Applescript (or Automator...or shell scrip...) to start and stop screen recording

[James Gill]

I am trying to find a way to script in to filemaker the ability to start and stop a screen recording session. All of my users are Mac, which means I'll probably be using Quicktime X's native desktop recording ability to accomplish this. I have been struggling with Applescript Editor for hours now trying to put together a test script that simply Opens Quicktime, starts a screen recording, pauses 2 seconds, stops the screen recording, and then saves the resulting movie file into the /temp directory.

I have everything working fine except for the save portion. Sadly, Apple's documentation on Applescript Editor is woefully lacking on the dictionary for Quicktime X. After scouring the internet this afternoon for hours, I can hardly find ANY references to Applescript and the newest version of Quicktime X. Most of the stuff I'm finding is from 2006 and 2007 and is woefully out of date.

Here is the Applescript so far:

tell application "QuickTime Player"

activate

new screen recording

document "Screen Recording" start

delay 2

document "Screen Recording" stop

export document "Screen Recording.mov" in ":Macintosh HD:tmp:movie2.mov" using settings preset "Quicktime Movie"

end tell

This script completes without error but there is no resulting "movie2.mov" placed in to the /tmp directory. I also cannot find how to create a "Settings Preset" with anything other than Quicktime 7, which of course won't run on Snow Leopard. Hell, I can't even find a list of default settings preset and had to guess on "Quicktime Movie" working. I eventually want to be able to automatically start a screen recording session using very low quality settings for my videos since Quicktime X defaults to mega-ultra suck up your harddrive space sized videos. Any help that you guys can provide is appreciated.