angrynorth

I really should know more about Applescript, but I have a problem that I think Applescript could easily fix and I don't know where to start with it . I keep telling myself I will learn it but never get the time.

What I would like to do is extract the body text from a batch of email messages from one account and copy it all into a plain text document then remove any instances of the % symbol.

I tried it in Automator but the results aren't great, it keeps the header information which I don't want to display. Here is an example of the automator results so you can at least see the context.

If anyone can help me out I will buy you an ice cream next time I see you

Ta, Andy.

Markus

Andy,
Can you email me a copy of the automater script and I'll have a look at it, hack it apart, swear at the machine, run it through script debugger, put it back together, and try and make it do what you want.

I can't promise miracles, but I'll give it a go.

Markus

Andy,
You have a PM, i've got a little present for you

angrynorth

Cheers Markus, I just tried to reply but your mailbox is full, Mr Popular.

My email is andy@homeinfo.co.uk and if what you said in pm is true then you are an absolute hero!

Cheers
Andy

Markus

Andy,
PM is now empty

I'll email you anyway, as I need to send an attachment.

angrynorth

YOU ARE A GENIUS.



Thanks so much this is more of a help than you would believe and it works a dream!

Cheers
Andy

class_A

Scoobynet beats Ars then? I am poo at Applescript, but am curious as to the solution!

Markus

Glad to be of service, and the ice cream is rather tasty

angrynorth

I was certain that Scoobynet would answer this first, as is always the case over at Ars they wanted to punt it into Terminal, which is even dafter.

Thanks for the help Markus!

Markus

punt it to terminal, lol, probably would have been something to do with using a perl script to achieve the same effect I did.

As for the solution, well, if you want a copy of the script, let me know. Essentially what I did was this:

* Ask Mail.app to give me the currently selected messages

* Create a repeat loop to repeat through the messages

* Ask mail for the "contents" ie; body of the message

* Use delimiters set to "new line" and search through the content of the current message one line at a time until I find a line that contains the word "Location" or "Keywords" as these are the lines that will contain the % character.

* When I find the two lines see if there is a % character by stepping, character by character through the line and seeing if it contains %, if it does, replace it with a space.
This is the slowest part of the script. If Applescript had a decent find and replace command then it would be much quicker (Acme script widgets does, and is great but costs )

* Whilst stepping through, I've been keeping the untouched lines, so I add the modified line(s), if they were modified, back into the block of data and then write it out to a file on the desktop

* repeat the above for all selected messages.

I would not consider myself an expert in AS but I do know a bit here and there.

My tips?

* Get Script Debugger, it's way, way better than Apple's Script Editor, or Xcode (unless you can line step debug scripts in xcode, not sure if you can, not tried for a while). Fully featured editor with debugging, I could not live without it

* Snoop around macscripter.net (think that's the place)

If you've any AS questions or need a script to do something, feel free to ask, I might be able to help out.