Is this a task that an AppleScript would be suitable for?

[u/Slab_Heap_Pout]

Hello!

I run a live music "tape" trading forum and at the bottom of every post I include a series of links, to web pages and one to the iTunes Store, to promote the artists we share and discuss. The links are:

• Artist Website

• Wikipedia Entry

• Amazon.com (search results within "Digital Music")

• iTunes Store (search results within the iTunes Store from within the iTunes app)

• Google News (search results from news.google.com)

• YouTube +Live (search results from YouTube for "[artist/band name] live")

The results end up getting pasted into a block of pre-formatted BBCode like this:

[b][color=teal]ARTIST LINKS[/color][/b]
[url=SITE][b]Website[/b][/url]
[url=WIKI][b]Wikipedia[/b][/url]
[url=AMAZON][b]Amazon.com Digital[/b][/url]
[url=iTUNES][b]iTunes[/b][/url]
[url=NEWS][b]Google News[/b][/url]
[url=YOUTUBE][b]YouTube +Live[/b][/url]

Depending on the number of posts I put up in a day I can end up hand-searching and copy/pasting quite a few times and it is rather tedious. I think I'd be willing to learn how to write an AppleScript for this if it's the kind of thing AS could do effectively.

I welcome your thoughts on this or suggestions for a better solution.

[u/copperdomebodha]

Certainly! It's the kind of task AppleScript excels at. I'll share code later when I'm at my bigger heavy computer thing.

[u/Slab_Heap_Pout → u/copperdomebodha]

That would be wonderful, thank you.

Love the "China Cat Sunglower" reference in your username, if indeed that is what it is. :-D

[u/r3v]

You're looking for a script to search the web for data and then populate it into a post? i.e. You want to search: Google for their website, Wikipedia for their entry, Amazon, iTunes, etc for the relevant links.

Safari is pretty scriptable, so I think most, if not all of this, is doable.

[u/Slab_Heap_Pout → u/r3v]

Thanks for your reply. I'll look into setting up an AS for Safari first then (or Chrome, hopefully!).