Can bash script be converted into a very small PPC application?

twtwtw wrote:

MrHoffman wrote:

Ignoring the folks and their... rocks.... 😉

The only rocks that need to be ignored are the ones in my head - 😀

But just to (I think) solve this problem: open the applescript editor and copy in the following text (obviously replacing the fake path with the real unix path - properly quoted - to your shell script):

do shell script "/[PATH-TO-FILE]/shell_script.sh"

Save this from the applescript editor as an application. Once that's saved, open the application bundle of that app, open the info.plist file in a plain-text editor (like TextWrangler), and add a key-value pair that looks like:

<key>CFBundleIdentifier</key>

<string>user.scriptapp.somename</string>

That should give you a bundled app that you can apply a keyboard shortcut to.

Perhaps you should have read the first sentence of this thread.

There is a related thread at:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5237357

I have used AppleScript like this many times.

Perhaps I did not make it clear that my purpose here is to improve my understanding rather than obtain a series of fixes.

I don't know which is more frustrating, being hijacked by 'rocks' or being in receipt of answers to questions I did not ask.

Perhaps I will have more success with the other thread.

twtwtw wrote:

Well, that was not clear. Normally when people post questions on these forums they are looking to fix specific problems, and based on your first sentence I thought it was a solution you were looking for. Deeper questions usually do go over on the developer forum.

and the 'rocks' thing was just plain good fun, not a hijack. sorry for the confudion

I apologise for my lack of clarity and will attempt to be more circumspect in future.

Perhaps this forum should be entitled OS X Applications and not OS X Technologies. I took 'Technologies' to be an understanding of the underlying hardware and computer science.

twtwtw wrote:

ok, after doing a quick test of your shell code on Mountain Lion (which worked), the main thing I can see that might cause issues is that your new-made pakage lacks an info.plist file. info.plist is where launchservices gets info it needs to open the package properly, and while launchservices probably has default values, the default values may not be appropriate in your case. With that in mind, create a file called info.plist in the Contents folder that contains some basic info:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">

<plist version="1.0">

<dict>

<key>CFBundleExecutable</key>

<string>foo</string>

<key>CFBundleIdentifier</key>

<string>user.ppcapp.foo</string>

<key>CFBundleName</key>

<string>foo</string>

<key>CFBundlePackageType</key>

<string>APPL</string>

<key>CFBundleSignature</key>

<string>Q#ww</string>

</dict>

</plist>

CFBundleIdentifier and CFBundleSignature are made-up values (they should be unique to this app). You may not need CFBundlePackageType and CFBundleSignature - those are the old-style file type and creator attributes that were phased out in os X, and there may be other attributes that you need to add - you'll have to compare with info.plist files in applications that work on your system.

creating the info.plist file can be done from the command line as well, but it's a bit more involved.

Thanks - very interesting - clearly I was wrong in assuming that it might only work on old OSs. I thought I had tried most combinations for the plist but must admit that recent tests relied upon defaults which are reputed to work if every element has the same name. Going to bed now but will try your plist tomorrow.

twtwtw wrote:

ok, after doing a quick test of your shell code on Mountain Lion (which worked), the main thing I can see that might cause issues is that your new-made pakage lacks an info.plist file. info.plist is where launchservices gets info it needs to open the package properly, and while launchservices probably has default values, the default values may not be appropriate in your case. With that in mind, create a file called info.plist in the Contents folder that contains some basic info:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">

<plist version="1.0">

<dict>

<key>CFBundleExecutable</key>

<string>foo</string>

<key>CFBundleIdentifier</key>

<string>user.ppcapp.foo</string>

<key>CFBundleName</key>

<string>foo</string>

<key>CFBundlePackageType</key>

<string>APPL</string>

<key>CFBundleSignature</key>

<string>Q#ww</string>

</dict>

</plist>

CFBundleIdentifier and CFBundleSignature are made-up values (they should be unique to this app). You may not need CFBundlePackageType and CFBundleSignature - those are the old-style file type and creator attributes that were phased out in os X, and there may be other attributes that you need to add - you'll have to compare with info.plist files in applications that work on your system.

creating the info.plist file can be done from the command line as well, but it's a bit more involved.

Sorry to take so long. I got it working. Diagnostics on Tiger very slightly better than Leopard. It did not need a plist. All the issues were with the bash file:

'say ping' does not work on my Tiger or Leopard it needs to be '/usr/bin/say ping'. Pity this error invoked such a misleading error message - see first post.

Thanks again for your help.