AppleScript: The Missing Manual

Introduction

AppleScript is a powerful computer language that’s been around since the days of Mac OS 7. Despite its maturity, however, AppleScript is often looked down upon by snooty Mac programmers for being too simple, too easy to learn, and too much like English.

Of course, those are precisely the traits you want in a computer language. If you’re an everyday Mac user—not some fancy-schmancy computer science Ph.D.—AppleScript is by far the easiest language to use for automating your Mac.

AppleScript has been around long enough to become a stable, powerful, and—most importantly—nearly bug-free language. It grew out of the old HyperCard project (Appendix B), whose goal was to make programming accessible to regular computer users. HyperCard was a big success, but Apple stopped making new versions after a few years.

Meanwhile, Apple took much of what it learned from HyperCard and applied it to its new techno-baby: AppleScript. Since its creation, AppleScript has been the heir to HyperCard’s dream of a simple, powerful language that non-programmers can use. Despite nine major revisions and countless minor ones, AppleScript’s approach today is much the same as it was 10 years ago—and that’s a good thing.

Uses for AppleScript

Of course, what really matters is what you can do with AppleScript. The answer? Just about anything you can do yourself.

AppleScript is a language with which you create individual scripts—little software robots that send commands to different programs on your computer. ...