Noodlesoft Forums

Intro
I wrote this script for a specific purpose but the basic structure could be used to do anything where you need to run a script on a file.

I am no script expert; this is only my fourth or fifth script and it is by far the most complex. There was liberal use of the internet, a gradual build-up, use of Display Dialog commands to show progress, and much trial and error. In total it took about 4 hours, including writing this up.

If I can do it you can.

I should add that it can probably be made slicker by eliminating some interim steps, for example creating the variable newName, but this suited my step by step approach.

Background
I have a load of files where I want to insert a hyphen as a separator. By eye it is easy to see where it should be, but there is no programmatic way to do identify the right place. Obviously I could do it manually, but that gets old very quickly.

Solution
I started marking the files to be adjusted by using a set of tags /1, /2, … /n, but I needed a separate rule in Hazel for each tag, which is rather clunky. So this morning I set out to write an embedded Applescript that could take /n as an input and do the work instead.

This is the Hazel test. It will recognise any tag in the form /number


This is the script (code for copying below)


Here is the test set up in "before" state


Here it is after running

Note that the /tag that called it has been removed too, otherwise the rule will keep triggering

The command line tool "Tag" can be found here: https://github.com/jdberry/tag

The embedded code is:

Code: Select all

tell application "Finder"
   #set up variables
   set theName to name of (info for theFile)
   set theCount to item 1 of inputAttributes
   set thePos to 0
   
   #prep the tids
   set astid to AppleScript's text item delimiters
   set AppleScript's text item delimiters to " "
   
   #find the Nth space   
   if (count theName's text items) > theCount then
      set thePos to (count text from text item 1 to text item theCount of theName) + 1
   end if
   
   #restore tids
   set AppleScript's text item delimiters to astid
   
   #act on the result   
   if thePos is greater than 0 then
      #rename the file
      set theName1 to text 1 thru thePos of theName
      set theName2 to text thePos thru length of theName
      set the name of theFile to theName1 & "-" & theName2
      
      #prep the shell command   
      set theTag to "/" & theCount
      set newName to theName1 & "-" & theName2
      set cmd to "/usr/local/bin/Tag -r" & space & quote & theTag & quote & space & quote & newName & quote
      
      #do the shell command
      do shell script cmd
      
   end if
   
end tell