AppleScript: The Definitive Guide
Scripting and Automating Your Mac
2nd Edition
Will be published approx. on 7. February 2006
Book
590 pages
978-0-596-10211-1 (ISBN)
Description
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.
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01/2006
1st Edition
O'Reilly
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01/2006
1st Edition
O'Reilly
€27.99
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Previous edition
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12/2003
1st Edition
O'Reilly
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Person
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..
Content
Preface;
The Scope of This Book;
Versions;
How This Book Is Organized;
Conventions Used in This Book;
How to Contact Us;
Safari® Enabled;
Acknowledgments (First Edition);
Acknowledgments (Second Edition);
Part I: AppleScript Overview;
Chapter 1: Why to Use AppleScript;
1.1 The Nature and Purpose of AppleScript;
1.2 Is This Application Scriptable?;
1.3 Calculation and Repetition;
1.4 Reduction;
1.5 Customization;
1.6 Combining Specialties;
Chapter 2: Where to Use AppleScript;
2.1 Script Editor;
2.2 Internally Scriptable Application;
2.3 Script Runner;
2.4 Automatic Location;
2.5 Application;
2.6 Unix;
2.7 Hyperlinks;
2.8 AutomatorworkflowAutomator Automator AppleScriptplaces for usingAutomator;
Chapter 3: Basic Concepts;
3.1 Apple Events;
3.2 The Open Scripting Architecture;
3.3 Script;
3.4 Compiling and Decompiling;
3.5 Compiled Script Files;
3.6 Script Text File;
3.7 Applet and Droplet;
3.8 Scripting Addition;
3.9 Dictionary;
3.10 Missing External Referents;
3.11 Modes of Scriptability;
Part II: The AppleScript Language;
Chapter 4: Introducing the Language;
4.1 A Little Language;
4.2 Extensibility and Its Perils;
4.3 The "English-likeness" Monster;
4.4 Object-likeness;
4.5 LISP-likeness;
4.6 The Learning Curve;
Chapter 5: Syntactic Ground of Being;
5.1 Lines;
5.2 Result;
5.3 Comments;
5.4 Abbreviations and Synonyms;
5.5 Blocks;
5.6 The;
Chapter 6: A Map of the World;
6.1 Scope Blocks;
6.2 Levels and Nesting;
6.3 The Top Level;
6.4 Code and the Run Handler;
6.5 Variables;
Chapter 7: Variables;
7.2 Assignment and Retrieval;
7.3 Declaration and Definition of Variables;
7.4 Variable Names;
Chapter 8: Script Objects;
8.1 Script Object Definition;
8.2 Run Handler;
8.3 Script Properties;
8.4 Script Objects as Values;
8.5 Top-Level Entities;
8.6 Compiled Script Files as Script Objects;
8.7 Inheritance;
Chapter 9: Handlers;
9.1 Handler Definition;
9.2 Returned Value;
9.3 Handlers as Values;
9.4 Parameters;
9.5 Pass by Reference;
9.6 Syntax of Defining and Calling a Handler;
9.7 Event Handlers;
9.8 The Run Handler;
9.9 Recursion;
9.10 Power Handler Tricks;
Chapter 10: Scope;
10.1 Regions of Scope;
10.2 Kinds of Variable;
10.3 Scope of Top-Level Entities;
10.4 Scope of Locals;
10.5 Scope of Globals;
10.6 Scope of Undeclared Variables;
10.7 Declare Your Variables;
10.8 Free Variables;
10.9 Redeclaration of Variables;
10.10 Closures;
Chapter 11: Objects;
11.1 Messages;
11.2 Attributes;
11.3 Class;
11.4 Target;
11.5 Get;
11.6 It;
11.7 Me;
11.8 Properties and Elements;
11.9 Element Specifiers;
11.10 Operations on Multiple References;
11.11 Assignment of Multiple Attributes;
11.12 Object String Specifier;
Chapter 12: References;
12.1 Reference as Target;
12.2 Reference as Incantation;
12.3 Creating a Reference;
12.4 Identifying References;
12.5 Dereferencing a Reference;
12.6 Trouble with Contents;
12.7 Creating References to Variables;
12.8 Reference as Parameter;
Chapter 13: Datatypes;
13.1 Application;
13.2 Machine;
13.3 Data;
13.4 Boolean;
13.5 Integer, Real, and Number;
13.6 Date;
13.7 String;
13.8 Unicode Text;
13.9 File and Alias;
13.10 List;
13.11 Record;
Chapter 14: Coercions;
14.1 Implicit Coercion;
14.2 Explicit Coercion;
14.3 Boolean Coercions;
14.4 Number, String, and Date Coercions;
14.5 File Coercions;
14.6 List Coercions;
14.7 Unit Conversions;
Chapter 15: Operators;
15.1 Implicit Coercion;
15.2 Arithmetic Operators;
15.3 Boolean Operators;
15.4 Comparison Operators;
15.5 Containment Operators;
15.6 Concatenation Operator;
15.7 Parentheses;
15.8 Who Performs an Operation;
Chapter 16: Global Properties;
16.1 Strings;
16.2 Numbers;
16.3 Miscellaneous;
Chapter 17: Constants;
Chapter 18: Commands;
18.1 Application Commands;
18.2 Standard Commands;
18.3 Logging Commands;
Chapter 19: Control;
19.1 Branching;
19.2 Looping;
19.3 Tell;
19.4 Using Terms From;
19.5 With;
19.6 Considering/Ignoring;
19.7 Errors;
19.8 Second-Level Evaluation;
Part III: AppleScript In Action;
Chapter 20: Dictionaries;
20.1 Resolution of Terminology;
20.2 Terminology Clash;
20.3 Nonsensical Apple Events;
20.4 Raw Four-Letter Codes;
20.5 Multiple-Word Terms;
20.6 What's in a Dictionary;
20.7 The 'aeutaeut ' Resource;
20.8 Inadequacies of the Dictionary;
Chapter 21: Scripting Additions;
21.1 Pros and Cons of Scripting Additions;
21.2 Classic Scripting Additions;
21.3 Loading Scripting Additions;
21.4 Standard Scripting Addition Commands;
Chapter 22: Speed;
22.1 Tools of the Trade;
22.2 Apple Events;
22.3 List Access;
22.4 Scripting Additions;
22.5 Context;
Chapter 23: Scriptable Applications;
23.1 Targeting Scriptable Applications;
23.2 Some Scriptable Applications;
Chapter 24: Unscriptable Applications;
24.1 Historical Perspective;
24.2 Getting Started with Accessibility;
24.3 GUI Scripting Examples;
Chapter 25: Unix;
25.1 Do Shell Script;
25.2 Osascript;
Chapter 26: Triggering Scripts Automatically;
26.1 Digital Hub Scripting;
26.2 Folder Actions;
26.3 CGI Application;
26.4 Timers, Hooks, Attachability, Observability;
Chapter 27: Writing Applications;
27.1 Applets;
27.2 AppleScript Studio;
27.3 Cocoa Scripting;
27.4 AppleScript Studio Scriptability;
Part IV: Appendixes;
Appendix A: The AppleScript Experience;
A.1 The Problem;
A.2 A Day in the Life;
A.3 Conclusions, Lessons, and Advice;
Appendix B: Apple Events Without AppleScript;
B.1 Pure Raw Apple Events;
B.2 JavaScript;
B.3 UserTalk;
B.4 Perl;
B.5 Python;
Appendix C: Tools and Resources;
C.1 Scripting Software and Tools;
C.2 Scriptable Software;
C.3 AppleScript Documentation;
C.4 Writing a Scripting Addition;
C.5 Writing a Scriptable Application;
C.6 Portals, Instruction, and Repositories;
C.7 Mailing Lists;
C.8 Books;
C.9 Unix Scripting;
Colophon;