Re: Application Script
Re: Application Script
- Subject: Re: Application Script
- From: "David B. Gustavson" <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2001 16:34:50 -0700
At 8:43 AM +1000 7/31/01, Matthew Smith wrote:
You seem to misunderstand what AppleScript is. A lot of people do. It does
not mimic your key and mouse strokes. You can choose things from menus and
click on buttons. I believe something like QuickKeys can do that.
AppleScript actually speaks to the application directly. It does this by
using a dictionary supplied by the application in order to work out how to
tell it what to do. You can find an application's dictionary by opening the
script editor, choose "Open Dictionary" from the file menu. Then navigate to
the applications folder. If the application is scriptable you will then see
the application in the file list. You can then select it to see a list of
commands and objects you can use with the application.
However, you can also script applications that don't provide an
adequate intentional scripting interface, by using something like
Prefab Player (www.prefab.com), which can mimic mouse moves and
clicks and keystrokes. Such tricks used to be the only way to script
print dialogues, for example. (Maybe still are, for all I know--have
print dialogues become script-controllable yet, anyone?)