Re: filtering a list of items with Finder
Re: filtering a list of items with Finder
- Subject: Re: filtering a list of items with Finder
- From: has <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 11:00:23 +0000
Gakuji Ohtori wrote:
>
> Is 'trash', as a finder object, trans-lingual like 'startup disk'?
>
>
Yes, it is. Non-string objects such as class are all trans-lingual. I
>
hope I understand what you're asking.
I think Paul was worried that application keywords might be localised. But
keywords in AS have always been language independent. There was that stuff
about Dialects for a while, and who know what might have happened then, but
it all got dropped and AS has been English Dialect only ever since.
The only things you really need to worry about are strings, international
text and Unicode text. All other data types are stable, all keywords are
stable [1]. Beyond that, I imagine you're into the major app-specific
language issues like direction of text flow, presence of whitespace, etc. I
dunno if there's any Quark scripters who script both Japanese and English
workflows who could comment on the issues that present themselves there.
>
> Along this multi-ligual line; to me this sounds so difficult. Trying
>
> to get correct performance from scripts that may be run in any of a
>
> dozen or more languages.[...]
>
>
But this is not really a problem of AppleScript as a programming
>
language or development tool but a problem of Finder, isn't it?
I blame lack of education/information (as usual). I've never seen anything
in literature I've read that discusses localisation issues and how they
affect AppleScripters.
You cannot blame scripters for using something that appears to work [for
them] if you don't bother to tell them about all the cases where it won't.
Give users the awareness and knowledge they need to make informed choices.
For example, how hard would it be to flag each property in the Finder
dictionary with a "Localised text"/"Non-localised text" label?
>
> Is this even realistic? Why isn't this all just handled
>
> automatically? Isn't that the goal of supporting multiple languages?
>
>
I think string properties like kind is intended for composing something
>
like a message.
I think you've hit the nail smack-bang on the head! We're trying to use the
'kind' property here in a task it was never intended for.
We hack and kludge because the natural, logical option (filtering for class
by class) is broken. That these hacks and kludges should be brittle should
not come as a surprise. We need the 'correct' options to work as expected,
and the less correct options flagged so we know when not to use them.
Best,
has
--
http://www.barple.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk -- The Little Page of AppleScripts
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