AppleScript: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition

Combining Specialties

Different applications are good at different things. Most users don't perform all tasks in a single application. For example, in a word processor, you wouldn't expect to perform extensive editing of pictures: a document might include pictures, but you'd create and edit them in some other program, and then incorporate them into the word processing document. That's how it should be, and that's how users typically like it, especially on Mac OS X where (in contrast to previous systems) there is no significant penalty to running several applications at the same time. "Swiss Army knife" programs that try to be all things to all users generally seem bloated with unnecessary features (such as Microsoft Word, with its Photoshop-like "graphics enhancement" features).

When it comes to assisting applications to combine their separate specialties, AppleScript really shines. Thanks to AppleScript, data can be moved back and forth between applications so that each can operate upon it in the appropriate manner. The result is a workflow in which multiple applications are coordinated, often without the intervention or even the awareness of the user.

Take, for example, SpamSieve . This superb application uses Bayesian algorithms to distinguish between spam and nonspam email messages with astonishing accuracy—far better than those email client programs, such as Entourage and Apple Mail, that include spam filtering of their own. But SpamSieve is not itself an email client. So in ...