Executing shell commands (OS X)

[Kaveh Bazargan]

I am building a stack as a front end to some shell commands which I
normally type in Terminal. Most of the commands are "make" commands and I
want each button to send one of these commands.

This is how I am doing it now:

I have a hidden field called "makeScript" with this text in:

tell application "Terminal"
  try
  close window 1
 end try
do script with command "\
    bash;
    cd ELS/els-xml;
make viewpdf"
end tell

I need to change the make command near the end, with each button. So each
button edits that line, and then sends the following command:

do fld "makeScript" as applescript

Now this looks very clumsy and it is. Is there a more elegant way of doing
this? (I am having to close the Terminal window each time as each time a
new Terminal window is opened. It would be nice if this didn't happen.)
-- 

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Kaveh Bazargan
http://www.focalimage.com/
http://www.holographer.org/