FastScripts - Red Sweater Forums

Feature request : edit/reveal a script via the keyboard

Tue, 27 Jun 2006 20:08:43 -0400

Firstly let me say thanks for FastScripts, it's a terrific timesaver. Keeping in with the whole keyboard loving power user vibe I'd like to suggest an (imho) improvement.

I'm often tweaking scripts, and it's a bit of a drag to dig through the menu to find the one I want. So: how about a special key that puts FastScripts into "edit script" mode? Hit the system-wide, user-defined trigger. FastScripts' icon changes colour to indicate that it's waiting for you to hit another key combo. Typing an assigned shortcut then opens the relevant script in its default editor. Time = saved! It's effectively like option-clicking the menu item, only without even having to open the menu. Another system wide trigger would let you reveal the script with its shortcut, as if you'd shift-clicked it in the menu. Typing an undefined shortcut or hitting escape returns FastScripts to normal mode.

No idea how difficult that would be to implement, but it'd be verrrry convenient for this script aficionado...

Ian

Small request... I think! ;)

Thu, 22 Jun 2006 16:00:12 -0400

Hi Daniel,

I had a small request for an upcoming update of FastScript:

Would it be possible to have labeled folders appears as such in the FS menu?
I tend to file all the script rated to a givien project under each FS "Application" folder but would find lovely if I could navigate to subfolder by color rather than text... i know i am lazy that way, but that is also the reason I started scripting... ;)

Thanks again for a great product!

Michel

Displaying Color Picker: Why Doesn't this Work?

Thu, 13 Apr 2006 10:46:15 -0400

I just found a cool hint at Mac OSX Hints that uses a 1-line script to open the Apple color picker in applications that don't use the color picker. (See http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20060408050920158&lsrc=osxh)

The script is ridicuously short:

choose color

That's it.

Now, when I bring this script up in Launchbar, it works fine, but when I run it from Fastscripts, it locks things up. Just wondering why. Thanks.

Doug

A handy script to have in FastScripts

Wed, 05 Apr 2006 18:09:01 -0400

Because FastScripts gives you the ability to choose a key combination to run a script stored as a script, I find it very useful to have this little script in my Script Folder.

activate application \"Finder\"
tell application \"System Events\" to tell process \"Finder\" to tell menu bar 1 ¬
    to tell menu bar item \"Edit\" to tell menu \"Edit\" to click menu item \"Show Clipboard\"
-- Note that the second statement is all one line

Does what it looks like it does - shows you the current contents of the Clipboard from anywhere. I select the text I want, use Command - c to get it, use my ShowClipboard code to see it, use Command - W to close the Clipboard window and Command - Tab to get back where was.

Consolidating Application Script Menus?

Mon, 03 Apr 2006 23:35:09 -0400

I just registered Fastscripts, and I was wondering about your opinion of application-specific script menus (e.g., like the one in NetNewsWire), and if it's best to keep scripts in those menus, or if it would be better to move all application-specific scripts to Library application folders so they show up in Fastscripts. What's the general consensus? Thanks.

Doug

Floating Palette Window(s)...

Fri, 31 Mar 2006 15:46:26 -0500

I've been looking for a third party device that can run compiled scripts from a floating palette, or 'tear off' menu.

Does FastScripts have this ability or do you plan to implement it sometime?

Reason for asking: Recently I wrote a number of UI scripts for an otherwise unscriptable app... mostly calls to single menu items, with a keystroke or two added. It would be very cool to have sort of a 'command console' to invoke scripts without mousing to _any_ menu.

I've implemented something of my own (see lower quarter of screenshot linked below), but it's not very flexible in setup.

http://www.mhtc.net/~bunnz/amadeus_commands.html

Thanks for any replies...

Peter B.

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Invoke Applescript - no chance to input passphrase

Thu, 09 Mar 2006 10:10:16 -0500

I have FS 2.2.8 on Mac OS X 10.4.5

I have an alias to an Applescript that launches some SSH sessions that appears in the FS menu.

When I invoke the AS from the menu, it never gives me a chance to type in my passphrase.

If I double click on the alias it pauses and gives me a chance to input a passphrase which is then used by the rest of the script.

What do I need to tweak to make FS honor the AS pause ?

Thanks

mark

Libraries in scripts run from FastScripts.

Mon, 13 Feb 2006 17:23:09 -0500

According to an excellent tutorial on script libraries at Foodoo Lounge, there are three ways to use a library with a script. Have you an opinion on which of those is most efficient for scripts saved as scripts in ~/Library/Scripts, and run via FastScripts hot keys?

Suggestion for later version

Mon, 09 Jan 2006 10:19:11 -0500

I have my scripts organized in folders (or the menu goes off the page). It would be a helpful feature if selecting a folder (not a file inside) would open the folder. I find myself trying to do that all the time.

FastScripts Menu Organization (in Menubar)

Sun, 01 Jan 2006 19:49:38 -0500

The menu under the menubar FastScripts icon shows folders from both the ~/Library/Scripts folder and from the /Library/Scripts folder interleaved although they are not in the Keyboard Shortcuts pane of FastScripts Preferences. Is there any way to make those folders appear separately? Having it the way it is confuses my organization of several hundred scripts in ~/Library/Scripts/ by presenting other folders put in /Library/Scripts/ by the system install. I don't want to throw those away - I just want to differentiate them without having to change the names of the folders there.

System Events troubles..

Wed, 21 Dec 2005 15:52:21 -0500

Whenever I try to do this:

tell application \"Safari\" to activate

tell application \"System Events\"
    tell application process \"Safari\"
        keystroke \"a\" using {command down}
    end tell
end tell

In Script Editor, and from the FastScripts menu, that code works perfectly. When I bind it to a FastScripts hotkey and try to run it, I just get a beep, and nothing happens.

I wonder if this is somehow related to my other post because like that issue, the behavior is different from "the norm" only when using a FastScripts hotkey.

Any ideas? Is there a FastScripts error log I can view?

(I'm using FastScripts 2.2.6)

- Cowboy

Organizing the Fastscripts Menu

Sat, 03 Dec 2005 11:35:35 -0500

I have some questions (or maybe feature requests) regarding the Fastscripts menu:

1. There are now about 30 Apple script folders that display in the menu. With my own folders the list now often goes off the bottom of the screen. Since I seldom use most of the Apple script folders, I'd like to get them off the list. Is there a way to create an "Apple" meta-folder for these scripts ... or something?

2. In order to easily find the Applications script folder in the midst of all the Apple folders, I renamed it "*Applications". This nicely moved it to the top of the list. However, at that point the list of scripts for the selected application disappeared -- I guess because Fastscripts looks for "Applications" specifically. Is there a way to tell it to use "*Applications" instead?

Or, just as good, is there a way to force the Applications folder to be at the top of the list?

(I work around this by duplicating "Applications" as "*Applications", but this makes for extra work everytime I edit a script." I tried making an alias of Applications -- it appeared in the list but showed no contents.)

3. For some applications I have a lot of scripts. Instead of listing all of the scripts for the selected application, is there a way to just make that application's script folder appear where the list scripts appear now?

(I can work around this by putting all the scripts in a folder inside the Application's script folder, but the result is kind of clunky.)

4. If the name of a scripts folder does not exactly match the name of the applications, including the case of the letters, the scripts will not appear when the application is selected. There's nothing wrong with this, but it might be nice if Fastscripts could disregard case so that, for example, "iTunes" and "itunes" were equally acceptable.

5. Finally, I have a number of scripts that work in multiple applications. To see them in a particular application, I have to copy them to multiple application script folders. It would probably be too much to expect Fastscripts to map one script to multiple applications, but it would be nice to have a "Favorites" (or some such) list right under "Recent Scripts".

I hope this didn't sound too much like a list of complaints. I *really* like this program and use it constantly. These are just the bits that hang me up. Thanks.

Is there a way to invoke one FastScript listing from another?

Thu, 17 Nov 2005 23:59:51 -0500

Is there a way, from an AppleScript, to use the key code for another script listed by FastScripts to make it run? The straight-forward approach: tell application "System Events" to key code, etc. doesn't work.

Getting List of Scripts from FastScripts

Fri, 23 Sep 2005 14:46:18 -0400

Does FastScripts have an AppleScript way of getting the names of all the files in its menu into a script for further processing or should I just attack the /Library/Scripts Folder itself in the Finder? (Not clear from Dictionary)

Suggestion for future thought

Thu, 01 Sep 2005 17:25:12 -0400

If the Script Editor is your primary tool for writing and debugging AppleScripts, then FastScripts could become a very handy notifier for debugging. When I've tried this with structures like this:

-- some script

set myNote to aNote(\"Whatever\", howLong)

-- some more script

delay 1.5 -- just inserted for the example

cancelNote(myNote)

on aNote(entry)
    tell application \"FastScripts\" to set theNote to display message entry¬
               at screen position top right dismissing after delay howLong
    return theNote
end aNote

on cancelNote(noteRef)
    tell application \"FastScripts\" to set autodismiss time of noteRef to 0.01
end cancelNote

it has worked quite nicely and doesn't require fiddling with a display dialog.

Caps Lock confusion.

Wed, 31 Aug 2005 17:38:02 -0400

If your caps lock key is down (inadvertant, in my case) then option-click and command-click don't work (because the intended modifier key is not "pure").

Since FastScripts doesn't use the caps lock key, however, it would be better if option or command had the same effect whatever the position of the caps lock key.

Not a big deal, but it has happened to me a couple of times.

Notification of Script Running

Mon, 29 Aug 2005 13:48:30 -0400

Sorry to bombard you, but this just occurred to me.

I know that the FS menu bar icon changes color when a script is running, but it would be an added feature if I could post a notification (ideally of my choosing) at the beginning of a script that would automatically dismiss itself when the script was finished.

-- at the beginning of the script:
display message \"Checking Your IP Address\" at screen position¬
top right dismissing when script quits
-- the rest of the script

Keyboard Shortcuts

Fri, 26 Aug 2005 08:40:32 -0400

Hi there, I just installed FastScripts to try out and wanted to put some keyboard short cuts to existing scripts. I double click the script in the preferences area and the field for the short cut highlights but will not take any input. It remains '(none)'. What do I need to know about the keyboard shortcuts that I am missing?

Adding QuicKeys features

Sun, 28 Aug 2005 13:05:31 -0400

For those of us who have used QK for a long time, but have since learned AppleScript, we are often just using QK to give us a hot key to one or more AppleScripts entered as script text scripts as a QK step in a sequence. In another thread, Daniel said:

Daniel said:
I am somewhat tempted to take FastScripts in the direction of a full-blown macro application like QuicKeys, but I haven't decided whether I really want to bite into that, or whether to do it as a completely new product.

Three comments come to mind:

1) QK can't do too many things that aren't better done with an AppleScript and/or shell script. Several of its features aren't really useful at all (decisions simply hop over a step - all but "goto" programming; there's no real if statement).

2) Neither QK nor AS make GUI scripting really reliable (particularly system GUI interfaces like the Energy Saver).

3) You could get your feet wet by writing an OSAX to do some of what QK does that AppleScript doesn't (though I'm not sure what that would be).

Just my two cents.

Notifier Positioning

Thu, 30 Jun 2005 09:39:16 -0400

I tried to post yesterday, but timed out on the submission and lost my message, so I posted to MacScripter and got some answers. Here's the thread:

http://bbs.applescript.net/viewtopic.php?id=13252

By the way; this doesn't work:

    display message \"foo\" at screen position center dismissing after delay 0
    set x to screen position of message window 1

But this does:

 tell application \"FastScripts\"
display message \"foo\" at screen position center dismissing after delay 0
end tell
get bounds of window 1  -- using the Finder to locate the window

Welcome FastScripts Users!

Mon, 27 Jun 2005 21:05:51 -0400

Thank you for visiting the new FastScripts discussion board. Feel free to post any questions or comments here as you explore the software.

Daniel Jalkut
Red Sweater Software

Some AppleScripts that utilize FastScripts..

Thu, 07 Jul 2005 22:13:51 -0400

I don't know if posts of this nature will be appreciated or are even allowed here.. but I just wanted to say that I've written a handful of AppleScripts for Mail, Finder, and Safari that utilize FastScripts' key-mapping feature.

Maybe someone reading would find them useful:

http://cowboyscripts.org/applescript/

Thanks again for such a great app!

- Cowboy

Open compiled scripts in Script Editor

Mon, 11 Jul 2005 13:27:43 -0400

Moving this topic from the Welcome topic, in which NovaScotian asked:

FastScripts doesn't understand that a compiled AppleScript can be edited by the Script Editor, I assume because the Script Editor no longer "owns" it. Just the same, when I press option while selecting a compiled script in the FastScripts menu, couldn't FastScripts assume that the script could be opened by the editor and try anyway?