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Scripting Forums AppleScript | Classic Mac OS
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#1

I’m new to AppleScript, unfortunately. I would like my scripts to display a window with the text “Running…” as long as they are running. How do I accomplish that?

#2

I’m not sure what you mean by this. Please elaborate…

#3

Thank you for your interest!

I would like my scripts to display a text window that informs the user that the script is running. There is a display dialog option in AppleScript, but this won’t solve the problem. AppleScript would wait for the user to react to the dialog, not finish execution.

#4

There are a few sharware programs that will let you add a “progress bar” to your scripts. And ‘jonn8’ has an example of a pseudo progress bar at…

http://macscripter.net/exchange/comments.php?id=216_0_1_0_C

A couple of the shareware solutions are Extra Suites 1.0 and 24U Appearance Osax 2.1
AppleScript Studio would work for this also.

#5

Actually, for OS 9, 24U Appearance OSAX 1.3 is free.

Jon

#6

Hi :slight_smile:

Another way consists in using the clipboard to show the script progress, here one small example:


--At first time
tell application "Finder" to open clipboard

--In your loop (for exemple)
repeat with Bcl from 1 to 50
	--Here your script
	
	--This is the decreasing progress
	tell application "Finder"
		activate
		set the clipboard to ("" & (50 - Bcl))
	end tell
end repeat

--At end
tell application "Finder" to close clipboard

Tested with Os 9 and AS 1.4 :wink:

#7

Now that is a nifty idea.
Bravo.

#8

It is nifty, but, unfortunately, it is OS 9 only. This is broken in OS X (see the Finder dictionary).

Jon

#9

Yeah, bummer. :frowning:

#10

I highly recommend David’s ‘Extra Suites’ for OS X.
I use it quite a bit with great success.
Kudos, David!

#11

Very nifty indeed.

I got curious and saved a series of pict files of an animated progress bar. And instead of setting the clipboard to text set it to the pict file as a picture:

property sourceFolder : "Mac HD:Desktop Folder:progress:"

tell application "Finder" to open clipboard

repeat with Bcl from 100 to 0 by -1 --countdown from 100 to 1
	
	--using the number we are on, concat to get the path to the appropriate pict file
	set filePath to sourceFolder & Bcl & ".pct" as picture
	
	tell application "Finder"
		activate
		set the clipboard to filePath as picture
	end tell
end repeat

tell application "Finder" to close clipboard

I could only get it to work with PICT files saved from Photoshop and did not really save 100 pict files - I only tested it with 10, mostly cuz I’m lazy.

Thanks Fredo!

#12

Hey folks,

Since we are talking 9, don’t forget about Dialog Director too! :wink:

As 24U Osax, DD has a very adequate Progress Bar as well.

#13

Hi All :slight_smile:

Very interesting your use of the clipboard with images… very good idea !!!

For Os X, we can use and rename a simple folder in the desktop, for exemple :

--At first time 
tell application "Finder" to set NewDos to ¬
	(make new folder at desktop) as alias

--In your loop (for exemple) 
repeat with Bcl from 1 to 50
	--Here your script 
	
	--This is the decreasing progress 
	tell application "Finder"
		activate
		set name of NewDos to ("" & (50 - Bcl) & return)
		--with a "return" to avoid possible errors
	end tell
end repeat

--At end 
tell application "Finder" to delete NewDos

Attention, this easy way is very slow with Os9, but rather fast under OsX…
:wink: