Setting a time for Applescript to run?

Question

Setting a time for Applescript to run?

I like to keep my computer on at night, running programs, downloading and whatnot, however, I don't want it to still be on in the morning, I want it to shutdown around 4 am. Unfortunately, some of the programs I'm running (for downloading or converting video files) don't quit nicely, and cancel the shutdown, which just leaves the computer running, but doing nothing (and because of the pop-up saying shutdown was cancelled, not even sleeping).

What I'm hoping to do is write a script that would quit the applications a few minutes ahead of the shutdown time, so that they'd be closed by the time shutdown starts, and it would work properly. Is it possible to write a script that would run automatically at a certain time? Even if I had to run it before I left the computer, if it could run in the background until that time, that would even work.

Is that even possible???

Dual 867MHz Power Mac G4, Mac OS X (10.4.5), 512 MB RAM, 60 + 180 GB, GeForce4 MX, 32 MB vRAM

Posted on Mar 18, 2006 8:23 PM

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Answer 1

Justin S.

Level 3

655 points

Mar 19, 2006 7:49 AM in response to David J. Paetkau

Hi David,

Its most certainly possible for a script to run at the same time every day. Many users like CronniX which is a aqua frontend for the unix tool cron. It would allow you to schedule your script to run every morning at a certain time. However, it is a little more complex than the simplest method. You can attach an applescript to an ical event. So if you just had an event in your ical every morning at a certain time, and attached the script to it, it would run. Good Luck!

--Justin S.

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Answer 2

reese_

Level 4

1,735 points

Mar 22, 2006 3:45 PM in response to Justin S.

David,
Why not just setup the power management to put it to sleep on idle? Then you don't have to argue with the programs and (bonus) when you return just giggle the mouse and return where you left off.

Or, if you want to play with a heavy hand and really don't want to discuss the issue with those chatty apps you can use the unix command 'shutdown' in root's cron. It's not very polite, but it does the job.

Reese

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