opening a .jpeg-file in a folder with Applescript

Your script is doomed to failure, not least because of the line:

opendocument 1

This is in a 'tell application "System Events"' block, but System Events isn't a document-based application, so it's going to fail. The problem is that your script is within a 'try/end try' block so any errors are suppressed - in other words the script fails silently and never gets to the parts where you would rename the file.

At the very, very least you need to refer to url_path (the data that came out of Filemaker Pro), not 'document 1'.

You also need to validate that url_path exists and is in the right format to reference a file - without seeing sample data it's not clear if this is a specific URL (as the name implies, e.g. "file:///such/as/this.jpg"), or a UNIX-style path (/such/as/this.jpg) or a Mac-style path (such:as:this.jpg)

At the very least you need to coerce the data to a file reference since the data coming out of Filemaker is almost certainly just text (so your text 'exists url_path') will always return true... yup, that text exists!)

Finally, you're opening the file, then trying to change its name. You should change its name before opening it (assuming you need to open it at all).

Try something like:

tell application "System Events"

try

if not (exists file url_path) then

display dialog url_path & " not found"

else

display dialog "path = " & url_path

set name of fileurl_path to album_title

display dialog url_path & " was renamed to " & album_title

end if

end try

end tell

What happens If you run this script:

tell application "FileMaker Pro"

activate

set url_path to cell "bestandspad_cover" of current record

set album_title to cell "album title" of current record & ".jpeg"

end tell

display dialog url_path

display dialog album_title

end tell

If it displays the text of the url_path followed by album_title, could you post exact examples of each?

I'm not familiar with FMP but you may need to

set url_path to content of cell "bestandspad_cover" of current record

Or maybe contents, or text, or something else altogether.

I think the problem is with the URLs in your database, which don't match URLs in the file system.

Try this, for example:

tell application "Finder"

set the_URL to URL of file (choose file)

end tell

-- "file://localhost/Users/myusername/Desktop/Photo/Clifton%20Bridge.jpg"

You'll notice that this refers to localhost, not "Macintosh HD", and it adds URL encoding (eg %20 for a space) as well. So when you pass your database URLs to the Finder, or System Events, they don't match up to the actual URLs of the files on your disk.

I think you'll need to parse the database references in the script before you pass them to the Finder, or modify the database itself so that the refererences are correct file system URLs for the Mac.

HD is mostly right - the problem lies in the fact you're using URLs in your database.

The spaces aren't so much the problem, since the OS will actually handle that one, but you cannot just 'open' a URL. The Open command specifically expects a file reference of some kind, not a URL.

To 'open' a URL you have to use the 'open location' command:

open location "url_path"

but that's still irrelevant for what you're trying to do - there is NO requirement to OPEN the file in order to rename it.

The problem you have is in mapping the URL to a specific file reference that the Finder can interpret. Off hand I couldn't see a direct approach, but you might be able to get there with a little hacking:

set url_path to "file://Macintosh HD/Users/apmwulfinghoff/Documents/POPMUZIEK/ALBUM COVERS POP/325.jpeg"

set file_path to characters 7 through end of url_path as text

set the_file to POSIX filefile_path

In this example, url_path is set to a file URL (which could easily come from your database).

On the second line, file_path strips off the leading 'file:/' characters which leaves a more traditional UNIX-style path that can then be coerced to a normal file reference (line 3).

Once you have a file reference it's easy to rename it:

tell application "Finder"

set name of file the_file to "woohoo.jpg"

end tell

Or possibly (not my replaceText handler)

on replaceText(find, replace, someText)

set prevTIDs to text item delimiters of AppleScript

set text item delimiters of AppleScript to find

set someText to text items of someText

set text item delimiters of AppleScript to replace

set someText to "" & someText

set text item delimiters of AppleScript to prevTIDs

return someText

end replaceText

tell application "FileMaker Pro"

activate

set url_path to cell "bestandspad_cover" of current record

set album_title to cell "album title" of current record & ".jpeg"

end tell

set half_bad_url to my replaceText("file://", "", url_path)

set the_alias to my replaceText("/", ":", half_bad_url) as alias

tell application "Finder" to set name of the_alias to album_title

actually, that's not quite right: unix paths don't include the hard drive name. besides, I think it's more stable to use text item delimiters here:

set url_path to "file://Macintosh HD/Users/apmwulfinghoff/Documents/POPMUZIEK/ALBUM COVERS POP/325.jpeg"

set {oldTID, my text item delimiters} to {my text item delimiters, "/"}

-- get pieces of path, stripping off the 'file://' bit

set url_bits to (text items 3 thru -1 of url_path)

--delete the hard drive name

set item 1 of url_bits to ""

-- recombine into a normal posix path

set posix_path to url_bits as text

set my text item delimiters to oldTID

-- posix_path = /Users/apmwulfinghoff/Documents/POPMUZIEK/ALBUM COVERS POP/325.jpeg"