Applescript populate a dialog list with Microsoft outlook contacts

Question

All,

I'm attempting to create an applescript that allows me to create a word document (a business proposal). One part is being able to use applescript to select the client from micorsoft outlook.

I know how to do this in VBA but in Applescript I can't seem to figure it out. Basically I need a dialog box that either has a list of all my Outlook contacts from which I can select one.

Much appreciated, -J

Philip Regan Philip Regan · Accepted Answer · 2011-05-02T13:26:28

Quick and dirty, but this works (Office 2008)

tell application "Microsoft Entourage"

    set contactList to {}
    set lastContact to (count contacts)
    repeat with thisContact from 1 to lastContact
        set theContact to item thisContact of contacts
        set end of contactList to (first name of theContact & " " & last name of theContact)
    end repeat

    set contactSelected to (choose from list contactList with prompt "Please select a contact." without multiple selections allowed) as text

    if (contactSelected is not "False") then
        display dialog contactSelected
    end if

end tell

There are essentially two parts to the script: getting the contact names and presenting the information. Getting the contacts is easy because contacts is a property of the application itself. Running this in 40+ contacts only takes a second.

Presenting the data and getting the selection isn't so obvious. The data to be presented has to be a string. Honestly, I forget why I have as text dangling off the end, but I seem to remember that doing this was easier if everything was handled as a string of some kind. Once the selection has been verified—having "False" returned means the user clicked the cancel button—you are then able to carry on with the string where I placed the display dialog. Unfortunately, you don't get the row number or anything convenient like that. It just doesn't work that way, so you will have to do a bit of fudging to get back to the corresponding contact object itself.

Add salt to taste...

Applescript populate a dialog list with Microsoft outlook contacts

1 Answers