Beginning AppleScript®

A.13. Chapter 13

A.13.1. Exercise 1 solution

This answer uses the say command with the Bells voice. An iTunes solution is not shown here, but it is something you may want to try on your own to get authentic sounding chimes.

-- Big Ben!

set theTime to time string of (current date)
set theHour to first word of theTime as integer
set theMinutes to second word of theTime as integer

set theHour to 3
set theMinutes to 45

-- Get the hour

if theHour is 0 then
    set theHour to 12
else if theHour is greater than 12 then
    set theHour to theHour - 12
end if

set theChime to theMinutes div 15
if theChime is 0 then set theChime to 4

-- Ring the chimes: once for 15 after, twice for 30,
-- three times for 45 and four times on the hour

repeat theChime times
    say "do do di da" using "Bells"  -- ok, so maybe this is a little lame!
end repeat

-- Strike the hour!

if theMinutes is 0 then
    delay 1

    repeat theHour times
        say "ding" using "Bells"
    end repeat
end if

Here's what your entry in the crontab would look like to run your Big Ben program every 15 minutes:

*/15    *       *       *       *       "/Users/steve/Big Ben.app"

A.13.2. Exercise 2 solution

-- B&N price quote display dialog "Enter your ISBN number" default answer "" set theISBN to text returned of result set theResult to missing value tell application "http://services.xmethods.net:80/soap/servlet/rpcrouter" try set theResult to call soap {method name:"getPrice", method namespace ¬ uri:"urn:xmethods-BNPriceCheck", parameters:{isbn:theISBN}} end try end tell if theResult ...