CODEWITHSUNDEEP
macosreplaceapplescriptclipboard
rh0dium
rh0dium

Reputation: 7052

AppleScript to take text and turn it into pasteable HTML

We work with bugzilla. Whenever you need to query a ticket you just need to know the bugid (integer) and you simply prepend this to it.

http://<bugzilla_server>/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=<bug_id>

Suppose I have a bug link which looks like this 777. If I select and copy this it is preserved on the pasteboard so when I paste this into mail it will correctly preserve the link and it's attributes.

What I am looking for is to simple type '777' select it and run an applescript on it and replace it with a link like the one above. Can anyone help me out??

Upvotes: 1

Views: 3080

Answers (2)

markratledge
markratledge

Reputation: 17561

Not sure exactly the function you're looking for, but this will take a number from your clipboard and process it into a link and put the link on the clipboard as a standard href URL that will work in plain or rich text, like: <a href="http://<bugzilla_server>/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=777" title="777">Bug number 777 link</a>

Change <bugzilla_server> to your working URL.

set bug_number to the clipboard

set the_text to "<a href=\"http://<bugzilla_server>/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=" & bug_number & "\" title=\"" & bug_number & "\">Bug number " & bug_number & " link</a>"

set the clipboard to the_text

Upvotes: 1

Ned Deily
Ned Deily

Reputation: 85105

The following AppleScript will take the contents of the clipboard and replace it with the URL prepended:

set the clipboard to "http://bugzilla_server/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=" & (the clipboard)

You can compile that to an AppleScript scpt and make it available in a Scripts folder or compile it to a launchable app:

osacompile -e 'set the clipboard to "http://bugzilla_server/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=" & (the clipboard)' -o replacebug.scpt  # or -o replacebug.app

If your primary use case for this is in composing mail in Mail.app, this may not be the most user-friendly approach, though. If you are using Snow Leopard (10.6), a simpler solution is to take advantage of the new Text Substitution feature. Open the System Preferences -> Language & Text preference panel, select the Text tab, and click + to add a new substitution, perhaps:

Replace   With

  (b)     http://bugzilla_server/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=

Then, in Mail.app, start a New Message and, with the cursor clicked within the text body, do a Control click of the mouse to bring up the contextual menu. From it, select Substitutions -> Text Replacement. From now on, as you are typing in the text body of the email when you type:

(b)777

the (b) will automatically change to the URL text you saved:

http://bugzilla_server/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=777

This will also work in other Cocoa text-enabled applications like Safari.

EDIT:

When talking about composing URL links in email, there are at least three different formats of email, each with a different solution. Since you don't say which kind you are using, I'll cover all three:

  1. Plain text format - There's no way to "hide" the URL in the composed email although some email readers might present a clickable link for a plain-text URL.

  2. HTML-formatted email - Apple's Mail.app does not support composing email in this format although it will display it. Using some other mail writer client or your own program, it's easy enough to compose a link using a standard HTML anchor <a href=...> tag.

  3. Rich Text Format email - AFAIK, this is the only way to compose a URL link with Mail.app. Unfortunately, there does not appear to be an easy way to directly create an RTF hyperlink using AppleScript commands. Based on a suggestion here, this is a way to do it by creating a modifiable RTF template via the clipboard.

    • In TextEdit.app, create a new Document window.
    • Insert the text you want to appear in the email, i.e. 777.
    • Select the text (⌘A) then add a link (⌘K). Enter the full URL also with 777 into the "Link destination" field; click OK.
    • Modify the text format as desired with Format menu commands.
    • Save the file (⇧⌘S) as temp.rtf with File Format -> Rich Text Format.
    • Close the document window.
    • Open a document window (⌘O) selecting file temp.rtf and selecting Ignore rich text commands.

    • Insert the following before the first line in the file:

      #!/bin/sh
sed -e "s/777/$(pbpaste -Prefer txt)/g" <<EOF | pbcopy -Prefer rtf

    • Append EOF as a separate line at the end of the file.

      It should now look something like this:

      #!/bin/sh
sed -e "s/777/$(pbpaste -Prefer txt)/g" <<EOF | pbcopy -Prefer rtf
{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\cocoartf1038\cocoasubrtf250
{\fonttbl\f0\fswiss\fcharset0 Helvetica;}
{\colortbl;\red255\green255\blue255;}
\margl1440\margr1440\vieww9000\viewh8400\viewkind0
\pard\tx720\tx1440\tx2160\tx2880\tx3600\tx4320\tx5040\tx5760\tx6480\tx7200\tx7920\tx8640\ql\qnatural\pardirnatural
{\field{\*\fldinst{HYPERLINK "http://bugzilla_server/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=777"}}{\fldrslt 
\f0\fs24 \cf0 777}}}
EOF

    • Save this as a Plain Text file and execute directly as a shell script or call it via the AppleScript do shell script command.

    This kind of solution will work with most other applications that support Rich Text format.

Upvotes: 3

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