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Yes it is written in a very simplistic not so obvious mannor. when you look at java code you need a book to understand what the code's keywords do, not so in applescript and that's what makes if funky really.  ironic really...

mahakali wrote:

AS is meant for ends users, always been, afaic.

Remember we're talking about a user base that can only handle one button mice here. The majority of apple users I've dealt with abhor any sort of text based interface and need to be coddled by gui. The principle of a users programming language seems like an oxymoron to me...

Last edited by assassin_bill (2005-04-14 9:48 am)

Smurfing filters are even messing up citations...

Them too.... (if not more so)

Last edited by assassin_bill (2005-04-14 11:29 am)

What was always cool about AS was the way you could simply record a series of tasks then save as a small application that you could run with one click.
One very simple use I had for this was to launch groups of applications I used together depending one what I was doing.
Working of graphics? Click on the script I made to launch Photoshop, Image ready and Graphic Converter and launch all 3 at once. Or working on my web site? opening Dreamweaver, PhotositeTimeSavior and transmit.
I have a AS application that with drag and drop strips resource forks from image files and another that automates posting binaries with my newsreader.
Prior to Photoshop using actions one used Applescript to do the same thing and while I have never done this myself I understand quark can be extensively scripted.
Apple script can be quite sophisticated or very simple depending on what you want to do with it.

I used to do so much insanely great stuff with Applescript in Mac OS 7 through 9. Fortunately Mac OS X just does all the stuff I did with it anyways, so I don't miss it anymore.

He's trolling and/or being a jerk and he should cut it out because he was banned for it once already.

,xtG
.tsooJ

I'm sorry for having an opinion.

*assassin visualizes a hammer and tries to become the tool...

Since I'm obviously not wanted, could you delete my user account on the way out? I don't like having information in unused databases...

AppleScript is cool, but a bit unwieldy, despite the power it contains.  Automator is going to be a great addition, and I hope some of Apple's included Automator tasks inspire me to figure out creative ways to use it.  Maybe I can use it to make posts here, since posting here is the most repetitive, tedious thing I use my computer for.

Dude, I want to be a tool.

I saw a very interesting post from an Apple developer on Slashdot about Automator. Looks like it's more than an AppleScript UI...

As Seen on TV, in Slashdot wrote:

Automator is really just a nice UI for AppleScript

No, it's not. I'm not sure where this rumor got started. Maybe somebody misunderstood it during the demo.

Automator is the modern equivalent of the venerable UNIX command line. You know what makes the command line cool? Pipelines and loops. You can route the output from one command-line tool to the input of another and create pipelines, and you can loop those pipelines over input. You can type, for example,

for i in *.jpg;
do sips "$i" --resampleHeightWidthMax 300 --setProperty format tiff
done

(The sips command is the Mac's command-line image processing utility. Other platforms have their equivalents.)

What Automator does it it lets you create the equivalent of UNIX command lines without having to learn a command-line language and without being locked into just what the command-line gives you. In place of UNIX tools like "find" and "sips," you use Automator actions. Instead of building command lines, you build workflows.

For instance, to implement the same basic operation as an Automator workflow, I'd start by dragging the "Get Selected Finder Items" action to the workflow pane, then follow it with a "Scale Images" action, then a "Change Type of Images" action.

Then I can save my workflow as a Finder plug-in, which means it's available from the Action menu in any Finder window. I can select any file (or group of files), choose the workflow from the Automator sub-menu of the Action menu, and off we go.

That's a ridiculously simple example, sure, but in a work environment it can be amazingly useful. For example, say your job is to post news stories and accompanying photographs on the Web. Each photograph has to be scaled and converted from CMYK to RGB, applying the correct ColorSync profile in the process and embedding IPTC copyright metadata. You could do that today with a program like Photoshop using scripting, or you can do it with Automator in much less time and with a much higher degree of desktop integration. Just click an image and run the "Make ready for Web" workflow. Easy.

Automator actions can be either compiled AppleScripts or Objective-C code fragments (strongly recommended). Into any workflow you can insert a "Run AppleScript" action if you absolutely have to call AppleScript; you can even insert a "Run Shell Script" action if you absolutely have to call a shell script. But the actions themselves are little tiny code fragments written in Objective-C that implement runWithInput:fromAction:error.

Think of a UNIX command-line tool that accepts standard input and sends standard output and standard error and you'll have the idea. An Automator action is basically a command-line tool without the nasty command-line interface.

Will most people use Automator? Frankly, probably not. But most people don't create command-line pipelines and scripts either, even the ones who know how. But for those who want to, Automator is there.

Frankly, I never thought I would like it. It just didn't interest me. But then one day I had to do a tedious repetitive task, and ever since I've been a big-time Automator junkie.

Last edited by Gary Patterson (2005-04-15 8:24 pm)