issue detecting txt record type

DEVONthink Automation
1

I don’t seem to be able to test if a record is a plain text file. With “theRecord” set to the record of a plain text file, the following evaluates to false …

tell application "DEVONthink Pro"
	type of theRecord = txt
end tell

According to the documentation, the name of the type is “txt”. When I evaluate the following in the AppleScript Editor …

tell application "DEVONthink Pro"
	type of theRecord
end tell

… I get “text” in a purple font. But evaluating …

tell application "DEVONthink Pro"
	type of theRecord = text
end tell

… also results in false. Help please. Thanks.

2

Try this.


tell application id "com.devon-technologies.thinkpro"
try
set this_item to the selection
if type of this_item is txt then
-- do something important
else
-- do something less important
end if
end try
end tell

The case here is a single record is selected.

3

I had to make some modifications to get the script to run. Here is the script I used.

tell application id "com.devon-technologies.thinkpro2"
	try
		set this_item to the selection
		if type of item 1 of this_item is txt then
			display alert "yes"
		else
			display alert "no"
		end if
	on error msg number num
		display alert msg
	end try
end tell

I get an alert saying “no” when I run it with a single plain text file selected in DT.

4

You’re right. Very strange.

Using Kind works. Try this.

tell application id "com.devon-technologies.thinkpro2"
	try
		set theDatabase to current database
		set these_items to the selection
		repeat with this_item in these_items
			set myType to (type of this_item as string)
			if kind of this_item is "Text" then
				display alert "yes, Type: " & myType
			else
				display alert "no, Type: " & myType
			end if
		end repeat
	end try
end tell
5

Yep, kind appears to be working for me. Thanks for the help.

6

Kind might depend on the localization and the extension and is therefore not recommended. However, this should always work:


	if ((type of theRecord) as string) is "text" then

Probably an issue caused by the arbitrary syntax of AppleScript.

7

Thanks, Christian. Sometimes AppleScript is blindingly unintuitive. 8)

8

Indeed :mrgreen: