Comments on: Entourage GTD: Quick Projects

By: Adam Sneller

Adam Sneller — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 21:54:27 +0000

Abdul,

You are absolutely right. I didn’t realize that I had already created a reference to the project name in the “prjName” variable. This is needed so that you can later tell Entourage which email folder to delete.

Here is a revised version:
(* Quick Project


Created by Adam Sneller on 9/5/2006.

Copyright 2006. All rights reserved.

*)
-- get new project name from dialog

set prjName to text returned of (display dialog "Name:" with title "Quick Project" default answer "" buttons {"Cancel", "Create"} default button "Create")
tell application "Microsoft Entourage"
-- create project

try

make new project with properties {name:prjName, has due date:false, color:{0, 0, 0}}

on error

display dialog "Project name must be unique!" with icon 1

return

end try
-- remove project email folder

delete (first folder whose name is prjName)

end tell

Good luck!
-Adam

By: Abdul

Abdul — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 15:13:01 +0000

Adam,

That helps a lot! I modified my script and it works perfectly. I made a huge discovery in writing Applescript- dictionaries! Things are much easier now

One last question, why use “set theProject to make new project” when you can just “make new project”? Does “theProject” become an object or a variable? How / when would you reference it again?

Thanks!

Abdul

By: Adam Sneller

Adam Sneller — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 18:05:09 +0000

This is a fairly contained project, so I can just post the code here for you to take a look at. Here is the original version that is available for download:

(* Quick Project


	Created by Adam Sneller on 9/5/2006.

	Copyright 2006. All rights reserved.

*)
-- get new project name from dialog

set prjName to text returned of (display dialog "Name:" with title "Quick Project" default answer "" buttons {"Cancel", "Create"} default button "Create")
tell application "Microsoft Entourage"
	-- create project

	try

		set theProject to make new project with properties {name:prjName, has due date:false}

	on error

		display dialog "Project name must be unique!" with icon 1

		return

	end try

end tell

By default, Entourage creates the email folder for you and assigns a random color to the project (lookup “Project” in the Entourage appleScript dictionary). But you can override this with something like:

set theProject to make new project with properties {name:prjName, has due date:false, color:{0, 0, 0}}

And then to get rid of the project email folder:

set projectName to name of theProject delete (first folder whose name is projectName)

The finished code then looks like this:

(* Quick Project


	Created by Adam Sneller on 9/5/2006.

	Copyright 2006. All rights reserved.

*)
-- get new project name from dialog

set prjName to text returned of (display dialog "Name:" with title "Quick Project" default answer "" buttons {"Cancel", "Create"} default button "Create")
tell application "Microsoft Entourage"
	-- create project

	try

		set theProject to make new project with properties {name:prjName, has due date:false, color:{0, 0, 0}}

	on error

		display dialog "Project name must be unique!" with icon 1

		return

	end try
        -- remove project email folder

        set projectName to name of theProject

        delete (first folder whose name is projectName)

end tell

Copy and paste the above code into Script Editor and save the file. If you want to start writing your own scripts, the best book out there is “AppleScript the Definitive Guide.” by Matt Neuburg. Also, you should check out the ScriptBuilders section of macscripter.com. They have a lot of free code you can download, which is a great way to learn.

Hope this helps!
-Adam

By: Abdul

Abdul — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 20:01:56 +0000

This is a fantastic script! I was resistant to using projects because of that lame wizard and now it;s a snap. Is there any way to have the script not create a mail folder? I always delete them manually. I used to write a lot of VB Script; there is a huge MS reference for the objects you can access from MS Office- can you point me in the direction of the same for Entourage and Applescript, so I can contribute?

Thanks!
-Abdul

By: Adam Sneller

Adam Sneller — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 06:53:12 +0000

Sjoerd - the QuickProject script does not control where Entourage saves its project files (this is specified internally by the application).

One thing you might try is to create an alias to the “Office Projects” folder (control-clicking the folder from within Finder will give you this option). You can then rename the alias to whatever you want and move it to the desired location. For example, I have an alias on my desktop, titled “Projects”, which links through to my “Office Projects” folder in “/adam/Documents”.

By: Sjoerd

Sjoerd — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 13:42:31 +0000

Thanks!
I’m used to have my project folders at a place difference than ‘Documents/Office Projects’
How can I change this within this script?

By: Francoism

Francoism — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 18:58:56 +0000

Thanks for the script. I love it. I was having a hard time with the Project Centre but I can see me using it a little more now. Bravo.

By: Adam Sneller

Adam Sneller — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 05:42:04 +0000

Steve - thanks for catching this! It looks like there was some extra code in there, left over from a previous version (oops). I updated the script, so if you try and download it again everything should work fine.

Best,
-Adam

By: Steve K

Steve K — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 05:19:03 +0000

When I use this script, I get the following: “Microsoft Entourage got an error: Can’t get some object.” The script does produce a new project however as it should.