November 2003
Beginner to intermediate
480 pages
15h 3m
English
Content preview from AppleScript: The Definitive GuideBecome an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
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Scripting Addition
A scripting addition is a code library, loaded by the AppleScript scripting component instance, that implements vocabulary extending the AppleScript language. Behind the scenes, communication with a scripting addition uses Apple events, just as does communication with a scriptable application. The difference, from the AppleScript programmer’s point of view, is a linguistic one: the scripting addition’s vocabulary is available to scripts compiled and run on that machine with no need to target any particular application. In other words, the extended vocabulary implemented by a scripting addition appears to the programmer to be built into AppleScript itself.
Scripting additions are typically written in a compiled lower-level language such as C. Their purpose is usually to bring to AppleScript some functionality that can be implemented in this lower-level language (possibly by calling into the Macintosh Toolbox) but is otherwise missing from AppleScript itself.
Tip
A scripting
addition on Mac OS 9 is a resource file of type
'osax‘. On Mac OS X it can also be a bundle with
extension .osax. A scripting addition is often
referred to as an
osax (plural osaxen).
On Mac OS 9, osaxen live in the System Folder, in its Scripting
Additions subfolder. On Mac OS X the supplied osaxen live in
/System/Library/ScriptingAdditions; the user may
add osaxen to /Library/ScriptingAdditions or to
~/Library/ScriptingAdditions, according to the
domain of their desired availability.
AppleScript ...
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I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
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I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.