danieleghisi

Some Mac applications have a "Locate in Finder" button which opens a Finder window and selects a given file.

Does anybody know if there is there a way to achieve something like this in Max?

If it was cross-platform that'd be even better (of course by replacing the Mac Finder with the Windows equivalent... ;)

Some Mac applications have a "Locate in Finder" button which opens a Finder window and selects a given file.
Does anybody know if there is there a way to achieve something like this in Max?

locate-in-finder

It's probably not working on windows, but you can do something close with a few objects on mac. The patch show the folder which contains the file you want to see in the finder:

and place a [tosymbol] between regexp and ;max message to allow for spaces in filepath name

Thanks to both of you for the useful tips.

This solves the folder opening, but not the file selection (at least on my machine)...

Is there maybe a way to achieve also this last bit?

For instance: is there a way to run applescripts within Max?

I was hoping to run an applescript with [shell] – say like this:

where the applescript is something simple, like

    set thePath to POSIX file (item 1 of argv)

    tell application "Finder" to reveal thePath

This script works perfectly from the Terminal command line, but it doesn't work with [shell].

Thanks to both of you for the useful tips.
This solves the folder opening, but not the file selection (at least on my machine)...
Is there maybe a way to achieve also this last bit? 

For instance: is there a way to run applescripts within Max?
I was hoping to run an applescript with [shell] – say like this:

on run argv
	set thePath to POSIX file (item 1 of argv)
	tell application "Finder" to reveal thePath
end run

This script works perfectly from the Terminal command line, but it doesn't work with [shell].
Does anybody know why?


Yeah, just a matter of escaping double quotes, and everything works!

osascript \"/Path/To/My/File/revealfile.scpt\" \"/Applications/Max 6.1/examples/sounds/drumLoop.aif\"

It seems that applescript via [shell] is the way to go, at least for my case.

Yeah, just a matter of escaping double quotes, and everything works!
For instance:

It seems that applescript via [shell] is the way to go, at least for my case.


Actually, as a final remark, one should also add

at the end of the apple script, to bring the Finder to the front.

Actually, as a final remark, one should also addtell application "Finder" to activate
at the end of the apple script, to bring the Finder to the front.


You can call reveal directly without a script (and enjoy string escaping hell ;-):

(Does anybody have any idea of how to possibly export this into Windows? Is there something similar to "applescript"?)

yes indeed. there's vbscripts or batch files even executeable without shell object with max launchbrowser message.

i'm currently playing around on both sides mac/win. i once made this to open explorer and select the file. it's from an old device and i didn't test it again, but you can see how to execute a shell command on windows without 3rd party external. vbscript can do similar things like applescript, but of course, uses more cryptic syntax. 

yes indeed. there's vbscripts or batch files even executeable without shell object with max launchbrowser message.
i'm currently playing around on both sides mac/win. i once made this to open explorer and select the file. it's from an old device and i didn't test it again, but you can see how to execute a shell command on windows without 3rd party external. vbscript can do similar things like applescript, but of course, uses more cryptic syntax. 
