Video Files Applescripted

Submitted by Morbus Iff on Tue, 2003-02-04 10:48

A while back, I mentioned I was maintaining, by hand, my list of video files, primarily because I couldn't get Portfolio to work the way I wanted it. With a little more twiddling, I eventually did move back to Portfolio, and wrote a Perl script to take care of the HTML generation, bemoaning that I still needed to export from Portfolio manually. I spent some time today hammering out an AppleScript to automate the exporting (which was more difficult than I expected because their documentation seemed inaccurate, and I know very little about Applescript). Either way, I'm automating the exportation and generation daily, and saving myself more time. I've been going on a "time minimization" kick lately, and the extra hours are starting to show.

Update: Getting the Applescript working was with no thanks to Extensis technical support. After reading their supplied "AS Reference" PDF provided with the demo download, I attempted to create a script per their documentation. I couldn't get very far at all, receiving AppleScript errors of -2 and -35, even when the Applescript matched their examples. After sending them a tech support request and then trying numerous variations, I eventually closed the PDF, and started exploring other alternatives, swapping Portfolio's "find" AppleScript command for "search" instead.

Whilst I eventually succeeded (see above), I was disheartened by the response from their tech support, which was, in full: Extensis Technical Support does not provide scripting support for Extensis products. Apparently, they weren't too concerned that what they documented wasn't working as they suggested it should. I can accept the whole "we don't teach Applescript" (which they mention in the doc), but not after mentioning that I'm using the information (and examples) provided in their own PDF.

As such, I won't be recommending Portfolio to anyone anymore - it's too expensive a product to be given a flippant, uninvestigated reply. Once Canto's Cumulus releases an OS X version, I'll be reinvestigating their product (which, feature for feature, is VERY comparable to Portfolio).