Question

I have the following script that successfully retrieves the current track and updates my Messages (iChat) status, but for this to work autonomously I guess I need to run it on a loop? Recommendations for that?

tell application "Rdio"
    set theTrack to current track
    set theArtist to artist of theTrack
    set theName to name of theTrack
end tell

tell application "Messages"
    if status is available then
        set status message to ("♫ Playing in Rdio: " & (theArtist as string) & " - " & (theName as string))
    end if
end tell

Answer 1

Unless Rdio has the ability to trigger scripts on certain condition (which you would have to check for yourself, as I am not a Rdio user myself – the rather sparse Rdio AppleScript docs on site do not indicate anything about that), your best chance to achieve this is to store your script as a Stay-Open AppleScript Application and put the script proper in the on idle handler. The AppleScript Language Guide has the nitty-gritty on this, if you want to look it up, but the basic procedure is:

1. wrap your script above in an on idle handler, i.e.:

   on idle
       tell application "Rdio"
           set theTrack to current track
           set theArtist to artist of theTrack
           set theName to name of theTrack
       end tell
   
       tell application "Messages"
           if status is available then
               set status message to ("♫ Playing in Rdio: " & (theArtist as string) & " - " & (theName as string))
           end if
       end tell
   
       return 0 -- change this to stray from the default 30 sec. interval
   end idle
   

2. save the script as an AppleScript Application, making sure you check Stay open in the saving sheet.

3. Launch your newly created AppleScript app, and you are good to go – it will keep running, executing the idle handler periodically (every 30 seconds by default – you can change that value by returning an integer value from the idle handler, which will be evaluated as the number of seconds until the next check. If you want to be fancy, and the Rdio AS interface supports it, you could use the remaining playing time of your song, say…)