Good morning!
I used the instruction found on topic System-wide Insert Date & Time - Apple Community
to create a timestamp to use in mail, but I don't know how I can set the date format to be dd/mm/yyyy and the hours format to 24h even if my system preference are in 12h.
the script is this
on run {input, parameters}
set thedate to (current date) as string
tell application "System Events"
keystroke thedate
end tell
end run
can anyone help me?
MacBook Air (M1, 2020)
There is simpler date formatting available using the UNIX date command and supported strftime(3) symbology to arrive at your date format.
In the Automator Quick Action, set Workflow receives [ no input ] in [ any application ]. Also, select:
☑︎ Output replaces selected text
There won't be any selected text but if you want this action to return a date string into Mail (or anywhere else), you need this selected. The escaped (e.g. \") quotes are necessary in AppleScript.
Now the Quick Action workflow:
use scripting additions
on run {input, parameters}
-- see https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007908799/xsh/strftime.html
-- for UNIX date formatting codes
set thedate to (do shell script "date -j +\"%d/%m/%Y %T\" ") as text
return thedate
end run
And when you select Mail > Services menu (or unique keyboard shortcut) for this Quick Action, the following date string will be inserted:
21/05/2023 08:45:48
Tested: macOS 13.4
There is simpler date formatting available using the UNIX date command and supported strftime(3) symbology to arrive at your date format.
In the Automator Quick Action, set Workflow receives [ no input ] in [ any application ]. Also, select:
☑︎ Output replaces selected text
There won't be any selected text but if you want this action to return a date string into Mail (or anywhere else), you need this selected. The escaped (e.g. \") quotes are necessary in AppleScript.
Now the Quick Action workflow:
use scripting additions
on run {input, parameters}
-- see https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007908799/xsh/strftime.html
-- for UNIX date formatting codes
set thedate to (do shell script "date -j +\"%d/%m/%Y %T\" ") as text
return thedate
end run
And when you select Mail > Services menu (or unique keyboard shortcut) for this Quick Action, the following date string will be inserted:
21/05/2023 08:45:48
Tested: macOS 13.4
Use the following to adjust the date 48 hours into the future:
date -j -v+48H +"%d/%m/%Y %T"
You can read more about the UNIX (as implemented on macOS) date command by entering this URI string in the Safari address field:
x-man-page://date
or from the command-line in the Terminal as:
man date
I chose the UNIX date command for your solution as although you could eventually manipulate AppleScript date/time data to arrive at the desired output, it would take considerable code and teeth gnashing to get it done.
use scripting additions
on run {input, parameters}
set thedate to (do shell script "date -j -v+48H +"%d/%m/%Y %T\" ") as text
return thedate
end run
You mean write the script like this?
it gives me syntax error
and shows this message on trying to run the command
The action “Run AppleScript” encountered an error: “The operation couldn’t be completed. (com.apple.Automator error -212.)”
You did not escape the following format string:
set theDate to (do shell script "date -j -v+48H +"%d/%m/%Y %T\" ") as text
It should be:
set theDate to (do shell script "date -j -v+48H +\"%d/%m/%Y %T\" ") as text
You need to watch out for those syntax gotcha's in AppleScript.
Thank you!!!!!
Can I ask you another question, if I want to return the current date + 48h, how should I write the script?
For example to the timestamp I make now the script returns 23/05/2023 15:24:04 instead of 21/05/2023 15:24:04?
Anyone know why this (excellent) answer to a simple problem — putting the current date into a text string — fails to work when trying to append the date to an existing file name in Apple Finder? Is there some additional step that will copy the resulting date string and then paste it into the file's text field in finder, or similar. Thanks so much!
it worked fine! thank you so much!
You are welcome.
Timestamp