Applescripts
This page contains a number of old Applescripts. Most of them should work until at least Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. Consider the applescripts on this page public domain. If you live in a country were "public domain" is not a valid license, my standard license applies (see footer). In extension to the applicable license, I hereby explicitly grant anyone the right to download, change, modify, distribute, sell, and do practically anything they want with the applescripts on this page. Still, however, no liability or guarantee given.
The script "Peek-o-Matic" appears to have quite a lot of users. So, if you choose to bring this script back to life under Lion, you'll surely be their hero.
Make Nifty Box Note
- Make Nifty Box Note is an Applescript that inserts a note into the tagging application Nifty Box, a feature I really needed Nifty Box to support.
- This Script is best used with Quicksilver: Enter a string for a note title in Quicksilver, Tab, process string with..., Tab, Make Nifty Box Note.
- What the script really does is create an RTF file in the Folder ~/Library/Application Support/Nifty Box and insert that file into your Nifty Box.
Download Make Nifty Box Note
Peek-O-Matic
Attention Skype users: Skype supports call forwarding, which may offer a much better solution to the problem you're trying to solve (Tools > Options > Calls > Call Forwarding. You need to have Skype Credit or a subscription to activate call forwarding). Thanks, Juerg, for pointing this out.
August 2011: Peek-O-Matic seems to have ceased working under Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. So you might want to check out some alternatives, such as le script Run As by Joseph Beeson.
June 2010: Miklas Njor wrote a very nice how-to on setting up a second Skype account with peek-o-matic.
Feb 2010: I have done my best to have this script work under Snow Leopard. The script is essentially a hack that tries to achieve unsupported behaviour on Mac OS X. Therefore, there may still be some problems, such as dialogs sometimes not showing up . Also, it has been reported that Skype has problems accessing the Keychain when started with this script. If these problems occur on your system, you can alternatively try Peek-O-Matic for Admins (which needs administrator privileges). Good luck!
A note to Skype users: If you experience problems with sound input or output, try logging out the background user before launching Skype through Peek-O-Matic. Thanks, Michael, for reporting this problem and its fix.
- Peek-O-Matic allows you to run an application as another user. You bind an app permanently to the script by drag-and-drop. It then asks for a user name and remembers that, too. Henceforth, launching Peek-O-Matic launches above app as above user. Re-configure it by dropping a different app. You can choose whether to enter a password each time or have it stored in the Keychain.
- I found that a significant number of users are using Launch as User to run two instances of an application at the same time, e.g. Skype.
- One more caveat: Because of the way the authentication is handled, it may be possible that the used password is visible in the list of system processes for about a second. I just wanted to mention this, but I don't think it's a real issue in the context of this script. The password never leaves your system and never gets stored anywhere unsecure.
Download Peek-O-Matic or download Peek-O-Matic for Admins
Process with…
- Process with… is an Applescript droplet that allows you to feed files to a shell command by drag & drop.
- On its first launch, Process with… asks for a shell command (can be a binary or a script or anything) and remembers it. You can then drag one or more files or folders onto the Process with… icon and Process with… will call the remembered shell command with those files as parameters.
For example, when in a text editor, save your document, then drag the icon from your editor's window title bar onto Process with….
- Process with… does not yet support command line switches, but please feel free to modify the script to fit your requirements. If you think your enhancements should be included, contact me.
Download Process with…
QuickMount
- There are people who think that the checksum verification of DMG disk images is nothing but a waste of time. If you're one of those poor deluded souls, QuickMount is for you.
- QuickMount is an Applescript droplet (a mere shell wrapper to be precise) that mounts one or more disk images with the -noverify switch. Drag one or more disk images on the QuickMount icon and QuickMount will mount them, skipping the checksum verification.
- The nifty thing is: QuickMount will remember what disk images you mounted with it last time. So if you just double-click on QuickMount the next time, the last-mounted disk images will be mounted automagically.
Useful e.g. for your Startup Items
- If you're like me and actually want checksum verification, edit the QuickMount script and scrap the -noverify in the line starting with do shell script.
Download QuickMount (In German, but I'm sure you'll handle)