🚀 go-pugleaf

Here's an example of an idle handler that I use in a script I wrote to monitor iTunes. You save the whole script as stay open application and make the main script an on run handler:

on run
 -- blah blah blah
 return
end run

Then, when you first fire it up it runs that handler. When it finishes, idle messages are sent to the idle handler. If you want to influence how often the handler runs (the default is once a second, I believe), return an integer from either the idle handler or the run handler and the integer determines how many seconds before the next idle message is sent.

on idle
 tell application "iTunes"
  try
   if player state is not stopped then return 5
  on error
   return 5
 end try
 end tell
 pickOne()
 return 30
end idle

So, if iTunes is busy, my script comes back 5 seconds later (note that in some states, iTunes might cause an error when I try to get the player state; if that happens, the script shrugs its shoulders and tries again five seconds later).

If iTunes is not playing anything, then the pickOne handler selects a piece to play and forces me to listen to it for a minimum of 30 seconds.

I use this script to randomly play classical works. The built-in random features in iTunes make this less necessary than when I first created it, but actually I've grown to appreciate the 10 seconds or so that pickOne takes to set up the next piece; iTunes' random feature doesn't include any kind of delay. Having a Vivaldi concerto startup while the last notes of a Shostakovich symphony are still rattling around my mind is a bit disconcerting.

Hope this helps.

Dave