What does this program do?
Gooey Gadgets is a background (or helper) application with both AppleScript and shell interfaces. It has commands to create progress, table, and extended text dialogs.
What can I use it for?
Shell or AppleScript's can be difficult to add a user interface to. Gooey Gadgets can be used to easily add extended dialogs that the standard AppleScript libraries do not provide. Additionally, many functions are available via a CLI (command line interface).
Progress dialogs are an often desired element. These can be added as either indeterminate or determinate. Here's a simple AppleScript example to create an indeterminate progress bar:
display progress window "Default Progress"
Sometimes you need to display something in a big and bold way. The display message window command displays text in a rounded, transparent window sized to match the width of the primary display. This is similar to the Apple Address Book application's large type option.
display message window "one line using defaults"
Displaying values in rows & columns is another common need. The display table window command can help with this.
display table window "Table Title" label "my rows and columns" data {{"1", "one", "uno"}, {"2", "two", "dos"}, {"3", "three", "tres"}}
Operations that create large amounts of text can't be handled by a standard AppleScript dialog. The display text window command handles this situation. Here we will show an example of its use from the command line.
cat /var/log/system.log | /_Projects/Gooey\ Gadgets/build/Release/Gooey\ Gadgets.app/Contents/MacOS/Gooey\ Gadgets -cmd textwindow -title "Text Title" -msg "Log from: /var/log/system.log"
What are the system requirements for this program?
Mac OS 10.5.0 or higher required.
Notes:
The application can be installed anywhere that is convenient. However, the first time the app is launched on a users system there may be a delay while AppleScript searches for the application. Opening the application first will help with this issue. More details about this, plus examples, are included with the download.
Current Version: 0.39
Gooey Gadgets.zip
Check the blog at http://sibr.com/blog for any recent developments.