Apple® Automator with AppleScript® Bible

Chapter 6. AppleScript Objects and Dictionaries

IN THIS CHAPTER

• What are objects?

• What are dictionaries?

• How to use dictionaries

• A quick tour of dictionaries

• Looking up an AppleScript

In Chapter 5, you learned the basics of the AppleScript environment — AppleScript Editor, the Script menu, and other basics of the tools involved. If it seemed like a lot to take in at first, don't worry; by the time you're done with this Bible, it'll all be second nature to you.

In this chapter, you're going to learn some extremely high-level concepts related to AppleScript. Specifically, you're going to learn about objects and dictionaries. Although this information won't seem that useful to you right now, after you've been working with AppleScript for a while, you'll realize that everything comes back to two things: objects and dictionaries.

So, it's time to begin. First, I'll get into objects.

What Are Objects?

Everything in AppleScript is an object Period, end of story, move on to the next thing. Check, please!

Wait, too fast? Okay, I'll explain. First, let me quote from the AppleScript Language Guide, available at developer.apple.com/documentation/applescript:AppleScript is an object-oriented language. When you write, compile, and execute scripts, everything you work with is an object. An object is an instantiation of a class definition, which can include properties and actions. AppleScript defines classes for the objects you most commonly work with, starting with the top-level script object, which is the ...