AppleScript: The Definitive Guide: Scripting and Automating Your Mac

by Matt Neuburg

Overview

Mac users everywhere--even those who know nothing about programming--are discovering the value of the latest version of AppleScript, Apple's vastly improved scripting language for Mac OS X Tiger. And with this new edition of the top-selling AppleScript: The Definitive Guide, anyone, regardless of your level of experience, can learn to use AppleScript to make your Mac time more efficient and more enjoyable by automating repetitive tasks, customizing applications, and even controlling complex workflows.

Fully revised and updated--and with more and better examples than ever--AppleScript: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition explores AppleScript 1.10 from the ground up. You will learn how AppleScript works and how to use it in a variety of contexts: in everyday scripts to process automation, in CGI scripts for developing applications in Cocoa, or in combination with other scripting languages like Perl and Ruby.

AppleScript has shipped with every Mac since System 7 in 1991, and its ease of use and English-friendly dialect are highly appealing to most Mac fans. Novices, developers, and everyone in between who wants to know how, where, and why to use AppleScript will find AppleScript: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition to be the most complete source on the subject available. It's as perfect for beginners who want to write their first script as it is for experienced users who need a definitive reference close at hand.

AppleScript: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition begins with a relevant and useful AppleScript overview and then gets quickly to the language itself; when you have a good handle on that, you get to see AppleScript in action, and learn how to put it into action for you. An entirely new chapter shows developers how to make your Mac applications scriptable, and how to give them that Mac OS X look and feel with AppleScript Studio. Thorough appendixes deliver additional tools and resources you won't find anywhere else. Reviewed and approved by Apple, this indispensable guide carries the ADC (Apple Developer Connection) logo.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781449379155
Publisher:	O'Reilly Media, Incorporated
Publication date:	01/04/2006
Series:	Definitive Guides
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	592
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Matt Neuburg has been programming computers since 1968. He majored in Greek at Swarthmore College, and received his PhD from Cornell University in 1981. Hopelessly hooked on computers since migrating to a Macintosh in 1990, he's written educational and utility freeware, and became an early regular contributor to the online journal TidBITS. In 1995, Matt became an editor for MacTech Magazine. He is also the author of "Frontier: The Definitive Guide" and "REALbasic: The Definitive Guide" for O'Reilly.

Table of Contents

	Preface	xi
Part I.	AppleScript Overview
1.	Ways to Use AppleScript	3
	The Nature and Purpose of AppleScript	3
	Is This Application Scriptable?	5
	Calculation and Repetition	6
	Reduction	8
	Customization	10
	Combining Specialities	10
2.	Places to Use AppleScript	16
	Script Editor	17
	Scripting Environment	22
	Internally Scriptable Application	23
	Script Runner	28
	Automatic Location	29
	Application	31
	Unix	37
3.	The AppleScript Experience	39
	The Problem	39
	A Day in the Life	41
	Conclusions, Lessons, and Advice	62
4.	Basic Concepts	65
	Apple Event	65
	The Open Scripting Architecture	73
	Script	77
	Compiling and Decompiling	80
	Script Text File	86
	Applet and Droplet	88
	Scripting Addition	89
	Dictionary	90
	Scriptable, Recordable, Attachable	92
Part II.	The AppleScript Language
5.	Introducing AppleScript	97
	A "Little Language"	97
	Extensibility and Its Perils	98
	The "English-likeness" Monster	99
	Object-likeness	101
	LISP-likeness	102
	The Learning Curve	103
6.	Syntactic Ground of Being	104
	Lines	104
	Result	106
	Comments	109
	Abbreviations and Synonyms	110
	Blocks	111
	The	112
7.	Variables	113
	Assignment and Retrieval	113
	Declaration and Definition of Variables	115
	Variable Names	117
	Scoping of Variables	120
	Script Properties	131
	Lifetime of Variables	137
8.	Handlers	140
	Returned Value	141
	Parameters	143
	Syntax of Defining and Calling a Handler	145
	Pass By Reference	148
	Scoping of Handlers	150
	Handlers as Values	155
9.	Script Objects	159
	Scoping of Script Objects	160
	Top-Level Entities	162
	Script Object's Run Handler	164
	Handler Calls	164
	Script Objects as Values	166
	Compiled Script Files as Script Objects	172
	Inheritance	178
10.	Objects	184
	Class	185
	Target	185
	Get	191
	It	192
	Me	194
	Properties and Elements	195
	Element Specifiers	197
	Properties of Multiple References	204
	Object String Specifier	204
11.	References	206
	References as Incantations	207
	Creating a Reference	209
	Identifying References	210
	Dereferencing a Reference	211
	Creating References to Local Variables	215
	Reference as Parameter	215
12.	Control	218
	Branching	218
	Looping	220
	Tell	228
	Using Terms From	229
	With	232
	Considering/Ignoring	234
	Errors	236
	Second-Level Evaluation	242
13.	Datatypes	243
	Boolean	243
	Integer, Real, and Number	244
	Date	245
	String	247
	Unicode Text	249
	Styled Text	251
	File	251
	Alias	253
	Application	255
	Machine	255
	Data	256
	List	256
	Record	261
14.	Coercions	264
	Implicit Coercion	264
	Explicit Coercion	265
	Boolean Coercions	267
	String, Number and Date Coercions	268
	File Coercions	268
	List Coercions	269
	Unit Conversions	270
15.	Operators	272
	Arithmetic Operators	272
	Boolean Operators	274
	Comparison Operators	275
	Containment Operators	277
	Concatenation Operator	279
	Parentheses	281
	Who Performs an Operation	282
16.	Global Properties	285
	Strings	286
	Numbers	287
	Miscellaneous	288
17.	Constants	289
18.	Commands	292
	Application Commands	292
	Logging Commands	293
Part III.	AppleScript In Action
19.	Dictionaries	297
	Resolution of Terminology	298
	Resolution Difficulties	301
	What's in a Dictionary	309
	The 'aeut' Resource	320
	Inadequacies of the Dictionary	321
20.	Scripting Additions	332
	Pros and Cons of Scripting Additions	332
	Scripting Additions and Speed	333
	Classic Scripting Additions	334
	Loading Scripting Additions	335
	Standard Scripting Addition Commands	336
21.	Scriptable Applications	349
	Targeting Scriptable Applications	349
	Some Scriptable Applications	353
22.	Unscriptable Applications	356
	Getting Started with Accessibility	357
	GUI Scripting Examples	358
23.	Unix	362
	Do Shell Script	362
	Osascript	365
24.	Writing Applications	370
	Applets	370
	Digital Hub Scripting	377
	Folder Actions	377
	CGI Application	379
	AppleScript Studio	382
Part IV.	Appendixes
A.	The 'aeut' Resource	405
B.	Tools and Resources	424
	Index	431

Editorial Reviews

Slashdot.org
I would recommend it to all Macintosh owners as the perfect way to unleash another powerful aspect of your system. For people who have no AppleScript or programming experience who want to be totally spoon fed this book is probably only a 5, for people with a little AppleScript experience, a fair amount of programming experience and a willingness to stick through to the end this book is probably a 9. It is certainly the best book on AppleScript I have seen.