Applescript get list of running apps?

Question

Applescript newbie question again :) I am trying to create a small applescript that will allow me to select multiple items from a list of currently running applications and

Answer 1

tell application "System Events"
    set processList to get the name of every process whose background only is false
    set processNameList to choose from list processList with prompt "Select process to quit" with multiple selections allowed
    if the result is not false then
        repeat with processName in processNameList
            do shell script "Killall " & quoted form of processName
        end repeat
    end if
end tell

Answer 2

The following example AppleScript code is pretty straight forward and will gracefully quit the selected application(s), providing the selected application(s) is (are) in a stable state:

tell application "System Events" to ¬
    set appList to the name of ¬
        every process whose visible is true

set quitAppList to ¬
    choose from list appList ¬
        with multiple selections allowed

repeat with thisApp in quitAppList
    quit application thisApp
end repeat

---

When I present a list to choose from, I prefer to have it in alphabetical order and to that end I use a handler to first sort the list before presenting it:

on SortList(thisList)
    set indexList to {}
    set sortedList to {}
    set theCount to (count thisList)
    repeat theCount times
        set lowItem to ""
        repeat with i from 1 to theCount
            if i is not in the indexList then
                set thisItem to item i of thisList as text
                if lowItem is "" then
                    set lowItem to thisItem
                    set lowItemIndex to i
                else if thisItem comes before lowItem then
                    set lowItem to thisItem
                    set lowItemIndex to i
                end if
            end if
        end repeat
        set end of sortedList to lowItem
        set end of indexList to lowItemIndex
    end repeat
    return the sortedList
end SortList

To use this with the first block of code presented I typically add handlers at the bottom of my code and then to use it, add the following example AppleScript code between the tell application "Finder" to ¬ and set quitAppList to ¬ statements:

set appList to SortList(appList)

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_{Note: I acquired this particular handler somewhere on the Internet too many years ago to remember and unfortunately lost who to credit it to. My apologies to whomever you are.}