AppleScript: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition

Preface

If you use a Macintosh, there's something amazing lurking under the hood of your computer, and something even more amazing on the surface. Under the hood, there's a system-level mechanism for applications to communicate with one another, order each other about, get information from each other, and generally collaborate to avail themselves of each other's strengths and abilities. On the surface, there's AppleScript, which puts the power of this mechanism into the hands of ordinary users, letting them program the computer for themselves by writing and executing code in the AppleScript language, as a way of automating the behavior of applications, reducing many steps to one, throwing the burden of repetition and calculation onto the computer, and combining the powers of multiple applications into a seamless united workflow. AppleScript can be used to construct a simple brief automation or a massive complex chain of events. It's a brilliant labor-saving device—and saving labor is what computers are all about.

AppleScript is one of the greatest innovations of Mac OS, one of its most notable distinguishing features—and one of its most practical. Users from lone amateurs to mighty corporations have come to depend on it. Yet AppleScript was long treated by Apple itself as something of an unwanted, troublesome stepchild, and has even (according to apocryphal legend) at times come perilously near to being tossed onto the scrapheap. With the rise of Mac OS X, however, AppleScript has ...