Emulate "Go to Dekstop/Home/etc." behavior in OS X via AppleScript

Posted by pattulus on Super User See other posts from Super User or by pattulus
Published on 2011-02-27T06:34:00Z Indexed on 2011/02/27 7:26 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 586

Filed under:

osx

|

finder

|

applescript

OS X has build in support for going to certain Folders (Home, Utilities, Desktop, etc.) via a Shortcut.

I wanted to emulate this behavior for the the Downloads Folder. The only thing that is missing the script below is that it won’t succeed when no window is opened in the Finder (see Error message).

tell application "Finder"
    activate
    set target of Finder window 1 to folder "Downloads" of folder "username" of disk "Macintosh HD"
end tell

Error message:

error "Finder got an error: Can’t set Finder window 1 to folder \"Downloads\" of folder \"username\" of disk \"Macintosh HD\"." number -10006 from Finder window 1

It great if you know about some kind of 'if-compliement' that triggers opening the Downloads Folder in case there is no window 1 open in the Finder. Thanks in advance.

© Super User or respective owner

Related posts about osx

OSX/Wine - Associating file extension (.php) with a Windows program on OSX

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
Greetings, I am running PSPad (a Windows programming editor) on OSX/Snow Leopard using Wine 1.1.35 I want to associate various file extensions (.php, .js, .html) with PSPad.exe OSX Finder does not allow this association -- I can only associate file types with $.app items in Applications. How do… >>> More
osx web service spawns icon in taskbar - osx - while drawing image

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I have a web endpoint that displays an image of a string... When the following code is run (in tomcat) it spawns a java icon in the taskbar on OSX. Not sure if it is a problem, or whats going on. Looking for some sort of explination @RequestMapping("/text/{text}") public void textImage(HttpServletResponse… >>> More
Cannot disable spotlight indexing on volume

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I have a FAT32 partition on my HDD. When using OSX, it is mounted to /Volumes/MEDIA. After a recent upgrade to Mavericks, spotlight is having trouble indexing it, eating up almost all of my system resources, and I cannot get the indexing to stop: [jay-mba-osx ~]% sudo mdutil -v -a -i off /: Indexing… >>> More
OSX - User home directories shared via NFS

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
Hi, I've run into some problems with how I've got user home directories set up on our system here. Our server is an XServe, using Open Directory to manage the user accounts. The majority of our workstations are OSX, but there are a few running Linux (Centos 5.3), and, as time goes on, we expect… >>> More
Can't connect to local IP address on OSX

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I'm trying to connect to a webserver that's running on my mac OSX 1.6. I'm able to connect to it locally using http://127.0.0.1:8888/myapp but when I attempt to connect to it using my machine's local IP address (http://192.168.1.15:8888/myapp IP shown below) from the same machine (or another on the… >>> More

Related posts about finder

"Show In Finder" won't open a new finder window

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
The "Show In Finder" action isn't working on Mac OS X Mountain Lion. The problem has just started to occur all the time, before it was a bit sporadic, but now it happens all the time. Things that don't work: In the chrome Downloads page clicking any of the "Show in Finder" links. Right clicking… >>> More
How to browse Windows XP from Mac Finder when name disappears from finder

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
Occasionally, like right at this moment, I cannot access my windows share from my mac. Normally, it works, but every now and then, the computer name won't be displayed under SHARED in Finder. Rebooting the windows computer usually fixes this, but it's inconvenient. The Windows computer can see… >>> More
Emulate "Go to Dekstop/Home/etc." behavior in OS X via AppleScript

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
OS X has build in support for going to certain Folders (Home, Utilities, Desktop, etc.) via a Shortcut. I wanted to emulate this behavior for the the Downloads Folder. The only thing that is missing the script below is that it won’t succeed when no window is opened in the Finder (see Error message)… >>> More
How do you duplicate current open Finder view in new tab (Mavericks)?

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
In a thread on this forum there is an interesting solution on how to open a duplicate of an already open Finder window with the help of an AppleScript: How do you duplicate current open Finder view? With the new tabbed Finder in OS X 10.9 Mavericks, I am wondering if there is a way to implement an… >>> More
After forced quit, “killall Finder” says “No matching processes…” but PID still exists?

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
Here's one for ya. Upon a forced quit of the Finder with unsuccessful relaunch, "killall Finder" in terminal returns: "No matching processes belonging to you were found" Oddly enough, the PID for finder does actually show up after a "ps -A" to reveal all processes. But the time is perpetually listed… >>> More