Send Quicksilver data to FileMaker via AppleScript
Dec 06, '07 07:30:00AM
Contributed by: jedverity
I use all kinds of FileMaker databases to manage my personal life, from expenses to recipes to writing articles. When I find something I want to add to a database, I use Quicksilver with an Applescript to pipe it over without leaving the context where I found the data. This is especially helpful when doing research.
The following script could be improved upon in a number of ways, one of the most obvious being that it could open the database if it's not already open, but here it is:
Just save this as a regular script file (I called it Add to DB) and put it in ~/Library/Application Support/Quicksilver/Actions/. When you type text in Quicksilver and then choose Add to DB as your action, it'll get posted to the database and field specified, and then you can pass the baton to the FileMaker script of your choice. In the example of doing research, I activate Quicksilver and then type something like:
the dalai lama fled tibet in 1959 source:goldstein page:34
Then the FileMaker script creates a new record, parses the data, and puts it in the proper fields. You could do most of this in AppleScript, but FileMaker is a little more accessible, and each database will have different parsing requirements, so it seems easier to have one Applescript that you can clone, give a different name, and just fill in different basic database info, and then have FileMaker do the heavier lifting.
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