[MacRuby-devel] Basic delayed email method

[Colin Thomas-Arnold]

A timer would work fine here I think, but in my opinion there is a lot of value in learning GCD - but I also use NSTimers all the time, so whatever floats the boat.

But the original code Cliff sent doesn't use a Timer, it assigns a time in the future and checks as often as possible that it is equal to "now", so effectively blocks until the time has elapsed.  Though, if the program "goes away" for that second duration, it will never be true.  Unlikely, for sure, and this code would be fine for a quick command-line program, but not good design.  A ton a ton of ticks are being wasted implementing a hacky version of a timer.

Timers/async == good, loops that block and are effectively a timer == not so good.


@colinta
colinta.com
github.com/colinta




On Oct 20, 2012, at 12:40 PM, Robert Carl Rice wrote:

> Hi Mark,
> 
> I use NSTimer a lot in my apps. What is the advantage of using GCD API?
> 
> There is an excellent tutorial on the web for specifically for setting up ScriptingBridge for Apple Mail but I forget where I saw it. On warning; if you set up ScriptingBridge for Apple Mail don't try to take a snapshot in Xcode 4. Xcode will follow the link to mail and include all of your mailboxes in the snapshot. I don't know if there is a way to stop this behavior.
> 
> Bob Rice
> 
> On Oct 19, 2012, at 6:50 PM, Mark Rada <mrada at marketcircle.com> wrote:
> 
>> Busy looping for an hour would be really bad. I assume you would have a sleep in there, but then you're still polling.
>> 
>> If you are using MacRuby, looking at the GCD API would be a good idea. You could do something like this:
>> 
>> def schedule_email q
>>   q.after(3600) do
>>       # Send email
>>       schedule_email q
>>   end
>> end
>> 
>> schedule_email Dispatch::Queue.new("com.rosson.delayed.email")
>> 
>> NSRunLoop.currentRunLoop.run
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> As for actually sending emails, if you want to have things go through Apple Mail you could use the ScriptingBridge framework which has a few tutorials online (but for iTunes):
>> 
>> http://arstechnica.com/apple/2011/09/tutorial-os-x-automation-with-macruby-and-the-scripting-bridge/
>> 
>> AXElements is another option that I am biased in favour of; but it may not be passive enough for your requirements.
>> 
>> HTH,
>> 	Mark
>> 
>> 
>> On 2012-10-19, at 6:12 PM, Cliff Rosson <cliff.rosson at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> Hi Everyone,
>>> 
>>> I am fairly new to macruby and am having trouble finding some basic documentation to help me out. I would like to write a simple app that sends a delayed email based on Time from mac mail.
>>> 
>>> I am thinking of something like this,
>>> 
>>> time = Time.now + 3600
>>> while true
>>> case time
>>> when Time.now
>>>   #Send email
>>> end
>>> end
>>> 
>>> Being able to respond to certain emails or send an email from a draft would be a huge benefit. Can anyone point me in the write direction to accomplish this? I am decently proficient in ruby but don't know where to start with MacRuby.
>>> 
>>> Thanks everyone
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> MacRuby-devel mailing list
>>> MacRuby-devel at lists.macosforge.org
>>> http://lists.macosforge.org/mailman/listinfo/macruby-devel
>> 
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>> 
> 
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