AppleScript: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition View Larger Image | Matt Neuburg
O'Reilly Media, Paperback, 2nd edition, Published January 2006, 560 pages, ISBN 0596102119 | List Price: $39.99
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Mac users everywhere--even those who know nothing about programming--are discovering
the value of the latest version of AppleScript, Apple's vastly improved scripting
language for Mac OS X Tiger. And with this new edition of the top-selling AppleScript:
The Definitive Guide, anyone, regardless of your level of experience, can
learn to use AppleScript to make your Mac time more efficient and more enjoyable
by automating repetitive tasks, customizing applications, and even controlling
complex workflows.
Fully revised and updated--and with more and better examples than ever--AppleScript:
The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition explores AppleScript 1.10 from the ground
up. You will learn how AppleScript works and how to use it in a variety of contexts:
in everyday scripts to process automation, in CGI scripts for developing applications
in Cocoa, or in combination with other scripting languages like Perl and Ruby.
AppleScript has shipped with every Mac since System 7 in 1991, and its ease
of use and English-friendly dialect are highly appealing to most Mac fans. Novices,
developers, and everyone in between who wants to know how, where, and why to
use AppleScript will find AppleScript: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition
to be the most complete source on the subject available. It's as perfect for
beginners who want to write their first script as it is for experienced users
who need a definitive reference close at hand.
AppleScript: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition begins with a relevant
and useful AppleScript overview and then gets quickly to the language itself;
when you have a good handle on that, you get to see AppleScript in action, and
learn how to put it into action for you. An entirely new chapter shows developers
how to make your Mac applications scriptable, and how to give them that Mac
OS X look and feel with AppleScript Studio. Thorough appendixes deliver additional
tools and resources you won't find anywhere else. Reviewed and approved by Apple,
this indispensable guide carries the ADC (Apple Developer Connection) logo.
Table of Contents
Preface
Part I. AppleScript Overview
1. Why to Use AppleScript
The Nature and Purpose of AppleScript
Is This Application Scriptable?
Calculation and Repetition
Reduction
Customization
Combining Specialties
2. Where to Use AppleScript
Script Editor
Internally Scriptable Application
Script Runner
Automatic Location
Application
Unix
Hyperlinks
Automator
3. Basic Concepts
Apple Events
The Open Scripting Architecture
Script
Compiling and Decompiling
Compiled Script Files
Script Text File
Applet and Droplet
Scripting Addition
Dictionary
Missing External Referents
Modes of Scriptability
Part II. The AppleScript Language
4. Introducing the Language
A Little Language
Extensibility and Its Perils
The "English-likeness" Monster
Object-likeness
LISP-likeness
The Learning Curve
5. Syntactic Ground of Being
Lines
Result
Comments
Abbreviations and Synonyms
Blocks
The
6. A Map of the World
Scope Blocks
Levels and Nesting
The Top Level
Code and the Run Handler
Variables
7. Variables
Assignment and Retrieval
Declaration and Definition of Variables
Variable Names
8. Script Objects
Script Object Definition
Run Handler
Script Properties
Script Objects as Values
Top-Level Entities
Compiled Script Files as Script Objects
Inheritance
9. Handlers
Handler Definition
Returned Value
Handlers as Values
Parameters
Pass by Reference
Syntax of Defining and Calling a Handler
Event Handlers
The Run Handler
Recursion
Power Handler Tricks
10. Scope
Regions of Scope
Kinds of Variable
Scope of Top-Level Entities
Scope of Locals
Scope of Globals
Scope of Undeclared Variables
Declare Your Variables
Free Variables
Redeclaration of Variables
Closures
11. Objects
Messages
Attributes
Class
Target
Get
It
Me
Properties and Elements
Element Specifiers
Operations on Multiple References
Assignment of Multiple Attributes
Object String Specifier
12. References
Reference as Target
Reference as Incantation
Creating a Reference
Identifying References
Dereferencing a Reference
Trouble with Contents
Creating References to Variables
Reference as Parameter
13. Datatypes
Application
Machine
Data
Boolean
Integer, Real, and Number
Date
String
Unicode Text
File and Alias
List
Record
14. Coercions
Implicit Coercion
Explicit Coercion
Boolean Coercions
Number, String, and Date Coercions
File Coercions
List Coercions
Unit Conversions
15. Operators
Implicit Coercion
Arithmetic Operators
Boolean Operators
Comparison Operators
Containment Operators
Concatenation Operator
Parentheses
Who Performs an Operation
16. Global Properties
Strings
Numbers
Miscellaneous
17. Constants
18. Commands
Application Commands
Standard Commands
Logging Commands
19. Control
Branching
Looping
Tell
Using Terms From
With
Considering/Ignoring
Errors
Second-Level Evaluation
Part III. AppleScript In Action
20. Dictionaries
Resolution of Terminology
Terminology Clash
Nonsensical Apple Events
Raw Four-Letter Codes
Multiple-Word Terms
What's in a Dictionary
The 'aeut' Resource
Inadequacies of the Dictionary
21. Scripting Additions
Pros and Cons of Scripting Additions
Classic Scripting Additions
Loading Scripting Additions
Standard Scripting Addition Commands
22. Speed
Tools of the Trade
Apple Events
List Access
Scripting Additions
Context
23. Scriptable Applications
Targeting Scriptable Applications
Some Scriptable Applications
24. Unscriptable Applications
Historical Perspective
Getting Started with Accessibility
GUI Scripting Examples
25. Unix
Do Shell Script
Osascript
26. Triggering Scripts Automatically
Digital Hub Scripting
Folder Actions
CGI Application
Timers, Hooks, Attachability, Observability
27. Writing Applications
Applets
AppleScript Studio
Cocoa Scripting
AppleScript Studio Scriptability
Part IV. Appendixes
A. The AppleScript Experience
B. Apple Events Without AppleScript
C. Tools and Resources
Index
About the Author
Matt Neuburg started programming computers in 1968, when he was 14 years
old, as a member of a literally underground high school club, which met once
a week to do time-sharing on a bank of PDP-10s by way of primitive Teletype
machines. He also occasionally used Princeton University's IBM-360/67, but gave
it up in frustration when one day he dropped his punch cards. He majored in
Greek at Swarthmore College and received his Ph.D. from Cornell University in
1981, writing his doctoral dissertation (about Aeschylus) on a mainframe. He
proceeded to teach classical languages, literature, and culture at many well-known
institutions of higher learning, most of which now disavow knowledge of his
existence, and to publish numerous scholarly articles unlikely to interest anyone.
Meanwhile he obtained an Apple IIc and became hopelessly hooked on computers
again, migrating to a Macintosh in 1990. He wrote some educational and utility
freeware, became an early regular contributor to the online journal TidBITS,
and in 1995 left academe to edit MacTech Magazine. In August 1996 he
became a freelancer, which means he has been looking for work ever since.
He is the author of AppleScript: The Definitive Guide REALbasic: The Definitive
Guide and Frontier: The Definitive Guide all from O'Reilly Media, Inc..
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