Mac OS® X Tiger™ Unleashed

Creating Advanced Automation with AppleScript

Although Automator is a great tool for stringing together prebuilt actions to create an automated workflow, it is neither the first nor the only means of automating actions on your Macintosh. AppleScript, originally introduced in the early '90s, provides much greater control over your entire system.

AppleScript is intended to provide a means for Macintosh users to develop complex scripts with the ability to evaluate conditions and branch, if needed. The syntax is surprisingly simple and can be understood even if you've never seen a programming language before. For example, consider the following code:

tell application "Finder"
    activate
    close window "Applications"
end tell

It doesn't look like a ...