Re: Apple's support for AppleScript
Re: Apple's support for AppleScript
- Subject: Re: Apple's support for AppleScript
- From: "Daniel A. Shockley" <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 09:41:00 -0500
Subject: Re: [rant] Upgrade to 9.2, any advice?
From: David Groover <email@hidden>
To: Applecript Users <email@hidden>
From: "Rice, Gary" <email@hidden>
Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 10:33:40 -0500
Apple is quietly down sizing in my opinion.
Gary
Call it intuition, but, I think that Apple is doing away with
AppleScripting.
My rational?
From the numerous and obviously professional folks who repeatedly post here
about broken versions in the latest AS and Smile versions, it seems obvious
that Apple is not taking AppleScript very seriously.
From the fact that they are actually bragging about AppleScript with
ASppleScript Studio and the new Script menu for OS X, it seems
obvious that Apple IS trying to take AppleScript seriously.
AS, though way cool is also way under utilized. Apple as a company has to
think out of the box of iconoclasticaly cool, and think into the box of,
market share.
Actually, it's used for many things, including installers of many
programs, and lots of interapplication communication built into other
programs. Just because a user doesn't program AppleScript doesn't
mean they don't _use_ it.
My guess?
I keep seeing more and more cool programs with the label "Made with Real
Basic". Even Nisus E-mail is made with RB. While I haven't looked into it, I
see that it always performs flawlessly when I have ever tried a program in
RB, freeware or commercial.
RealBasic is not the same thing as AppleScript - they serve different
purposes. Less so now that Studio is out, but different nonetheless.
Ever notice that RealBasic _uses_ AppleScript to do some of its
magic? It can send AppleEvents to other programs.
Even Macworld's recent trial stuff CD had RB on it. And RB will let you
write scripts that will also work in Windows, if I heard right. And that is
a box that Apple may be quietly trying to climb out of. Of course, if it
does, we AS folks will scream and pitch a fit for a while. But that idea is
what has been sitting with me. And as time goes by, I can see no reason for
abandoning it.
The idea? Or AppleScript? Writing a program in RealBasic that will
run on both systems is not trivial if you want to mimic the kinds of
things AppleScript does - communication between apps, for example.
Or maybe, in the back room arm twisting sessions that Apple must have been
going through to get developers to hurry up and deliver system 10 friendly
apps, Apple has already conceded that AS is not what new (Cocoa) developers
need to be interested in supporting?
As I understand it, if a developer writes a well-structured app in
Cocoa, adding at least basic AppleScript is easy.
Or, maybe, Apple has finally gotten smart and decided not to spend so much
of its time and it;s resources supporting really old systems. Like
MicroSquish, they should want everyone to keep buying the latest and the
greatest they sell. From what I hear on this list, AS in system 10 works
pretty well. So maybe this is Apples little quite snub to get us all to
switch to where their money is, system 10.
That might be somewhat true.
I'll actually point out that, even while I disagree with you, you
missed one major argument in your own favor: Apple's half-hearted
attempts (or lack thereof) to support AppleScript in their own
applications. Yes, they've been adding more support to many "comes
with OS" apps, but their new toy, iPhoto has nothing. No dictionary,
at least. All those wonderful "iPhoto scripts" have nothing to do
with iPhoto. They use the Finder, URL Access Scripting, Mail,
QuickTime Player, iTunes, and Image Capture to work their little
magic. I'm very suspicious that there is NO AppleScript support in
iPhoto, since they don't use it at all in those scripts, not even in
raw event codes. Not a good sign. Then again, iTunes was first
released with almost no script support, and it is now highly
scriptable. Who knows, they may have needed to get it out the door
with the iMac.
--
----
Daniel A. Shockley
email@hidden
email@hidden
http://www.danshockley.com