AppleScript to move files from CD via Director

[Big_Daddy]

I need to paint a scenario before I hit you up for advice/direction…

I work for a non-profit - we work with schools on evaluation. We have a particular evaluation model that we work with folks around the country to implement. We have written several books, a few of which are resources that are bound with CDs.

The CDs provided with the books are best thought of as toolkits - they contain hundreds of different files that are organized into folders by the associated chapter in the book. The following part is really important — users DO NOT simply receive a CD full of files that they need to wade through - the CD is driven by an interactive Director interface that allows them to ‘install/download’ the folders by chapter. Think of the functionality like a website with sections for each chapter - you go to those sections and can get info about the tools and how to use them, then ‘install/download’ them.

Getting the files from the CD, using Director, to the users computer has been the sticky part. I have previously used self-expanding archives to move the files - a button in the Director app triggers the self-expanding archive, which comes to the forefront and expands the folder of files to the machine, and then it goes away. Pretty easy. In the past I have created everything in OS9 which has worked out fine - but it seems that with OS 10.3 some folks are opting not to install classic. To accomodate 9 and X with my old way of doing things, I will need to have two different versions of the interactive and of all the self-expanding files on the CD - one for 9, and one for X (which means double all of the files, and I don’t have room on the CD).

Soooooo, I was thinking that I could create two interactives that pull from a single set of files (so I would not need two sets) and have Director fire an AppleScript that moves the files from the CD to the users machine. The folders would not be compressed or anything - it would be a simple drag and drop (I would like to have a save as location window pop to allow the user to select a location to place the files).

Sound reasonable? Is it possible? Help!!!

[julifos]

This is sample code:

–> declare explicit local variables, so changes are not saved to the app
–> which will throw errors in CD (non writable media)
–> as exposed recently in the AppleScript-Users List
local cdPath, fooFile, destinationFolder

–> get the location of the CD (for example…)
set AppleScript’s text item delimiters to “:”
set cdPath to items 1 thru -3 of ((path to me as text)'s text items) & “” as text
set AppleScript’s text item delimiters to {“”}

set fooFile to cdPath & “files:foo.txt” as alias

set destinationFolder to (choose folder with prompt “Where will you store foo.txt?”)

–> fire the command and ignore results, so you avoid problems with
–> large files, slow cd-readers, etc.
ignoring application responses
tell application “Finder” to duplicate fooFile to destinationFolder
end ignoring

As you see, I use files and folder references. This should be organized as follow, or you can adjust it to fit the file/folder hierarchy in your CD:

I think this code should also work fine for OS 9 and back…