Re: applescript and graphics programs
Re: applescript and graphics programs
- Subject: Re: applescript and graphics programs
- From: Erik Price <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 09:25:29 -0400
On Tuesday, June 11, 2002, at 12:48 AM, email@hidden wrote:
Others have suggest iView MediaPro ($50-65/single user downloadable
version) and ImageMagick_AE. Note that mageMagick_AE does not list Quark
XPress as a supported format. If the script you are writing needs to
run on a
lot of machines, the cost of licensing multiple seats for MediaPro may
become
prohibitive.
Retrieving the sizes and format information for graphic files is
fairly
straightforward (GraphicConverter, $35, or PhotoShop 7, $699), but
retreiving
Quark XPress document sizes either requires Quark XPress to be
available on
the machine doing the cataloging (running the script) or use of
MediaPro.
If the company you are doing this for has already invested in the
purchase
of Quark & Photoshop 7 (or Quark and GraphicConverter), it may be more
cost-effective to use those applications and use a nested decision
statement
concerning file type/creator information to decide which app to call for
info, rather than purchasing another app.
Corny, Ron, and Marc,
Thanks very much for the information about accessing graphic file
properties from AppleScript. Yesterday I tried experimenting with
ImageMagick_AE, but the lack of documentation combined with my own
inexperience with AppleScript prevented me from getting very far. Even
the sample scripts didn't have any effect that I could see.
Also, iView MediaPro looks like it can do the trick, but a license for
each user's machine might not go over too well with my supervisor.
Also, it seems like that product is really designed to do far more than
my small requirements.
Fortunately everyone in my department who uses Quark files has a copy of
Quark on their system. And everyone does have Photoshop 6, but when I
investigated the dictionary I found that there is very little that is
scriptable from Photoshop. It appears that there is an AppleScript OSAX
called Photoscripter available that allows more scriptability, from
MainEvent, but it is extremely expensive. Too expensive for my small
department. I contacted Thorsten Lemke of LemkeSoft, about whether or
not GraphicConverter can determine the dimensions and resolution of a
file, and his pithy answer was "access the window properties from
AppleScript" -- so GraphicConverter will display the file at actual size
and resolution?
I personally use OS X but all of my co-workers use OS 9 (hopefully to
upgrade within a year or so but, as a temp, I will be long gone by that
time). So really I'm looking for the OS 9-compatible solution.
It looks like GraphicConverter + Quark will be what I need. I'm
assuming that I create a script that looks something like this
pseudocode:
1. read all files in a folder into an array of new "GraphicFile" objects
2. for each object, determine the app to use from the creator code
(or my own hash key system, though unsure yet if AS has this ability)
and set as an attribute of the object somehow
3. using the "AppToUse" attribute of a GraphicFile object,
open the file with the appropriate application and read its
properties.
Store the properties as attributes of the object
(heightAttribute, widthAttribute, resolutionAttribute,
filesizeAttribute)
4. Finally, for each object in the array, read its attributes and write
them to
a text file.
How does this sound? Feasible? I don't know how to create objects in
AppleScript but I am armed with "AppleScript in a Nutshell", curiosity,
and a helpful mailing list. If I am going about this the wrong (or even
the right) way, please feel free to comment on my approach!
Thanks everyone,
Erik
----
Erik Price
Web Developer Temp
Media Lab, H.H. Brown
email@hidden
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