Re: Why is AS so poorly documented?
Re: Why is AS so poorly documented?
- Subject: Re: Why is AS so poorly documented?
- From: Doug McNutt <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 12:39:57 -0600
At 10:49 -0600 7/23/03, Dave Balderstone wrote:
>
I tend to muddle, too... Perhaps what the community needs is documentation on how to read a dictionary and connect the pieces, more than how to write code?
A good part of the problem is the requirement that the "dictionary" be readable and translatable by a script editor. It may not be still true but I do remember the introduction of System 7 where we were told that interprocess communication would be an object-oriented thing that could be easily translated into English-like or YouNameIt-like.
There are four character codes all over the place that are the true definitions of the classes, properties, and commands. In general we, the users, are not supposed to know about them but they are the things that get translated into the dictionary shown by a script editor. DFU's are not considered part of the priesthood in the same sense that it's the "desk scrap" while programming and the "clipboard" while using. Even those four-character type and creator codes are carefully hidden from users in the classic Apple paradigm.
I once passed off a URL to a privately formatted dictionary which I liked :
<
http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mwidholm/MathPad/manual/AEvents.html>
The point, that the "dictionary" was readable and helpful to the uninitiated, was missed. Readers on this list complained that the defined methods were not object-oriented enough to be "real" AppleScript. Perhaps some were offended because it reveals the four character codes.
What would really be nice is if HTML, or equivalent, anchors were used in dictionaries. When you see something like
>
inherits all properties and methods of the superclass
You should be able to click on "superclass" and find out that it's defined in the NeXT Step development system which has been ported to Apple to become the starting point for Cocoa. You'll need the developer tools installed to get the help files for that.
You should also be able to find out which application or OSAX contains a particular name either as a class or as a command. "copy" is a command in BBEdit which emulates the copy item in a typical edit menu but it is one of two assignment operators in AppleScript itself. That kind of stuff should be discoverable while poking around in a dictionary, like the one that doesn't exist, for the Script Editor.
--
Applescript syntax is like English spelling:
Roughly, but not thoroughly, thought through.
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