Re: Most Scriptable Apps (was: Can a script receive AppleEvents?)
Re: Most Scriptable Apps (was: Can a script receive AppleEvents?)
- Subject: Re: Most Scriptable Apps (was: Can a script receive AppleEvents?)
- From: email@hidden (Cal)
- Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2000 23:13:00 -0500
Peter Fine <email@hidden> wrote:
>
It happens to be a freeware IDE for AppleScript, but it's the most
>
scriptable app on the planet because you can attach scripts that respond to
>
Apple events to its menus and objects. The second most-scriptable app is
>
BBEdit 6, which is a great text editor (especially if you write HTML) but is
>
not free.
Permit me to provide a little clarity. Just because an application allows
you to attach scripts doesn't mean it's more scriptable. They are
basically separate aspects of AppleScript support. The most scriptable
application, whatever it is, isn't scriptable _because_ it's
attachable...in fact, it may not support attachability at all. There are a
number of applications that provide a great deal of functionality in
scripting (and have larger dictionaries) but aren't attachable.
Conversely, plenty of applications allow attaching scripts, but aren't
scriptable worth beans.
Smile is scriptable...and allows you to attach scripts. But it's not more
scriptable than anything else simply because it allows you to attach
scripts. And BBEdit might receive high marks for completeness, but may win
or lose quite a few points depending on how well it supports an object
model.
For a clear description of the independence (and interdependence) of
scripting features, and other qualitative contributing factors in
determining how scriptable something is, a good read is "The AppleScript
Scorecard Guidelines":
http://www.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.14/14.02/AppleScriptScorecard/in
dex.html
And let me add that, even if an application gets the highest marks using
the Scorecard system doesn't make it the most scriptable thing around. You
could say that Scriptable Text Editor was the most scriptable applications
around for years, because _everything_ in the application is supported in
scripting. I say this to demonstrate that the phrases "most scriptable"
and "more scriptable" have no real significance.
Respectfully,
Cal