RETRO - Applescript just completed for you OS9 enthusiasts!

Scripting Forums Code Exchange
#1

After the recent completion of http://macscripter.net/viewtopic.php?id=43892, seriously thought about how viable it was to still be keeping all my music, movies and such compatible with Mac OS9 (yep, pretty hopeless, I know) :stuck_out_tongue:

But the good folks at TenFourFox ( http://www.floodgap.com/software/tenfourfox/ ) updated Classilla ( http://www.floodgap.com/software/classilla/ ), their browser for OS9 and after a year of OSX scripting, enjoyed a day of going back to the 16-bit window trim and Ridiculous Zippiness that OS9 still offers - seriously, if an android pad ever came out running real OS9, I’d be all over that stuff!! That was the system for $40,000+ drum-scanners, film-recorders and essentially: “Mac for Productivity”, rather than the Yuppie-Bling it has become now (in service to the great iTunes Cash-Register-Overlord in the sky)!

So back to the issue of OS9 media compatibility: The biggest thing missing, is the availability of a decent video-playback environment, like VLC/XBMC. QuickTime 6 (lack of H.264 not withstanding) is still pretty spry and even offers really nice playback support for Flash/SWF animation files with sound.

As it turns out, some of the code from the app above was able to compress to Applescript 1.8.3 and here with now have QT Theatré http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/qt-theatré-multi-video-quicktime-playback-in-os9

It allows for selecting folders of QT-compatible videos and then plays them either alphabetically or randomly based on a button selection. The multi-segmented video playback module from PPC Media Center above worked with just a few changes. An actual positive change is that since the videos are not streaming, but instead already saved, it can contrast each movies “Current Time” vs “Duration” values and uses that info to close each movie once it is done and opens the next. This is nice when one ‘Pauses’ a video, as it will happily resume and then close/open the next just like say VLC does today.

The random function is the real showpiece though. Quality randomness is, of course, not random at all but instead “random of the unplayed-choices remaining”: because with straight random, you sometime get the same video playing twice/three times in a row. So, the list movieList, that comes from the directory chosen, gets copied over to newMovieList in total (minus the video just played) and then movieList gets set to newMovieList each repeat/playback. Works very well.

The only problem is simply stopping the script. The only thing that works is to force-quit, but this actually wasn’t too bad in use, as the current video just needs to get paused, then “Command-Tab” over and force-quit.

After this little project, it becomes very CLEAR just how much Shell Scripting has added to Applescript. Sometimes We Have to See Where We’ve BEEN, to Appreciate Where We ARE!


----
-- "QT Theatré" for QuickTime Player 6.0.3 (Mac OS 9.2.2). Written by Adam Albrec (game_creator@hotmail.com)
----

-- Prevents timeout during operation.
with timeout of 86400 seconds
	
	-- Prompts user to select directory of QuickTime documents.
	set moviePath to (choose folder with prompt "                                  ***  Select Folder & Click CHOOSE ***") as alias
	tell application "Finder" to set movieList to every file of moviePath as list
	set n to the number of items of movieList
	
	-- Prompts user for normal or random playback.
	display dialog "                               Select Playback Mode" buttons {"Normal", "Random", "Cancel"}
	if result = {button returned:"Normal"} then
		
		-- Normal playback Mode.
		set mvNmbr to "1" as number
		repeat n times
			tell application "QuickTime Player"
				open item mvNmbr of movieList
				set ttlChck to the name of item mvNmbr of movieList
				try
					repeat
						tell application "QuickTime Player"
							set currentTime to (current time of movie ttlChck)
							set durationTime to (duration of movie ttlChck)
						end tell
						delay 0.5
						if currentTime is durationTime then
							tell application "QuickTime Player"
								close movie ttlChck
							end tell
							exit repeat
						end if
					end repeat
				end try
				set mvNmbr to mvNmbr + 1
			end tell
		end repeat
		
	else
		
		-- Random playback mode.
		repeat n times
			tell application "Finder" to set rndmVid to some item of movieList
			tell application "QuickTime Player"
				open rndmVid
				set ttlChck to the name of rndmVid
				try
					repeat
						tell application "QuickTime Player"
							set currentTime to (current time of movie ttlChck)
							set durationTime to (duration of movie ttlChck)
						end tell
						if currentTime is durationTime then
							tell application "QuickTime Player"
								close movie ttlChck
							end tell
							exit repeat
						end if
						delay 0.5
					end repeat
				end try
			end tell
			set newMovieList to {}
			set x to "1"
			set y to the number of items of movieList
			repeat y times
				if item x of movieList is not rndmVid then
					set newMovieList's end to item x of movieList
				end if
				set x to x + "1"
			end repeat
			set movieList to newMovieList
		end repeat
		
		-- End of script.
	end if
end timeout

Model: MDD G4 DP 1.42 GHz
AppleScript: 1.8.3
Browser: Classilla 9.3.3
Operating System: Mac OS 9.2.x