's Keynote Tweet. An open source AppleScript app, ...

Ask TUAW: Automatic file sorting, Disk Utility, iPod battery replacement, and more

by Mat Lu (Jan 20th, 2010)

Welcome back to Ask TUAW, our weekly troubleshooting Q&A column. This week we've got questions about automatically sorting downloaded files, using Disk Utility to change partitions and format external drives, using a KVM in a multi-platform environment, replacing an iPod touch battery, and more. ...

Sal Soghoian talks Automator use in education

by Dave Caolo (Nov 13th, 2009)

Total Apps has published a nice guest post from Sal Soghoian, Apple's Production Manager for Automator, intended for teachers. He describes how educators have a limited amount of instruction time with the kids, and even less for maintenance tasks like making sure the proper software is installed, ...

Batch move your playlists to an iTunes folder

by Sang Tang (Oct 22nd, 2009)

Folders, which have been a feature of iTunes since iTunes 5.0, serve as a means to better organize your music. For example, you could create genre- or artist-based folders with corresponding playlists nested within them. But moving playlists into folders isn't the most fun thing, and can be ...