[pianotech] Piano software for Mac

[Daniel Carlton]

hi john

i've only heard of perl or apple events, but never new what it was or  
does. i've always known you can do great things with apple scripts,  
but never knew how to use it.
i've been using PTBiz for the last 6 years, and while it a very good  
program. basically i'd like to be able to do the same things that  
PTBiz does with just a couple of extra features.
here's my wish list (a little redundant)
	
	i'd like to have all the same information fields available that i  
have in ptbiz
	
	i would like to have reminders pop up when a customer is due for a  
tuning so i can mail/call them, maybe in iCal

	i'd like to be able to keep track of when i last mailed a customer a  
reminder, separate from when i last called them

	i'd like to be able spit out all of my information for tax prep at  
the end of every quarter/year with the click of a button, and make it 	 
pretty in pages or something

	i'd like to be able to automatically create an invoice in pages  
whenever i enter a tuning i have just done, and whenever i enter 	that  
tuning in address book under last tuning, if possible, i'd like for  
iCal to automatically set up the next tuning 6 months from 	now, or  
for whatever timeframe i specify


Daniel Carlton



From: John Delacour <JD at Pianomaker.co.uk>
Date: March 26, 2009 5:17:47 PM CDT
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [pianotech] Piano software for Mac
Reply-To: pianotech at ptg.org


The fact that iCal and Address Book have good scripting dictionaries  
means that a lot could be done with Apple Events and Perl that would  
be easy to customize, and you could have a control centre either (text- 
based) in Terminal or an HTML browser interface.  Mail's scripting  
dictionary is, certainly up to 10.4.11, quite monstrously useless,  
which is why I continue to use Eudora, which is properly scriptable,  
but some things are possible with Mail.

Address Book is fine as a customer database.  Not only have you the  
notes field but you can add as many special date fields as you like  
and can set up the template to create these fields (e.g "Next Tuning")  
in new cards.  Address Book is also merely an interface to records  
kept in the universal standard .vcf (visiting card format). I  
personally have never found the need for such things as Filemaker,  
which is all things to all men, very clumsy, and far too general in  
its scope.

Give me a few examples of things you would like to be able to do and I  
will try to give you various ways they could be achieved.  The  
possibilities are endless.  Every Mac user has Apple Events,  
AppleScript and Perl, but very few people are aware of them or know  
their potential. I've heard of Perl, but never knew of them or their  
potential.  I have been AppleScripting on the Mac since AppleScript  
first appeared goodness knows how long ago and am still pretty much up  
to speed with it, though I use Perl, either alone or in combination  
with Apple Events, for most of the things I do nowadays.

For example, suppose you keep your customer record in an Address Book  
group, or several groups, and have the field "Next Tuning" filled in  
for each customer, you could run a script to send you a list by email  
of all the tunings you have coming up in the next ten days or so,  
transfer the appointments automatically to iCal, set reminders etc. etc.
Exactly one of the things I personally have wanted from my software!

Without knowing precisely what you want to do, it is pointless going  
into it further.  A programmer needs to have precise requirements from  
his client.

JD






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