Simpler Affiliate Links

I have a new saying: “If you want something done right, just pique Dr.Drang’s interest.” There’s been constant improvement to this workflow and it’s interesting to see it evolve.

Here’s a bonus macro that creates Amazon affiliate links.[1] For this one, just copy the product link from Amazon and run the macro to extract the product item and create an affiliate link.[2]

Here’s the workflow:

1. Visit an Amazon product page
2. Copy the page link
3. Switch back to a document I want the link inserted in
4. Run the macro to have the affiliate link pasted in

Here’s the AppleScript:

:::Applescript
tell application "Keyboard Maestro Engine"

	try	

        set oldDelims to AppleScript's text item delimiters -- save their current state

        set myClip to (process tokens "%Variable%tempClip%")

        if myClip does not contain "/dp/" and myClip does not contain "/product/" then

            return "Did Not Find An Amazon Link"

        else

            if myClip contains "/dp/" then

                set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "/dp/"

            end if

            if myClip contains "/product/" then

                set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "/product/"

            end if

            set tempString to text item 2 of myClip

            set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "/"

            set tempString to text item 1 of tempString

            return tempString

        end if

        set AppleScript's text item delimiters to oldDelims -- restore them

	on error

        set AppleScript's text item delimiters to oldDelims -- restore them in case something went wrong

	end try

end tell

Notes

When I’m logged into Amazon, the product page link has a different structure. The AppleScript needs to determine what kind of link I’ve copied. From what I can tell, Amazon product links have either a path that includes “/product/” or “/dp/” right before the product id. That’s what the AppleScript if-else statements are determining.

This macro also has an example of the Keyboard Maestro flow-control actions. If the AppleScript returns a failure, then KM will display a popup message rather than inserting text.

EDIT: I just realized, after using this macro for so long, that I forgot to include a try-catch block to reset AppleScript’s text delimiters. That’s just dumb.