At 16:23 -0400 22/5/09, Marc Bossiere wrote:

>get the clipboard
>if line 1 of it is "hscript" then delecte line 1 of it
>do it as Applescript  (or, "open URL it", etc)
>
>I just need an Applescript idle script that does basically the same 
>thing with the clipboard every few seconds.

What you seem to be asking for is a background process with a script 
something like this:

         on idle
           set _lines to get paragraphs of (get the clipboard)
           if item 1 of _lines contains "hscript" then
             set the clipboard to (items 2 through -1 of _lines) as Unicode text
             -- do what you want with the result
           end if
           return 5 -- do it every 5 seconds
         end idle

Now, it is possible to make an Applecript application invisible 
(backgrounded) but I forget for the moment what you need to do to 
achieve that because it's years since I created such things.  Someone 
else will remember.  However the script will do the same thing 
whether it's backgrounded or not in this case.  All you need do do is 
save it as an application with "Stay open" checked and "Startup 
screen" not checked unless you have so reason to want it.

JD