December 2003
Beginner to intermediate
776 pages
45h 2m
English
Content preview from Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Panther EditionBecome 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,
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.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.I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.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.
Chapter 7. AppleScript
You can think of AppleScript programs (called scripts) as software robots. A simple AppleScript might perform some daily task for you: backing up your Documents folder, for example.
A more complex script can be pages long. In professional printing and publishing, where AppleScript enjoys its greatest popularity, a script might connect to a photographer’s hard drive elsewhere on the Internet, download a photo from a predetermined folder, color-correct it in Photoshop, import it into a specified page-layout document, print a proof copy, and send a notification email to the editor—automatically.
Even if you’re not aware of it, you use technology that underlies AppleScript all the time. Behind the scenes, numerous components of your Mac communicate with each other by sending Apple Events, which are messages bearing instructions or data that your programs send to each other. When you use the Show Original command for an alias, or the Get Info command for a file or folder, an Apple Event tells the Finder how to respond. Some of the files in the Speakable Items folder (Section 14.4.2.4), furthermore, are AppleScripts that quit your programs, open AppleWorks, switch a window into list view, and so on.
AppleScript veterans will find a lot of enhancements in Mac OS X 10.3—and there’s a nice surprise for first-timers, too.
Running Ready-Made AppleScripts
You don’t have to create AppleScripts to get mileage out of this technology. Mac OS X comes with several dozen prewritten ...
Become 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,
and much more.
Read now
Unlock full access
More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.Julian F.
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.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
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.