CODEWITHSUNDEEP
applescript
Daniel Paczuski Bak
Daniel Paczuski Bak

Reputation: 4088

Applescript Editor won't run program - syntax error?

Here's my script:

on idle

   tell application "Finder" to open the startup disk

return 100

end idle

When I hit compile, it appears to compile. When I hit run, nothing happens. I've made several variants and I get get any to run.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 270

Answers (1)

Jerry Stratton
Jerry Stratton

Reputation: 3466

It won’t run from AppleScript Editor, because AppleScript Editor doesn’t idle, so to speak.

One solution, if you need to run it from AppleScript Editor for testing, is to put the meat of the script into a separate handler, and then call that handler from both the idle and run handlers;

on openStartup()
    tell application "Finder" to open the startup disk
end doMeat

on idle
    openStartup()
    return 100
end idle

on run
    openStartup()
end run

If you don’t need to run it from AppleScript Editor, then just save it as an application. Applications get idle messages, and so it will work from there.

If you need to test multiple iterations of the script in AppleScript Editor, you can fake the idle by just calling the handler twice in your run handler, with a delay between them:

on run
    openStartup()
    delay 100
    openStartup()
end run

And of course you could also use a loop to repeat multiple times.

Just remember to comment out the test run handler when you save it as an application.

For simple scripts, I often just replace idle with run when I’m testing it, then put run back to idle when I save it.

Upvotes: 3

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