Re: Most Scriptable Apps
Re: Most Scriptable Apps
- Subject: Re: Most Scriptable Apps
- From: "Jason W. Bruce" <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2000 10:41:33 -0600
While it is of course true that mere attachability does not make an
application more scriptable per se, I think fans of Smile tout it as the
most scriptable application because an enormous amount of its behavior is
written in AppleScript and is open to inspection, modification, and
extension. In that regard, its power is very much like that of Frontier.
While Smile clearly lacks the polish of other scripting environments, it
offers, for anyone willing to roll up their sleeves and dig in, an
incredible amount of power as well as a first class lesson in progra -- err,
scripting. : )
Jason Bruce.
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Message: 7
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Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2000 23:13:00 -0500
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To: email@hidden
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From: email@hidden (Cal)
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Subject: Re: Most Scriptable Apps (was: Can a script receive
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AppleEvents?)
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Peter Fine <email@hidden> wrote:
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>It happens to be a freeware IDE for AppleScript, but it's the most
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>scriptable app on the planet because you can attach scripts that respond to
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>Apple events to its menus and objects. The second most-scriptable app is
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>BBEdit 6, which is a great text editor (especially if you write HTML) but is
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>not free.
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Permit me to provide a little clarity. Just because an application allows
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you to attach scripts doesn't mean it's more scriptable. They are
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basically separate aspects of AppleScript support. The most scriptable
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application, whatever it is, isn't scriptable _because_ it's
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attachable...in fact, it may not support attachability at all. There are a
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number of applications that provide a great deal of functionality in
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scripting (and have larger dictionaries) but aren't attachable.
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Conversely, plenty of applications allow attaching scripts, but aren't
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scriptable worth beans.
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Smile is scriptable...and allows you to attach scripts. But it's not more
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scriptable than anything else simply because it allows you to attach
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scripts. And BBEdit might receive high marks for completeness, but may win
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or lose quite a few points depending on how well it supports an object
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model.
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For a clear description of the independence (and interdependence) of
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scripting features, and other qualitative contributing factors in
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determining how scriptable something is, a good read is "The AppleScript
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Scorecard Guidelines":
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http://www.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.14/14.02/AppleScriptScorecard/in
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dex.html
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And let me add that, even if an application gets the highest marks using
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the Scorecard system doesn't make it the most scriptable thing around. You
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could say that Scriptable Text Editor was the most scriptable applications
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around for years, because _everything_ in the application is supported in
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scripting. I say this to demonstrate that the phrases "most scriptable"
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and "more scriptable" have no real significance.
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Respectfully,
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Cal