Scripting Torquemada
Scripting Torquemada
- Subject: Scripting Torquemada
- From: <email@hidden>
- Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2001 14:50:35 -0500
I need help scripting Torquemada the Inquisitor. This is a search-and-replace
translation utility that ships with a Frontier-scriptable version called
Torquemada's Ghost. However, I would like to use AppleScript if possible.
To use Torque at my company, we highlight the TEXT file to be translated along
with the Torque translation files and drag the entire group over the Torquemada
icon. Torque launches and runs the TEXT file through each translation file in
alphabetical order. The new, resulting file is given a ".TQM" suffix. Often,
this step is repeated on the ".TQM" file with a new set of translation files.
The project with which I need help involves processing over two hundred large
files with eighteen sets of translations. Previously, this work took over forty
hours using a G3 and a G4 in tandem. Eventually, I will incorporate the
translations into AppleScripts, but that will take time. I have to generate the
files for this project again at the end of the month.
Eugene Barnes created several verbs for scripting Torque in Frontier, but they
and their documentation are several years old (as is the defunct e-mail address
for Mr. Barnes). I am a novice AppleScripter; I can follow the Frontier
tutorials and the on-line documentation but do not grasp the language well
enough yet to begin a script in it (and published guides on Frontier 5 are
scarce).
In AppleScript, I can't see a dictionary for Torquemada or its Ghost but I can
open Ghost with the "launch" command (trying "launch" on Torquemada itself
renders an "...is not scriptable" error). This leads me to wonder if there is a
possible work-around through the Finder, although my experiments recording drag-
and-drop events haven't revealed any commands for activating applications--even
scriptable ones--in this manner. And the minimal results from searching the Web
and Danny Goodman's _Handbook_ suggest that my hopes for an alternative to
Frontier may be empty.
If anyone has an existing Frontier script that utilizes the Barnes verbs, may I
"borrow" it? I don't feel I can proceed with UserTalk until I can study an
example script with a purpose similar to mine. (I'm also waiting on an out-of-
print textbook to be delivered.) Or, if anyone can suggest an AppleScript
solution it will be welcomed and appreciated.
With sincere thanks,
Brian Hinson
Special Projects Manager
Modern Language Association
email@hidden