How to make Microsoft Keyboard special keys run osascript commands on OS X?

Question

I'm trying to make (1) special key open new terminal window.

I bound it to file /Users/taw/bin/new_term, which contains:

#!/bin/sh
exec osascript -e 'tell application "Terminal" to do script "cd ."'

This does the trick, except it also opens a Terminal window with this (even though Terminal.app is configured to always close windows when processes finish):

Last login: Thu Mar 11 19:41:29 on ttys000
/Users/taw/bin/new_term ; exit;
~$ /Users/taw/bin/new_term ; exit;
tab 1
logout

[Process completed]

How do I make it all work correctly? (possibly using a way different that what I've been attempting so far)

Answer 1

Have your special key execute /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app/Contents/MacOS/Terminal instead.

(Out of curiosity, how are you binding a key to a command?)

Edit:

I try to keep anything Microsoft away from Mac OS, because they don't really seem to grok the Mac way. The fact that it's using open for everything is proof of this.

So, if I were you, I'd rip out the Microsoft keyboard driver, and use Spark instead:

http://www.brighthub.com/computing/mac-platform/reviews/30244.aspx

If you really want to use AppleScript to do what you're doing, perhaps this will be of use:

http://lambie.org/2007/11/03/tabs-in-terminal-using-applescript-on-leopard/

You could also snag some of the AppleScript from the latter link and trigger it with a hotkey using Spark.

Answer 2

Use one of the options to start a program or execute a script without opening Terminal I describe in this answer.

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To open a new terminal window, or just Terminal with a default window, you can try to adapt this solution.