Update: The script on this page no longer works. Please refer to this one.
Launchbar is a very convenient application launcher for Mac OS X. Among other great features like instant send, it can execute a script when invoking a phone number from your address book. I own a Fritz!Box 7170, which is one of the most famous combination of WLAN router and telephone system in Germany. By sending special HTTP POST-requests to the Fritz!Box, you can dial phone numbers from your computer. I wrote a small Applescript which glues both features together.
The installation is pretty simple. First of all, open the script in Apple’s script editor and adjust the parameters. The password and the phone port are very likely to change. Save it to Library/Application Support/Launchbar/Actions under your Home folder. The script assumes that you are using Launchbar 5, which currently is in public Beta. Now open Launchbares preferences, choose Actions and select the script for phone numbers.
That’s all. Now fire up Launchbar, navigate to an entry from your address book, select a number and hit enter. The script immediately tries to call the number and prints a message in large print on the screen. After the specified delay (25 seconds by default), the script gives up reaching the number.
The script is based on a shell script by Christian Felder posted here and an expample script for dialing with Skype from Launchbar found in its help.
You can download the script here here.
Hi,
many thanks for your skript. I adapted it for suiting to fritz.mac suite. Now, it works like a charme.
property countryPrefix : "+49"
on formatNumber(theString)
set theNumber to ""
if theString starts with countryPrefix then
set theString to text ((length of countryPrefix) + 1) thru -1 of theString
set theNumber to "0"
end if
repeat with i from 1 to (length of theString)
set c to character i of theString
if c = "+" then
set theNumber to theNumber & "00"
else if "0123456789" contains c then
set theNumber to theNumber & c
end if
end repeat
return theNumber
end formatNumber
on handle_string(theNumber)
set theNumber to formatNumber(theNumber)
(*****************************************
***** this is the main call to fritz.mac Suite: *******
*****************************************)
tell application "fritz.mac Suite" to call to theNumber
end handle_string