Applescript with Growl notifications

30 March, 2007 – 1:48 pm

Growl is a notification system for Mac OS X: it allows applications that support Growl to send you notifications. Thankfully the peeps at growl have afforded us integration with applescripts. I use growl notifications to provide a bit more feedback when backing up my mac to a USB drive. Good for those long running scripts …

You can find out more about the growl notifications here.

Detailed below is an example of my backup script which uses rsync to keep multiple folders in sync with a backup USB drive.


set fromFolder to "~/"
set toFolder to "/Volumes/Storage"
 
tell application "GrowlHelperApp"
  set the allNotificationsList to ¬
    {"SyncWiz", "SyncWiz"}
  set the enabledNotificationsList to ¬
    {"SyncWiz"}
  register as application ¬
    "SyncWiz" all notifications allNotificationsList ¬
    default notifications enabledNotificationsList ¬
    icon of application "Script Editor"
end tell
 
display dialog "BACKUP MacBookPro
---------------–
From: " & fromFolder & "
To:    " & toFolder & "" buttons {"Yes", "No"}
set dialog_answer to button returned of result
if dialog_answer = "Yes" then
  do shell script "rsync -rt --delete " & fromFolder & "/Documents     "
  & toFolder & " " with password
  tell application "GrowlHelperApp"
    notify with name ¬
      "SyncWiz" title ¬
      "SyncWiz" description ¬
      "SyncWiz: Finished backing up documents ..." application name "SyncWiz"
  end tell
  
  do shell script "rsync -rt " & fromFolder & "/Desktop         "
  & toFolder & " " with password
  tell application "GrowlHelperApp"
    notify with name ¬
      "SyncWiz" title ¬
      "SyncWiz" description ¬
      "SyncWiz: Finished backing up desktop ..." application name "SyncWiz"
  end tell
  
  do shell script "rsync -rt " & fromFolder & "/Games           "
  & toFolder & " " with password
  tell application "GrowlHelperApp"
    notify with name ¬
      "SyncWiz" title ¬
      "SyncWiz" description ¬
      "SyncWiz: Finished backing up games ..." application name "SyncWiz"
  end tell
  
  do shell script "rsync -rt " & fromFolder & "/Parallels         "
  & toFolder & " " with password
  tell application "GrowlHelperApp"
    notify with name ¬
      "SyncWiz" title ¬
      "SyncWiz" description ¬
      "SyncWiz: Finished backing up parallels ..." application name "SyncWiz"
  end tell
  
  do shell script "rsync -rt " & fromFolder & "/Pictures         "
  & toFolder & " " with password
  tell application "GrowlHelperApp"
    notify with name ¬
      "SyncWiz" title ¬
      "SyncWiz" description ¬
      "SyncWiz: Finished backing up pictures ..." application name "SyncWiz"
  end tell
  
  do shell script "rsync -rt " & fromFolder & "/Public           "
  & toFolder & " " with password
  tell application "GrowlHelperApp"
    notify with name ¬
      "SyncWiz" title ¬
      "SyncWiz" description ¬
      "SyncWiz: Finished backing up public ..." application name "SyncWiz"
  end tell
  
  do shell script "rsync -rt " & fromFolder & "/Sites           "
  & toFolder & " " with password
  tell application "GrowlHelperApp"
    notify with name ¬
      "SyncWiz" title ¬
      "SyncWiz" description ¬
      "SyncWiz: Finished backing up sites ..." application name "SyncWiz"
  end tell
  
  do shell script "rsync -rt --delete ~/Library/Mail/           "
  & toFolder & "/Mail/Library/Mail" with password
  do shell script "rsync -rt --delete ~/Library/Mail\\ Downloads/     "
  & toFolder & "/Mail/Library/Mail\\ Downloads" with password
  do shell script "rsync -rt --delete ~/Library/Preferences/         "
  & toFolder & "/Mail/Library/Preferences/ --include=com.appl.mail.plist" with password
  do shell script "rsync -rt --delete ~/Library/Application\\ Support/AddressBook/ "
  & toFolder & "/Mail/Library/Application\\ Support/AddressBook/" with password
  
  display dialog "Your backup is done!"
end if