As usual, includes both an AppleScript and a .fp7 demo file.

Download at http://sibr.com/downloads/Gooey Gadgets.zip

Recapping things, it is a small background application for adding UI functionality that is not easily available in either AppleScript or Filemaker. It supports the following UI elements:

• Message Window: display a single line of text sized to fit across entire width of screen (like Address Book)
• Progress Window: smaller window displaying a progress control and a cancel button
• Table Window: displays list data in a row & column format
• Text Window: for larger amounts of text that won’t fit in a typical dialog

Includes both an AppleScript and a .fp7 demo file.

Download at http://sibr.com/downloads/Gooey Gadgets.zip

This tip has two parts to it. The first part of this, and more commonly known, is how you can use a system’s computer (Bonjour) name to contact a system. You can see this for a file server if you go to the Finder’s Network browse folder.

In the example above, there is only one system broadcasting its availability, and showing its name as iMacIntel. From here, I could connect to the system if it was a file server or share its screen if screen sharing (AKA VNC) was enabled. But what if I want to connect via SSH or ping it. Since I know its Bonjour name, I can ping the system in the Terminal by adding .local as a suffix like so:

ping imacintel.local

Now that we know how to use a system’s name as a hostname, how do we find a system if it isn’t showing up in the network view? That will be in the next post.

display table window “Table Title” label “my rows and columns” data {{“1″, “one”, “uno”}, {“2″, “two”, “dos”}, {“3″, “three”, “tres”}}

Download at http://sibr.com/downloads/Gooey Gadgets.zip.

display text window “Text Title” label “Log from: /var/log/system.log” message (do shell script “cat /var/log/system.log”)

There have also been some minor changes to the parameters used for the update window and display progress window commands so that they are consistent with display text window. These may require you to edit or recompile any scripts to use the new version.

Download at http://sibr.com/downloads/Gooey Gadgets.zip.

There’s one glaring omission in the current version: how to detect when the user has canceled the progress dialog. For that, I’ll probably add a list windows function, or something similar.

I did some investigation into creating a windows Applescript class of its own. This would be especially helpful with implementing the features for the progress window so you could say something set title of window 1 to “Hi”. However, adding support for a class requires a significant amount of work, and I’d rather spend the time right now on adding more interface elements. So any improvements on the object oriented front will have to wait.

Once again, the download link is at:

http://sibr.com/downloads/Gooey Gadgets.zip

There’s a nice utility by the name of BigHonkingText that comes pretty close to this, but you must execute it via the command line, and has a few small differences from Address Book in its implementation

Since I was hoping for an all AppleScript solution and was trying to get as close a match as possible, I’ve cooked up an app of my own for this.

Called Gooey Gadgets, it is a faceless “helper” applcation that has the following commands:

tell application id ”com.sibr.gooeygadgets” – could’ve also used app name instead

 set x to display message window “big message”

 delay 4

 dismiss window x – Gooey Gadgets will now quit if this is the last open window

end tell

/_Projects/Gooey\ Gadgets/build/Release/Gooey\ Gadgets.app/Contents/MacOS/Gooey\ Gadgets -cmd messagewindow -giveup 2 "(510) 835-4483"

Download the most recent version at:

Gooey Gadgets.app.zip

After downloading, move it out of your Downloads folder. The first time you run it, you may need to OK the application as safe to run.

Set Variable [ $script; Value:"xs = 'He' + 'llo'; print xs # Complicated way to say hello" ]

Set Variable [ $res; Value:bBox_Shell( 0; "python -c \"" & $script & "\"") ]

Show Custom Dialog [ Title: "Python"; Message: $res; Buttons: “OK” ]

That’s definitely do-able. But you’ll likely have to reformat your scripts, and be careful about quoting or escaping characters. Alternatively, you could first ensure that your script had first been saved out to a file, perhaps by using FileMaker’s Export Records command.

But instead, I can now write something like the following from a FileMaker script:

Set Variable [ $script; Value:"# Complicated way to say hello. xs = 'He' + 'llo'

print xs "]

Set Variable [ $res; Value:bBox_PythonCompile( 0; $script ) ]

If [ $res = "" ]

Set Variable [ $res; Value:bBox_PythonExecute( 0 ) ]

Set Variable [ $ig; Value:bBox_PythonFinalize ]

End If

You may be wondering why it takes three function calls to execute such a simple script. There are three reasons for this. Most obviously, a script can be executed multiple times but only needs to be executed once. A related, but less obvious reason is the need to setup and then teardown the Python environment, which is significant for a short script like this. Finally, it allows the option of setting or retrieving Python variables from FileMaker, which can now be done with the bBox_PythonSetVar and bBox_PythonGetVar functions.

Personally, I won’t be tweeting extensively, just occasionally.

http://buzz.beezwax.net/2009/03/19/bbox-filemaker-plug-in-easily-add-applescript-shell-grep-and-more-to-your-filemaker-projects

Since it’s already described there I won’t be going into great detail about it. But I do plan on posting some comments on how to make good (or unexpected) use of it .

Here’s my first easter-egg. In the shell section of the demo file, I’ve put in some of the Safari preference snippets that I mentioned in Hidden preferences, files, and URLs in Safari. Eventually I may get them all in.