AppleScript: The Definitive Guide

Script Text File

The Script Editor offers the option to save a script as text (or “script text,” depending what version of the Script Editor you’re using). A script text file is simply a text file, such as can be opened by any word processor. No bytecode is saved into the file. (But the Script Editor does also try to compile the script even when you save it as text, which seems unnecessary.)

Tip

A script text file consists of ordinary text in the default system encoding (usually MacRoman). It has file extension .applescript on Mac OS X and is of type 'TEXT' on Mac OS 9 and earlier. The Script Editor saves such a file with both features, and it can be opened on both platforms.

A script text file can be opened with a dedicated editor such as the Script Editor. The situation is then exactly as if you had just typed the code into the Script Editor: if the code is valid and all external referents can be found, the code can be compiled and run.

A script text file cannot generally be run from a script runner application, such as the Script Menu, because the script is not compiled and the application is not prepared to do the compilation for you.

Since a compiled script file can be decompiled and edited further, as well as executed directly, what’s the good of a script text file? Apple’s documentation implies that it isn’t much good, and calls it a “last resort” format; Apple’s advice would seem to be that a compiled script file is the standard and most readily usable and communicable format, ...