Keeping with the "self-built apps," I'm going to show you how to build your own YouTube downloader. Sure you could use applications like TubeSock, but where's the fun in that? This application will download the YouTube flash video from a pasted link, and all with a little AppleScript. 
Scott posted yesterday on a new series about SSH coming to Apple Matters. If you want to skip the learning and go straight to the Secure Shell-ing, then why not take a look at this recent post by John Welch. In this post, he describes how to set up a simple AppleScript that uses Apple Remote Desktop to SSH into a set of Macs on your local network. The script takes the machines you have selected in ARD (or, if you've only got one selected, just that machine) then opens SSH sessions in Terminal, ready for you to type your UNIX commands to your networked computers.
If you use iCal to store you important dates and events, and use it on a regular basis without syncing events via an iPod, iPhone, or other device, then you know how frustrating it can be when you forget about an appointment or event. I'm going to show you a way to automatically print your daily iCal agenda with a simple AppleScript. You can set this script to run when your Mac starts up so you never miss an appointment!
Have you ever been away from your Mac, then come back only to find that your co-worker has stolen your favorite Apple pen? Well, I am going to show you how to catch them in the act by creating a Mac "spy cam." For this how-to, you will need to create an Automator workflow, AppleScript, and some Mail rules. So, cue the James Bond music, and let's begin.
Continue reading Mac Automation: create a Mail-triggered "spy cam"
We talk about iCal once in a while. Did you know that an iCal alarm can launch an AppleScript? A recent comment from reader Zach (and subsequent replies) made us think that this tip might be of use to anyone who hasn't considered the possibilities.
When you schedule an alarm in iCal, one of the options for the alarm is "Run script." If you select "Other..." from the script selection dropdown, you can choose any AppleScript you want to launch. Then you just tell the alarm when to go off and your script will run.
Considering that AppleScript can control quite a few of the applications on your mac, and that iCal can handle repeating events, the possibilities are wide open. You could do something as simple as schedule applications by putting the following into a script in Script Editor and saving it as a regular script:
tell application "Safari" to activate
and another one...
tell application "Safari" to quit
to quit. Of course, you could then add to the scripts to have Safari navigate to certain pages as well. And you could launch as many apps as you want in the same script. Anything you can do with AppleScript, you can schedule. For more Terminal-savvy readers, Applescript's "do shell script" command allows for an even wider range of possibilities. You can even get user interaction with a "display dialog" command. I'm sure there's someone here who could have a blast with this.
If you use any applications with Cocoa-based text editors (TextEdit, Mail.app, and many more), you may have noticed that some of them, like Mail.app, recognize URLs and automatically turn them into links. The links are in Rich Text Format (RTF) and can be copied and pasted into other RTF-compatible text fields. To the best of my knowledge, though, there's no easy way to automate the creation of an RTF hyperlink, via AppleScript or other means. In programs that don't detect URLs, or if you want to link text to a URL, you generally have to select text, go to a menu item (Link..., Link Add..., etc.) that's a few submenus down, and then enter the url. Me? I'm always looking for the easy way out...
Continue reading Speedy creation of rich text links to Mail messages
Last week I talked about controlling your Mac with an e-mail; this week, as promised, I am going to show you how to apply this same idea to iTunes. So, without further ado, let's get started with writing some AppleScripts. 
Have you ever been away from your Mac and wanted to shut down, restart, or needed to open an application remotely, but didn't have access to anything except your iPhone? Well, I am going to show you how to do these tasks with AppleScript and Mail. Continue reading AppleScript: Control your Mac with an e-mail
iCal is great for storing your calendars and appointments, but what if you want to export (or backup) your calendars in case of a data emergency? Well, you could backup your calendars manually; however, AppleScript is so much cooler. Let's automate the backup of iCal calendars through the use of an AppleScript. 
As someone who spent months hand-crafting Visual Basic scripts in Microsoft Office, only to have Microsoft pull the rug out from under me with the release of Office 2008 (they abandoned VB support for the Mac. Grrr.), I'm very grateful to MacTech magazine and longtime AppleScript guru Paul Berkowitz.Many people have criticized Apple for not updating their AppleScript language documentation regularly (myself included). Scoff no more, because Apple updated their documentation yesterday. The last update to the AppleScript language documentation was on May 5, 1999 -- almost 9 years ago. If you're like me, when you sit down at your Mac, you end up opening a few specific apps depending on what kind of project you're working on. I am going to show you how you can group these applications into "task launchers" that will bring up a suite of programs with one click. For instance, I have a script that will open iPhoto, iDVD, and iMovie called "Create Movies." When I run this script, it will open all of the applications I need to make my movie. I also have one called "Productivity" that will, when opened, launch Mail, iChat, Pages, and Yojimbo (even though some might argue with iChat's productivity value). Just as there are multiple ways to save Automator workflows, there are also multiple ways to save AppleScripts. In this how-to, I will show you ways in which you can save your AppleScripts for future use.
Daniel Jalkut put together a little app called "Usable Keychain Scripting" a little while ago that was designed (what else?) to make scripting the Keychain a little more usable -- the interface included in OS X is bad, to say the least. He was apparently hoping that it would be better in Leopard, but no dice -- we're all using the new version, and it's still a pain to access the Keychain with AppleScript.
| # | Blogger | Posts | Cmts |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dave Caolo | 50 | 0 |
| 2 | Cory Bohon | 45 | 4 |
| 3 | Mat Lu | 40 | 5 |
| 4 | Scott McNulty | 34 | 2 |
| 5 | Erica Sadun | 33 | 1 |
| 6 | Michael Rose | 26 | 19 |
| 7 | Brett Terpstra | 23 | 0 |
| 8 | Steven Sande | 22 | 9 |
| 9 | Mike Schramm | 20 | 4 |
| 10 | Robert Palmer | 18 | 27 |
| 11 | Joshua Ellis | 8 | 4 |
| 12 | Christina Warren | 5 | 18 |
| 13 | Nik Fletcher | 4 | 1 |
| 14 | Chris Ullrich | 3 | 2 |
| 15 | Jason Clarke | 1 | 1 |
| 16 | Lisa Hoover | 1 | 1 |
| 17 | Victor Agreda, Jr. | 1 | 4 |
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