[vwa]

Hi,

I have the following problem:

for reasons of logging my daily activity I would like to bring up a special dokument whenever I start the computer and also when I shut it down.
So the natural solution would be to place a alias of this ducument into the startup and also into the shutdown folder (I use a german system and maybe the terms are a little different, but you know what I mean..).
For startup everything works fine! On shutdown I have no chance to work on my document, because after opening it closes it immediately again and the machine continues the shutdown procedure!?
Did I misunderstand something or how can I do it?

------------------

[Gregg]

I've seen utility programs that run after selecting shutdown, but I've never seen a file open in that situation. Once you select shutdown, it's going to shut down. I don't think you'll be able to view a file then. The utility programs I've seen do not abort the shut down either. They run, then it shuts down, and you can't stop it.

[grimley]

I'm not that great at it but i'm sure that you can find or create an applescript that would allow you, once clicking, to open the document, make your changes, and then upon quitting shut down the computer. Anyone?

[Paul Crawford]

Hi all,

Hope you've already found a better solution elsewhere... If not, here's an AppleScript script that may work for you. Basically, it asks the appropriate application to open the desired document, then loops waiting for the application to quit, before exiting and allowing the shutdown to proceed (hopefully).

After replacing the "..." strings at the top of the script with your specific application name (e.g., "SimpleText") and document pathname (e,g,, "Macintosh HDersonal:My Notes"), try saving this script as an applet (application) in the Shutdown Items folder.

-- ================================================== =======================================
try
set theAppName to "..."
set theDocumentPathname to "..."

-- Ask the app to open the document
tell application theAppName
activate
open (file theDocumentPathname)
end tell

-- Wait for the app to quit
set isAppStillOpen to true
repeat while (isAppStillOpen)
-- Yield to give time to the app, and to other apps
delay 1

-- Determine whether the app is still open
set isAppStillOpen to IsApplicationOpen(theAppName)
end repeat

on error errMsg number errNum
display dialog ("Error: (" & errNum & ") " & errMsg) buttons {"Stop"} default button 1 with icon stop

end try

-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
on IsApplicationOpen(thisAppName)
set isAppOpen to false -- Initial assumption

-- Ask the Finder if the application is still running
tell application "Finder"
set theMatchingApps to (get application processes whose name is (thisAppName as string))
if ((count theMatchingApps) > 0) then
set isAppOpen to true
end if
end tell

return isAppOpen
end IsApplicationOpen
-- ================================================== =======================================

Good luck.

A method is to have the application that opens the document to ignore all Process manager quit and shut down commands. The system will have to wait until the application is manually quit.
Most modern and well-behaved Apps will never ignore quit commands from the Process Manager, so a custom one will have to be created.
Fiddling with the App's 'SIZE' resource to ignore high level events could work.

[vwa]

Thank you all and especially Paul Crawford for his Apple Script which solved my problem.

I just hacked it in and it worked, but (honestly) I do not know exactly why! I think I have to learn Apple Script in more detail!