How can I launch an AppleScript application and run shell scripts from another AppleScript?

Question

Here are my files:

launcher.applescript

tell application ":path:to:applescript:apps:shell-script-launcher.app" to launch

shell-script-launcher.app [AppleScript, saved as Application]

 do shell script "say starting script"

Desired behavior:

1. Run "launcher.applescript" from AppleScript Editor
2. Listen for "starting script"

Actual behavior:

1. Running the "shell-script-launcher.app" by opening it manually in the finder yields expected behavior
2. Running the "launcher.applescript" opens the "shell-script-launcher.app" but it never executes the shell script.

I've tried saving the app as "Run Only" as well as "Stay Open". Still no progress. What do you recommend. The final result must be an Application instead of an Applescript.

Answer 1

Conceptually:

• the run command launches and runs an application hidden
• the activate command launches, runs, and activates the application (makes it the frontmost application)
• launch, according to Apple, "Launches an application, if it is not already running, but does not send it a run command."
  • for AppleScript-based applications this should mean that they're loaded, but not executed (i.e., their - implicit or explicit - on run handler is NOT invoked), but in practice that is not true up to 10.9 - see below.
  • it is unclear (to me) what exactly that means for non-AppleScript-based applications

Here's how Apple thinks it works with AppleScript-based applications, which is only true starting with OSX 10.10 (Yosemite):

A script can send commands to a script application just as it can to other applications. To launch a non-stay-open application and run its script, use a launch command followed by a run command, like this:

launch application "NonStayOpen"
run application "NonStayOpen"

The launch command launches the script application without sending it an implicit run command. When the run command is sent to the script application, it processes the command, sends back a reply if necessary, and quits.

Broken behavior on OSX 10.8, 10.9 (fixed in OSX 10.10):

launch by itself is enough to run the application and is indeed the only command that works with AppleScript-based applications. Any attempt to execute run or activate (whether in addition to launch or not) runs the application - even twice when run from AppleScript editor(!; just once with osascript) - but reports failure <appName> got an error: Connection is invalid.

This strikes me as bug.
Not sure how OSX versions <= 10.7 behave.

Note: I've witnessed the non-executing behavior with launch once, but every non-stay-open AppleScript-based test app I've created from scratch on OS X 10.9.2 and OS X 10.8.5 also executes the script with launch - contradicting what the documentation says.

Please let me know if your system behaves differently and/or how older versions behave. On what OSX version was the app that doesn't execute with launch created?

On OSX 10.10, behavior is consistent with the documentation, with one thing worth noting:

• If the intent is to launch and run in one step, run application is sufficient - no need for a separate launch application command first.

Options

---

• @user309603's pragmatic solution simply uses do shell script with the standard open utility to bypass the problem - this should work, regardless of whether the application is AppleScript-based or not:

do shell script "open " & ¬
    quoted form of POSIX path of ¬
    alias ":path:to:applescript:apps:shell-script-launcher.app"

---

• If you know the type of application you're invoking up front:

  • to run an AppleScript-based app: best to use run script file, as @regulus6633 recommends - this has the added advantage that the invoked AppleScript-based application can return objects directly to the caller:

run script file ":path:to:applescript:apps:shell-script-launcher.app"

Note: There's also load script file, which indeed lets you merely load script code without executing it right away.

• to run non-AppleScript apps: use run / activate to run the app hidden / frontmost:

run application ":path:to:applescript:apps:shell-script-launcher.app"

---

• You could use run even with AppleScript-based applications and simply ignore errors with try ... end try, as @atonus suggests - the downside is that you won't be able to detect actual failure to invoke the application.

You can mitigate this by selectively ignoring only the specific Connection invalid error (which assumes this error would not legitimately occur) [no longer needed on OSX 10.10]:

try
    run application "Macintosh HD:Applications:_Sandbox-AppleScript0.app"
on error number -609 # 'Connection is invalid' error that is spuriously reported
    # simply ignore
end try

---

• Finally, on OSX <= 10.9, you could try to simply use the launch command (though that didn't work for the OP, possibly due to working on a <= 10.7 OSX version):

 launch application ":path:to:applescript:apps:shell-script-launcher.app"

However, that is not advisable for two reasons:

• In OSX 10.10, Apple has fixed the launch behavior to no longer execute also, so your code will break when run there.
• While non-AppleScript apps typically do run (hidden) when invoked with launch, the documentation says that AppleScript "does not send it a run command" and "allows you to open an application without performing its usual startup procedures, such as opening a new window" - what that exactly means is not clear and different applications seem to handle this differently.

Answer 2

Applescript has the "run script" command. It works on applescripts or applescript applications. So if I have your app on my desktop then this works...

set appPath to (path to desktop as text) & "shell-script-launcher.app"
run script file appPath

Answer 3

Have you tried open?

do shell script "open 'path/to/applescript/apps/shell-script-launcher.app' && say starting script"