How do I make an AppleScript with a drop-down menu without Xcode?

Solution 1:

There is no built in concept of a menu in the dialogs-alerts within the AppleScript language.

The closest you could do would be to name some dummy files (in a temporary folder) with the appropriate action and have the user choose the file labeled with the action you wanted to perform.

open folder blah
  with selected file bah
    do whatever

A horrendous "solution" to a problem that needs a cocoa menu - whether you make it in Xcode or someone else does - Xcode/IB is the tool that creates a menu. MacRuby is a nice way to script an app that needs a more full featured UI than AppleScript. You don't need Xcode/IB to ruby up an app from pure script.

You could create a NIB using Interface Builder and script it all using AppleScript, but the nib defines the menu itself - not AppleScript (even if AppleScript can populate or delete the menu items at run time).

Solution 2:

One option would be to use CocoaDialog**:

set l to {"aa", "bb", "cc"}
set choices to ""
repeat with x in l
    set choices to choices & quoted form of x & " "
end repeat
set dialog to paragraphs of (do shell script "/Applications/CocoaDialog.app/Contents/MacOS/CocoaDialog" & " standard-dropdown --title title --text text --items " & choices)
if item 1 of dialog is "2" then return -- pressed cancel button
item ((item 2 of dialog) + 1) of l

You could also just use choose from list:

choose from list {"aa", "bb", "cc"} with title "Title" with prompt "Please choose" default items "bb" with multiple selections allowed

** The original URL for this Github repo by mstratman has changed. From research it seems CocoaDialog has transitioned to an org. Here are the new changes:

• URL
• Github
• Repo pertaining to the previous answer

Solution 3:

Additionally, if you just need a list to choose from, you could also do

choose from list listYouDefined with prompt "Choose from the list."

Google "AppleScript Choose from list".

Solution 4:

I understand this is an old question but since the best up-voted answer says in the documentation for CocoaDialog 2:

Downloads do not work Downloads for cocoadialog 2 are no longer available. This is mostly in part due to the various changes and lack of permanent storage over the years.

and 3 isn't coming till Spring/Summer 18 I was searching for other alternatives and I found Pashua:

(pic taken from the site)

Under the documentation this is called a popup:

Example: Using popup
p.type = popup
p.label = Example popup menu
p.width = 310
p.option = Popup menu item #1
p.option = Popup menu item #2
p.option = Popup menu item #3
p.default = Popup menu item #2

Screenshot:

Github repo

After using it I found you can install the Pashua.app in your Application directory or you can embed Pashua in your app. I'm not the author of this but I needed a base solution for a GUI and this wasn't mentioned.