Viewing locations from Address Book in RouteBuddy 2.x

[aburt]

I've finally managed to get a little to sit down at update my script to work with RouteBuddy 2.x
Just pop it into your Address Book Plug-Ins folder:

User home folder --> Library --> Address Book Plug-Ins

- If there is not Address Book Plug-Ins folder in the Library folder then create one.
- Restart Address Book

To dowload script - click here

I've got an old screen cast showing how it worked with the RouteBuddy 1.x that you can find here.

You will also need the map of the area when looking up the address in RoutoBuddy + a Post code (zip code) with in the contacts details in Address Book.

Enjoy
Ads

[bmckenzie]

Hmm... gave me the "RouteBuddy is not installed" error, yet opened RouteBuddy.

@Aburt, I'm not up to speed with AppleScript, but could you not do this?:

1. Select an Address in Address Book
2. Select "Create waypoint in RouteBuddy"
3. Open either Google Maps or Google Earth
4. Convert the reverse geocoded address to coordinates (should be centred in Google Earth, Google Maps I think you have to move slightly in order to show coords in "get link"... but how you access this?)
5. Dump the lat + lon strings in a rbud:// URL to create a waypoint in RouteBuddy.

Craig Stanton wrote some AppleScript for Geotagger that gets coords from Google Earth.

Thinking about it, wouldn't the same AppleScript for getting cords from Google Earth into RouteBuddy also come in useful for manual geotagging using those two apps?

[bmckenzie]

Since I don't actually know JavaScript, it took me all afternoon. But this script can be saved as a bookmarklet that will grab coords from an Address Book look-up or de novo Google Maps address search and create the appropriate rbud:// URL for import into RouteBuddy simply by dragging it to the Dock icon:

Code: Select all

javascript:void(prompt('Drag%20the%20selection%20below%20onto%20RouteBuddy\'s%20Dock%20icon:',['rbud://view?&lat='+gApplication.getMap().getCenter().lat()+'&lon='+gApplication.getMap().getCenter().lng()+'&zoom=4']));


More details + illustrations here:
http://www.bioneural.net/2008/07/17/address-book-to-google-maps-to-routebuddy/

Cheers, Bruce

[aburt]

Hi Bruce,

The angle that I've take with the script, was that you do not have to be dependent on other applications or web based services, just keeping it simple when off site / out in the field. I've update the script, I think your error is to do with RouteBuddy taking longer then expected to fire up on your Mac. You can try setting the delay time accordingly. Open up the script in Script Editor on your Mac and do a find for "end repeat" and change "delay 1" below it to say for example "delay 5" for five seconds and see how that go's - click here to download.

Also you might like to give this script a spin in relation to using Google Maps to look up address and pass them to RouteBuddy - click here to download. It works in exsacly the same way as my original Address Book to RouteBuddy script does but it will quickly look up the Address in Google Maps on Safari, before fire up RouteBuddy and adding a untitled waypoint for you.

Cheers
Ads

[bmckenzie]

Ads, your updated Address Book to RouteBuddy AppleScript gave me no error. I used the same address as in my example (112-114 London Road, Sheffield S2 4LR) which produced 93 items representing the roads in Norton, Sheffield S2. So that wasn't especially helpful in this case, despite network independence.

Your Address Book to Google Maps to RouteBuddy AppleScript (AB2GM2RBA!) produced the same result as clicking my bookmarklet (which does involve 2 actions vs. your one) but I guess the JavaScript has 2 advantages:

1. Fine-tune the waypoint location before sending it to RouteBuddy (and AB look-ups are too often incorrect);
2. Search and send waypoints to RouteBuddy that aren't in your Address Book.

Incidentally, although the bookmarklet does work with maps.google.com on iPhone Safari too, you can't select the rbud URL and copy it so it's not much use You could in theory bookmark a map view in iPhone Safari and use the bookmarklet to add to RouteBuddy after sync to desktop Safari. AFAIK there's no way to transfer a Pin bookmark from Maps into Safari or Phone app so that you could access it on the desktop (Safari or Address Book) for sending to RouteBuddy (at least not with 1.1.4 firmware).