Writing applescripts in Windows XP that are executable in OS X

'Is it possible to create applescript files in Windows XP, and to have them be executable in OS X straight from Windows?' - no.

Mac OS X (10.4.4)

Bassam,
You could generate a file on the XP machine which lays out data as a text file (list or perhaps XML) which your AppleScript App can read and take the appropriate actions based on the data.

Reese

Your best bet is probably whatever variation of shell scripting that will run on Windows and Unix machines.

Sort of extending what Gnarlodious and reese said...

You could probably generate a text file on the Windows side that was essentially a shell script that used "osascript" to execute AppleScript on the Mac. The osascript command could execute another text file containing AppleScript source (it will compile and execute this on the fly), or a pre-compiled AppleScript (which would have to be compiled on the Mac beforehand) or you could even specify the AppleScript source text inline within the shell script (using osascript's "-e" option). See "man osascript" for more details on how it works.

The shell script would kick off Terminal on the Mac (which might be a problem), but if the shell script was given a ".command" extension it would be double-clickable in the Finder.

Another issue you'd have to deal with is getting the executable flag set on the shell script once it was transferred to the Mac.

So it wouldn't be totally seamless but it's an option you might want to think about.

Steve

Bassam,

You've got the shell script file's executable bits set right? Since you can run it in Terminal I would guess that you must.

Normally all you have to do is rename a file so that it's extension is ".command". As far as I know Terminal is the default app that open's files with a .command extension, but that could have gotten changed on your machine.

Try doing a Get Info on your file and check the "Name & Extension". Is it possible that you've got the file named with two extensions like "MyFile.command.txt" and the ".txt" part is hidden? That certainly might trigger TextEdit to open your file.

If the file name looks correct then check the "Open With" setting (also in the Get Info window). Is that set to TextEdit? If so, then switch the pop-up so it says "Terminal". And you may want to click the "Change All..." button so all of your .command files will run in Terminal.

Steve

Hi,

You could also distribute a script app which runs the text script in the same folder. The script app might look something like this:

set my_path to (path to me as string)
set user_tid to AppleScript's text item delimiters
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {":"}
set temp_list to text items of my_path
set last item of temp_list to "script.txt"
try
set script_ref to (temp_list as string) as alias
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to user_tid
on error err_mess
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to user_tid
display dialog err_mess buttons {"OK"} default button "OK"
return
end try
run script script_ref

It gets a reference to the text file "script.txt" and runs the statments of text. If the file "script.text" doesn't exist in the same folder as the script app, then the script will display the error message and quit.

gl,

The thing is that this script will be going out to
machines that I don't have control over, so I would
want the script files to be double-clickable as
delivered, and not require any changing of the
default handling program.

I don't think this would normally be an issue. But since it happened to you I understand your concern. Maybe distributing a .command file is not the best solution for your environment.

Are .command files always associated with the
Terminal by default?

As far as I know, yes, .command files are associated with Terminal by default. I'm not sure how your's may have gotten changed. I tried selecting a .command file in Finder and then both "File -> Open with... -> TextEdit" and <Control>-Click -> Open with... TextEdit. In both instances the file opened with TextEdit but it did not change the association to Terminal. Double-clicking the file after editing in TextEdit still launched Terminal.

On the other hand if you did a Get Info and changed the "Open with:" pop-up then it will change the association for future accesses to the file.

Steve