RE: time delay in script
RE: time delay in script
- Subject: RE: time delay in script
- From: Ken Grimm <email@hidden>
- Date: Fri, 07 Sep 2001 11:19:14 -0500
On 9/6/01 9:02 PM, Joe Szedula at email@hidden didst forever and
always commit to the digital human communication archive:
>
From "Standards Additions Dictionary"
>
>
delay: Pause for a fixed amount of time
>
delay integer -- the number of seconds to delay
>
Joe Szedula
I have found this command less than intuitive.
It pauses EVERYTHING on the Mac executing it. I wanted to wait until the
finder finished copying a file, but the delay command stopped the copying
process! The only thing I could see it as being useful for is to wait until
a file is finished transferring over a network (shared folders, etc.) where
the process in question is not dependent on the Mac executing the delay
command... the Mac being delayed is waiting on the network to catch up. Even
then it's a guessing game on how long to make the Mac reliably wait. Other
techniques must be invoked for a more reliable method to see when a process
has actually completed -- repeat loops with a delay combined with status
checking, etc.
I yearn for a general "wait-until-I'm-done"-type command for AppleScript
scripts that doesn't depend on 3rd party OSAX. If I tell a the finder to
copy a file somewhere, tell QXP to print a large four color sep file, any
other number of tasks -- let me have enough control to tell the script to
wait until the command has actually completed with a simple parameter,
maybe.
perhaps:
tell application "Finder"
do something
end tell with wait
or:
tell application "Finder"
do something with wait
end tell
FWIW -- Ken