AppleScript: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition

Chapter 3. Basic Concepts

Previous chapters have been pure introduction. Chapter 1 has shown what AppleScript is good for; Chapter 2 has toured the places on your computer where you can use AppleScript. If you're new to AppleScript, you should now be feeling informed and motivated and ready to begin sinking your teeth into some solid facts. If you already have some familiarity with AppleScript, you may be leafing forward through this book, looking for the serious part to begin. Either way, look no further. This is it. The solid, serious stuff starts here.

This chapter formally defines and describes AppleScript—what it is, why it exists, where it lives, and how it works—along with all the basic terms and concepts connected with it. Subsequent chapters will provide further details about some of what's here, but they all presuppose the basis laid out in this chapter. Whether you think of it as an introduction, a survey, or a glossary, to understand this chapter is to know AppleScript's world.

Apple Events

AppleScript would be pointless without Apple events. Apple events lie at the heart of what AppleScript is, what it does, how it works, and why you're going to use it. From writing more efficient AppleScript code to understanding an application's dictionary, a basic acquaintance with Apple events will help you.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far away—actually it was probably in about 1989, in Cupertino, California—some very smart people were completely redesigning and modernizing the Macintosh ...