Gooey Gadgets 0.36

This version adds the display table window AppleScript command to display lists of data in a column & row format. Here’s an example of what it looks like and how to use from AppleScript:

display table window “Table Title” label “my rows and columns” data {{“1”, “one”, “uno”}, {“2”, “two”, “dos”}, {“3”, “three”, “tres”}}

Download at

Gooey Gadgets 0.3.0

Since my last post I’m now up to version 0.3.0, which includes a new command, display text window. This command can be used to display larger amounts of text in a dialog. Currently, the text inside this window is editable. However, there is probably no easy way to properly support the editing of text, so it’s likely this will change to a static view soon. Here’s an example of what it looks like and how to use from AppleScript:

display text window “Text Title” label “Log from: /var/log/system.log” message (do shell script “cat /var/log/system.log”)

There have also been some minor changes to the parameters used for the update window and display progress window commands so that they are consistent with display text window. These may require you to edit or recompile any scripts to use the new version.

Download at

Gooey Gadgets 0.2.1

I’ve updated the app with some improvements to the original show message window command, added a new display progress window command, and included a couple of example files showing how to use the app.

There’s one glaring omission in the current version: how to detect when the user has canceled the progress dialog. For that, I’ll probably add a list windows function, or something similar.

I did some investigation into creating a windows Applescript class of its own. This would be especially helpful with implementing the features for the progress window so you could say something set title of window 1 to “Hi”. However, adding support for a class requires a significant amount of work, and I’d rather spend the time right now on adding more interface elements. So any improvements on the object oriented front will have to wait.

Once again, the download link is at:

Display Large Type window à la Address Book

There’s a few times I would’ve like to prominently display a phone number or some other piece of information from a script or FileMaker. Apple’s Address Book application makes good use of this. If you right-click on a phone number you get this:

There’s a nice utility by the name of BigHonkingText that comes pretty close to this, but you must execute it via the command line, and has a few small differences from Address Book in its implementation

Since I was hoping for an all AppleScript solution and was trying to get as close a match as possible, I’ve cooked up an app of my own for this.

Called Gooey Gadgets, it is a faceless “helper” applcation that has the following commands:

dismiss window v : close given window
 dismiss window integer : the window number to close
  → boolean : returns true if the window was found

display message window v : Create a translucent window with one line message
 display message window text : a brief message to display
  [giving up after integer]: number of seconds to wait before dismissing window
  [screen point]: X,Y coordinates for any point within screen to be used to display the window
  [transparency integer]: the window’s background transparency (alpha) as a percentage
  → integer : the window id
  • The screen coordinates are an optional value that you can use to make sure the message displays on the same screen as your other script or Filemaker windows. However they are in the coordinate system that Cocoa uses, which has the inverse Y-axis from what Filemaker uses for Get (WindowTop).
  • The giving up after parameter works the same way as Applescript’s Display Dialog command, allowing you to set a maximum time for the window to display (the user may click on the window to dismiss it before then).
  • The transparency parameter is not yet implemented, so its value is ignored.
An example of its usage looks like this:
tell application id “com.sibr.gooeygadgets” — could’ve also used app name instead
 setto display message window “big message”
 delay 4
 dismiss window x — Gooey Gadgets will now quit if this is the last open window
end tell

I have also included command line support, and the options look like this:
Gooey Gadgets -cmd messagewindow [-giveup seconds] [-screenx num] [-screeny num] message

The path used is an artifact of the fact that the command line must execute the actual application binary, not the application’s package folder. So if the application is at /_Projects, a command line example would be:

/_Projects/Gooey\ Gadgets/build/Release/Gooey\\ Gadgets -cmd messagewindow -giveup 2 "(510) 835-4483"

Download the most recent version at:


After downloading, move it out of your Downloads folder. The first time you run it, you may need to OK the application as safe to run.

PS: Excuse the formatting messiness above. The blog software wasn’t kind to my cut-and-pasting.