Re: Why is AS so poorly documented?
Re: Why is AS so poorly documented?
- Subject: Re: Why is AS so poorly documented?
- From: Matthew Smith <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 09:59:41 +1000
on 23/07/2003 08:58, Michael Superczynski at email@hidden wrote:
>
I've just started discovering AppleScript and like it a lot.
>
>
But the lack of decent documentation is a problem. I've looked far and
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wide but can't locate a comprehensive reference manual. The
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documentation on Apple's site isn't very detailed and many, many
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features are missing.
The difficulty in documenting AppleScript is that a lot of it is in the
application dictionaries. AppleScript, itself, does not have much to it,
until you put the power of what each application allows you to do with
AppleScript. It would be difficult to include all this in one
all-encompassing document.
>
I've looked at some of the commercial book offerings, such as
>
O'Reilly's AppleScript in a Nutshell but found them all to be lacking
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technically.
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I do have years of programming experience so I'm not having problems
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figuring out the basics of AppleScript but the details are hard to
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discern.
I used Apple's AppleScript Language Guide, but you have to think of
AppleScript using a lot of libraries which are not documented, other than
through the application dictionaries.
>
For instance, where is the command "keystroke" defined?
Keystroke is part of the beta version of System Events. It's on the December
2002 Developer Tools CD, which is available for those registered (free) on
Apple's Developer Site <
http://developer.apple.com>.
>
I've read a lot of the posts on this list and have been quite
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astonished at the flexibility of the many scripts posted here. But
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much of the syntax/keywords don't seem to be described anywhere.
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>
How do you all discover the "hidden" pieces of AS?
Your best bet is to look at the dictionary of an application and see how you
can use AppleScript to control it. Try iTunes. It has a fairly good
dictionary and allows you to access a lot of the application. First look at
the application definition in the dictionary. It is usually the first thing
I look at as it holds all you can access for the application. Look at how
you would have to navigate the elements of the application to access certain
bits of information.
--
Matthew Smith
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