Tornado

Tornado is a ruby gem that let's you write ruby scripts that looks like this:

tell OSX do
  hide_everything
end

tell Terminal do
  open_new_tab("~/dev/web_site")

  open_new_tab(DEV_DIR) do
    tail "~/dev/web_site/log/*.log"
  end

  open_new_tab("~/dev/web_site") do
    run "autotest"
  end
end

tell Textmate do
  minimize_all_windows
  open DEV_DIR
  resize 400, "100%"
  reposition :east
end

tell Firefox do
  open_new_tab("http://web-site.local")
end

Documentation

None yet - this thing is new.

Why

Tornado sits on top of Appscript, which is an Apple event bridge. Appscript is GREAT, I wanted something even higher level. Something that would just let me easily do the common things I want to do when switching between projects: open terminals, run commands, open the project in my text editor, minimize/hide other apps, etc.

See below for code comparisons:

Using Appscript directly:

# hide all apps

se = Appscript.app("System Events")
se.keystroke("h", :using => [ :command_down, :option_down ])

# open a tab in Terminal and run "autotest"

t = Appscript.app("Terminal")
t.launch unless t.is_running?
se.application_processes["Terminal"].keystroke("t", :using => :command_down)
tab = current_window.tabs.last
term.do_script("cd ~/dev/web_site && clear && autotest", :in => tab)

Using Tornado:

# hide all apps

tell OSX do
    hide_everything
end

# open a tab in Terminal and run "autotest"
tell Terminal do
    open_new_tab("~/dev/web_site") do
      run "autotest"
    end
end

Copyright and License

The MIT License

Copyright© 2008 Jim Garvin

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.