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AppleScript: The Missing Manual

By Adam Goldstein
First Edition  January 2005 
Pages: 350
Series: The Missing Manuals
ISBN 10: 0-596-00850-3 | ISBN 13: 9780596008505
(Average of 3 Customer Reviews)

Book description

AppleScript: The Missing Manual is every beginner's guide to learning the Macintosh's ultimate scripting tool: AppleScript. Through dozens of hands-on scripting examples, this comprehensive guide ensures that anyone including novices can learn how to control Mac applications in timesaving and innovative ways. Thanks to AppleScript: The Missing Manual, the path from regular Mac fan to seasoned scripter has never been easier.
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Cover | Table of Contents | Colophon

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Featured customer reviews

Great starter book,  May 30 2006
Submitted by Nitewing98   [Respond | View]

I just finished this book and found it very helpful. I'm an old Applescripter (since mid-90's) and have written on AppleScript for websites off and on. That said, I even learned a few things from Adam Goldstein's book.

Well done!


More of a MISS than a HIT,  May 02 2006
Submitted by Len Zigante   [Respond | View]

I admit... I once was a programmer (albeit 20+ years ago) so my expectations for this manual were higher.

I originally started looking on the web for an applescript book a week ago and came across several unfavorable reviews for this book. However when I went to my bookstore they only had this and one other title in stock so I decided to look into them. After spending an hour scanning through both books, I thought this to be the superior manual based on its TOC, general appearance, and how the information and examples contained within were presented. Let me tell you that appearances are deceiving.

Contrary to what I originally thought, I found this book to be of minimal educational value. I just spent 8 hours a day for the last 5 days reading through this manual and trying its examples and am now on page 281 of it's 311 pages. At best I can say that I have a better understanding of what applescript can do but my ability to program anything worthwhile is going to require something much more meaty.

Sure this book has shown me how to make some dinky scripts to handle tasks I will never or rarely use. However it has barely taught me a thing about how to actually use applescript in a constructive way to produce scripts of real value. I have attempted several times now to understand & construct small scripts using previously unused dictionary functions for various applications and find myself frequently lost and confused. Referring back to this manual gives me little help in understanding how to construct and use the classes and commands correctly.

Furthermore, the information presented in this manual is meant to be read sequentially. Examples of previously unused commands are often presented in example scripts dealing with another topic. If you need to refer to examples of such commands later on you'll have to remember where you saw them. Another thing I found lacking was the absence of "tests" to challenge your understanding of the topic at hand.

On the other hand, this book is fairly easy to read and somewhat entertaining. I admit that some of it's scripts will be useful and it has given me an understanding of what applescript is capable of. Unfortunately I am going to have to purchase a more informative manual if I hope to have any ability at construct decent scripts to handle multiple applications.

I regret to say that overall I found this manual to be sorely lacking.


Another Missing Manual Hit!,  February 09 2005
Submitted by Mary Norbury-Glaser   [Respond | View]

For amazon:

AppleScript: The Missing Manual by Adam Goldstein is part of the Missing Manual series of beginner/intermediate books published by Pogue Press/O'Reilly and Associates. The focus of this book series is on computer products that have been released without adequate printed manuals (Mac OS X, iLife '04, Google, iPod and iTunes, Windows XP, Windows 2K among others). Their newest release, AppleScript: The Missing Manual, is a welcome addition to their catalog of smart, funny and user-friendly books.
AppleScript is a scripting language that mimics the syntax of English. As such, it's extremely similar to how sentences are structured and, as a result, is very intuitive and simple to use. However, this doesn't belie the fact that it's a very powerful tool for automation.
Goldstein's Missing Manual is an exciting newcomer to the meager collection of AppleScript introductory volumes. This book covers the current Mac OS 10.3 (Panther) release of AppleScript and includes multimedia support, GUI scripting and AppleScript Studio. While it is intended for the beginner and intermediate user, power-hounds will also find many tricks, tips and hidden tools within its pages.
The book is divided into four parts: "AppleScript Overview", "Everyday Scripting Tasks", "Power-User Features" and "Appendixes".
Part One begins with the usual suspects: where to find the AppleScript folder in Mac OS X, how to enable the script menu and the surprising number of useful scripts you'll find there. In just a few pages, Goldstein hands the reader a collection of valuable scripts that were hiding in OS X Panther all along (I particularly like the "ransom note" script).
Part Two is the main core of the book and covers "Everyday Scripting Tasks". The seven chapters in this section run the gamut of increasing difficulty: manipulating text, controlling files, creating lists, organizing and editing graphics, playing sound and video, internet and network scripting and organizing information in databases. The author quickly takes the reader through a series of simple scripts designed to illustrate AppleScript syntax.
Once the reader whips through the example scripts in Parts One and Two, it's time to get down and geeky. Part Three titled "Power-User Features", is the section of the book for geeks and wanna-be geeks. Goldstein shoves enough advanced techniques in five chapters to make these alone worth the price of the book. The reader learns how to enable folder actions, attach built-in folder actions to specific folders, view and edit these built-in folder actions and run his or her own actions.
My favorite chapter in this section is Chapter 13, Mixing AppleScript and Unix. Goldstein gives a quick terminal lesson followed by a neat trick to display the Expose button ("the blob"). Other helpful actions: use do shell script to run Unix programs straight from AppleScript, run shell scripts with admin privileges, run AppleScripts from Unix thus saving time by bypassing the Script Editor and schedule commands (use an AppleScript to run cron every day, use iCal to schedule scripts). Even users who normally shy away from the terminal will want to try some of these.
Part Four contains the Appendix A through C: "AppleScript Support in Common Programs" (a very useful set of tables of applications, their level of AppleScript support, price and where to get them), "Moving from Hypercard to AppleScript" (options and advice for converting Hypercard stacks to AppleScript and major syntax differences between HyperTalk and AppleScript) and "Where to Go from Here" (AppleScript sources: Web sites, discussion lists and books).
Goldstein's style of writing is exceptionally clear with just a dash of humor that humanizes the experience of reading a technical or "how-to" manual. The reader won't find anything confusing, lacking in detail or dull. This book is eminently satisfying on many levels: the writing style is conversational and humorous (I would imagine this is a pre-requisite for writing for David Pogue), the style of this book series is consistently pleasant to read and the level of technical difficulty satisfies the range of readers from beginner through power-user. The "valuable information:price" ration is, hands-down, in the buyer's favor.
A final note about Adam Goldstein, the author of Applescript: The Missing Manual...he is the teenage founder of GoldfishSoft (www.goldfishsoft.com), a Mac OS X games and utilities software company (my 7 year-old son loves AlgeKalk and FrakKalk, geek that he is). By "teenage", I mean Adam Golstein is 17-ish. He began contributing to this Pogue/O'Reilly series several years ago by writing a few sections of Mac OS X Panther Edition: The Missing Manual (FileVault, journaling and Disk Restore). I suspect we'll be hearing a lot more from Mr. Goldstein...and I'm looking forward to it.

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Media reviews
"One of the beauties of the Missing Manuals is that there is always something new to discover and the research is quite thorough...I kept finding snippets of information, in the way of Tips or Notes, that would give just that bit extra."
-- Graham K. Rogers, Bangkok Post


"There are a lot of good books, but I keep returning to the Missing Manual series because they are inexpensive, easy to read and full of cool tricks and tips."
-- Bob Brooks, The South Bay Apple Mac User Group


"I have never seen a manual for any program, hardware or OS which is anywhere close to this series in its helpfulness to the reader. Anyone other than the well trained techs can find this book valuable."
-- Ray Bowler, Vice President, Des Moines Macintosh User's Group

"Goldstein's new book is a great way to introduce yourself to AppleScript, and it also serves as a good quick reference."
--"Mac Addict," May 2005

"AppleScript: The Missing Manual by Adam Goldstein is an excellent 'How-To' kind of book that filled with humour, yet is also packed with great instructions for implementing AppleScript in new and interesting ways.  If you feel that AppleScript is difficult, think again. This book takes the fear out of using the real power that is behind Apple’s Operating Systems."
--Robert Pritchett, MacCompanion.com, April 2005

"Pogue Press along with O'Reilly in their Missing Manual series and a very bright high school debutant author named Adam Goldstein have put together what I consider to be the best book on AppleScript currently marketed. Thorough, modern and light reading. Adam Goldstein the wonderkid scripter that runs his own website has done us old time and newbie scripters alike a favor filling a much needed gap Apple left in their AS manuals...Some of the most enjoyable things I can mention about this book are...The consistent layout of the text, it is simply a joy to read and hold in my hands...Another thing that impressed me was Goldstein's breadth of knowledge covering bridge technologies, going from AS to JScript, or RealBASIC to AS, or even JS to AS."
--Todd Nathan, OSNews.com, February 2005

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"One of the beauties of the Missing Manuals is that there is always something new to discover and the research is quite thorough...I kept finding snippets of information, in the way of Tips or Notes, that would give just that bit extra."
--Graham K. Rogers, Bangkok Post