Apple Novice Needs Help

[Muad_Dib]

Don’t laugh, I’m still learning :oops: I was just trying to write a little script that I would set as a Startup Item in Sys Prefs. I just wanted something to quickly check my Inbox for any new messages and then give me some options. It was sort of working at one point but something has gone silly and I don’t know what. Maybe one of you guys could tell me by running it or looking at the script. Thanks in advance.

tell application "Mail"
	activate
	delay 5
	set myUnread to get unread count of inbox
	tell application "System Events"
		activate
		tell process "Mail"
			click menu item "Hide Mail" of menu "Mail" of menu bar 1
		end tell
	end tell
	if myUnread is greater than 0 then
		set tempVar to display dialog "Welcome Back, You Have " & myUnread & " New Email Messages. Would You Like to See Them Now?" buttons {"No Thanks", "Sure"} default button 2
	else
		set tempVarTwo to display dialog "You Do Not Have Any New Messages. Shall I Quit Mail for You?" buttons {"No Thanks", "Sure"} default button 2
	end if
	set buttonNew to button returned of tempVar
	set buttonNot to button returned of tempVarTwo
	if buttonNew is "Sure" then
		tell application "Mail"
			activate
		end tell
	else
		tell application "Finder"
			activate
		end tell
		if buttonNot is "Sure" then
			tell application "Mail"
				quit
			end tell
		else
			tell application "Finder"
				activate
			end tell
		end if
	end if	
end tell

[jonn8]

You’re making things too complicated. You don’t need to invoke GUI scripting and you can simplify your if statements. You are also probably generating an error because you are trying to access two variables when the logic of your script dictates that only one will be defined. Try this:

–Open this script in a new Script Editor window.

set myUnread to missing value
tell application “Mail”
launch
repeat until myUnread is not equal to missing value
set myUnread to get unread count of inbox
end repeat
end tell
tell application “System Events” to set visible of process “Mail” to false
if myUnread > 0 then
set the_message to “Welcome Back, You Have " & myUnread & " New Email Messages. Would You Like to See Them Now?”
set the_action to “activate”
else
set the_message to “You Do Not Have Any New Messages. Shall I Quit Mail for You?”
set the_action to “quit”
end if
if button returned of (display dialog the_message buttons {“No Thanks”, “Sure”} default button 2) = “Sure” then run script "tell application “Mail” to " & the_action

Jon

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[This script was automatically tagged for color coded syntax by Convert Script to Markup Code]

[Muad_Dib]

EDIT Ok, I see you’ve revised it even more. Still works great. If you don’t mind; Would you say that the second version is more stable for any particular reason? Or is it just better because it’s “leaner”? It’s obvious, there are many different ways to accomplish a task, how do you know which is the best? Thanks again man.