Hack53.Timestamp Your Show Notes

Hack 53. Timestamp Your Show Notes

Use Audio Hijack Pro's AppleScript interface to mark important interview moments in your show notes.

During the course of an interview or show, you will find that you want to take note of the current time so that later you can make some edits relative to that point. Thoughtfully Audio Hijack Pro [Hack #50] has included an AppleScript interface that you can use to get the current time of the recording.

In this hack I provide an AppleScript fragment that takes the current recording time from Audio Hijack Pro and places it into the clipboard so that you can paste it into your show notes.

8.5.1. The Code

Create a new file in the Script Editor, with this code:

        tell application "Audio Hijack Pro"            repeat with sess in sessions                if sess is hijacked then                    set theTime to current recording time of sess                    set minuteCount to theTime / 60 as integer                     if (minuteCount * 60) > theTime then                        set minuteCount to minuteCount - 1                     end if                     set secondCount to theTime mod 60 as integer                     if secondCount < 10 then                        set secondCount to "0" & secondCount as string                     end if                     set theTime to minuteCount & ":" & secondCount                    set the clipboard to (theTime as string)            end if        end repeat     end tell 

8.5.2. Running the Hack

Pressing Play in the Script Editor will run the code. This takes the time of the current recording and puts it into the clipboard.

The important bits are where I get the current recording time, which is returned in seconds (and even fractions thereof). Then I convert that into a string in a really roundabout process that is convoluted only because of AppleScript's horrendous support for math. Then I put it into the clipboard as a string.

8.5.3. Hacking the Hack

If you want to send it directly to an application, here is another derivative script that adds the time to the current document in TextEdit:

        tell application "Audio Hijack Pro"            repeat with sess in sessions                if sess is hijacked then set theTime to current recording time of sess                 set minuteCount to theTime / 60 as integer                 if (minuteCount * 60) > theTime then                    set minuteCount to minuteCount - 1                 end if                 set secondCount to theTime mod 60 as integer                 if secondCount < 10 then                    set secondCount to "0" & secondCount as string               end if                set theTime to minuteCount & ":" & secondCount            end if        end repeat     end tell     tell application "TextEdit"         set currentText to the text of the front document as string         set the text of the front document to currentText &            return & (theTime as string)         end tell 

This script takes the front document of TextEdit and adds the record time to it.

Ideally this type of marking procedure would be a single keystroke. Using an application such as Keyboard Maestro (http://keyboardmaestro.com/), you can bind this script to an unused hotkey.

8.5.4. See Also

• "Control Your Recorder with Your Mobile Phone" [Hack #17]