Applescript Coding : automating filesorting through folder actions

Post date: Aug 21, 2010 1:21:22 AM

Problem : I have a bunch of hand images approximately 6-7 images of the left and right hand of 20 people. I have to arrange them into separate folders according to the hand and the person so the heirarchy would be like "left -> #" and "right -> #" where left , right denote the left and right hand and # is the index of the person whose hand image it is.

Solution : I wrote an applescript to automate the task of making a new folder for each person's hand image and of putting the images in the "left" and "right" folder alternately. now i just have to drag images to a specific folder to which i have attached my script and then the files will automatically be put in the "left->#+1" folder if the previous file was put in "right->#" folder 

Hacks possible from this code:

• 1. Folder actions

  2. Creating variable in applescript

  3. checking for file existence

  4. getting output from shell script

  5. giving input to shell script

  6. getting the Mac folder name and the Posix folder name

  7. looping through files in a list of files

  8. If then elseif else conditional statements

  9. telling finder to do something

SourceCode:

on adding folder items to this_folder after receiving added_items

    -- insert actions here

    tell application "Finder"

        set foldName to the name of this_folder

        set posixfoldName to the POSIX path of this_folder

        set Lflagname to foldName & ":L"

        set Rflagname to foldName & ":R"

        set posixLflagname to posixfoldName & "L"

        set posixRflagname to posixfoldName & "R"

        if exists file Lflagname then

            try

                set filecount to do shell script "ls -d -p " & posixfoldName & "left/*" & " | grep -v \"No such file\" -c"

            on error errMsg number errNum

                set filecount to "0"

            end try

            set filecount to filecount as integer

            do shell script "mkdir " & posixfoldName & "left/" & (filecount + 1)

            do shell script "mv " & posixLflagname & " " & posixRflagname

            --move these_items to the foldName & "left/" & (filecount + 1)

            try

                repeat with ix from 1 to number of items in added_items

                    set new_item to item ix of added_items

                    set the item_path to the POSIX path of new_item

                    do shell script ("mv " & item_path & " " & posixfoldName & "left/" & (filecount + 1) & "/")

                end repeat

            end try

        else if exists file Rflagname then

            try

                set filecount to do shell script "ls -d -p " & posixfoldName & "right/*" & " | grep -v \"No such file\" -c"

            on error errMsg number errNum

                set filecount to "0"

            end try

            set filecount to filecount as integer

            do shell script "mkdir " & posixfoldName & "right/" & (filecount + 1)

            do shell script "mv " & posixRflagname & " " & posixLflagname

            try

                repeat with ix from 1 to number of items in added_items

                    set new_item to item ix of added_items

                    set the item_path to the POSIX path of new_item

                    do shell script ("mv " & item_path & " " & posixfoldName & "right/" & (filecount + 1) & "/")

                end repeat

            end try

        else

            make new file at this_folder with properties {name:"R"}

            do shell script "mkdir " & posixfoldName & "right"

            do shell script "mkdir " & posixfoldName & "left"

        end if

    end tell

end adding folder items to