Re: What makes AppleScript difficult
Re: What makes AppleScript difficult
- Subject: Re: What makes AppleScript difficult
- From: Skeeve <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 08:45:16 +0100
Things that I stumbled across and which were (and often still are) an
hindrance
for me when using AppleScript.
1) file vs. alias vs. something that should be a file but isn't existing yet
For example: I return a POSIX path from a do shell script.
Converting this to something usable by AppleScript isn't just a
POSIX file the_filename
but
(POSIX file the_filename) as alias
What made it more complex was, that I wanted to use it in a display
dialog, so I had
display dialog POSIX file the_filename
and the message was that it couldn't be converted to a string. I
needed some time figuring it out.
I still don't know how to conveniently handle filenames of files
that don't yet exist
2) Things that work in the GUI but can't be done from Apple'Script
(application is to blame)
Example (posted here a few days ago but no answer yet). If you have
dead tracks in iTunes (those were files are missing), you can select
them and create a playlist of them. Quite handy if you want to check
them later.
AppleScript can quite easily find dead tracks (location is missing
value) but no way to add them to a playlist! add doesn't work because we
have no location and even had we, there is no file so iTunes complains.
duplicate doesn't work either as long as there is no file. make new
playlist with tracks directly given seems impossible too.
3) Things a Programmer thinks are identical aren't
tell application "Script Editor"
set ars to a reference to attribute runs of document 1
repeat with ar in ars
set x to color 1 of ar
return item 1 of x -- works
end repeat
end tell
tell application "Script Editor"
set ars to a reference to attribute runs of document 1
repeat with ar in ars
return item 1 of (color 1 of ar) -- doesn't work
end repeat
end tell
and these are just 3 out of numerouse hindrances I always stumble across...
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