Re: Newbie ponders how to learn AppleScript
Re: Newbie ponders how to learn AppleScript
- Subject: Re: Newbie ponders how to learn AppleScript
- From: Chris Kelly <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 17:30:13 +1100
On 2/13/01 1:36 PM, "Dale Saukerson" <email@hidden> wrote:
<SNIP>
A sample of my confusion:
1-How do I *know* I can get the color depth? (I already have a simple
working example).
2-There is no reference to color depth in either the language guide,
the finder guide, nor in the finder dictionary. In other words, I
know it is possible, but shouldn't some sort of reference or hint or
keyword or clue for this be in located in some of these official
sources?
</SNIP>
Hi Dale ,
Just a couple of quick comments on your email .
One thing that people new to AppleScript think is that the finder is ALL
POWERFUL [Since it features fairly prominently in most beginners expamples]
while it is pretty cool it does not have all of the answers you seek .
You can learn a lot by opening the dictionary of the scripting additions
folder which is in your system folder , and this is where you will find the
Monitor Depth Scripting Addition and it's associated Dictionary. This leads
to my next point of where to look for what you can do , mainly you can check
the Finder or Sripting Additions or the APP that you want to script .
Don't forget that scriptable control panels have their own dictionary as
well .
So for you example ,
You might have written
Tell app "Finder"
Get max color depth
End tell
You could simply write
Get max color depth -- if you run this in script editor it returns the same
as the script above .
Another thing you might want to do is get Smile which is free and an
excellent AS editor , though it may not have as good a selection of
debugging features as some of the commercial AS Editing Programs but it is
still an excellent program to use . I think you can get it from
http://www.tandb.com.au
Regarding books , the AS Dummy book I found alright ,but the this list is
where you can find some real gems.