AppleScript Help, File Usage Monitoring

Scripting Forums AppleScript | Mac OS X
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#1

I am trying to make a script of my own that will do the following, however I have not a clue where to begin.

I need it to do:

¢ Record each files name as it is opened, perhaps in an Excel file.
¢ Record the time that it is opened.
¢ Record the time once it is closed.
¢ It would be best to save and close the excel file each time it writes in a new value.

I would want it to put the info in each column, that way I can simply have Excel total up the time per instance that each file was open.

Thanks for any help you can give,
Jeremiah

Model: iMac 21.5"
AppleScript: 2.3 (118)
Browser: Camino 2.0.2
Operating System: Mac OS X (10.6)

#2

Hello

How many files would this be applicable to?
Do the files reside in the same folder?

#3

That’s an extremely tall order, particularly if you don’t know the names (or locations) of the files in advance.

For a given file F,

do shell script "mdls -name kMDItemUsedDates " & quoted form of POSIX path of F

will tell you dates when a given file was last used (opened), but not durations.

I would argue that duration isn’t going to be of much use anyway. How often have you had a doc open in the background but not really in use?

#4

There’s a rather longer thread about ways to run a script when a file opens.
It might contain something useful.