"Merge Rows" applescript

[Brian C.]

I actually didn't know this, but it turns out that it's a limitation of 
the cocoa scripting interface.  Basically, it hoses your text styles if 
you use the "&" operator. A version that preserves text styles is 
possible, but you have to jump through a few hoops to get it. Everyone 
say "thanks Tim!" as I basically shoulder surfed while he wrote the 
guts of this version, which I hacked into the previous script. =)

bwc


tell front document of application "OmniOutliner Professional"
	set theCount to (count of selected rows)
	if theCount < 2 then
		display dialog "You need to select at least two rows to use this 
script." buttons "Cancel" default button "Cancel"
	end if
	
	set theFirstSelected to first item of selected rows
	
	-- run through the selected rows and add the newline characters in a 
way that preserves the styles
	-- thus we skip the last row, because we don't need a newline there
	repeat with i from 1 to (theCount - 1)
		if ((count of characters of (topic of (item i of selected rows))) > 
0) then
			duplicate last character of (topic of (item i of selected rows)) to 
after last character of (topic of (item i of selected rows))
			set text of last character of (topic of (item i of selected rows)) 
to "\n"
		end if
	end repeat
	
	-- now move the text of each row up into the first selected row and 
delete the row
	repeat with j from 2 to (theCount)
		duplicate topic of (item j of selected rows) to after last character 
of topic of theFirstSelected
		delete row id (id of (item j of selected rows))
	end repeat
end tell




On Oct 19, 2005, at 6:49 PM, Michael Esveldt wrote:

> This script reveals a scripting limitation I often run up against, 
> namely styled text in the rows you merge is lost in the merge. Is this 
> a limitation of the applescript or of OO?
>
> Best,
> Michael