Apple

On 2010/08/30, at 20:18, Philip Aker wrote:

Greetings all,

Sorry for a delayed reply. This topic and all your comments have been on my mind however and this post is the start of catching up.

First of all, I think that Takaaki (.pdf) and Ed (via AppleScript command illustrations) are right in thinking KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) methods. In a sense, that's what I have been trying to arrive at when talking about a shared property list for script libraries. So maybe the question to ask about it is:

What is the simplest form for the property list that can provide good facilities for the greatest number of users?

Here the 'users' are not only scriptors at various levels but also developers providing services to scriptors and even the cut 'n paste crowd. And the 'form' means that: "What description of libraries provides the most bang for the buck?". I.e., how compact can it be yet still be useful to various kinds of users? In the case of property lists, which are quite verbose, the compactness refers to the minimal number of keys needed to attain a viable and interchangeable description. The outline of the library description I currently envision (and implement) for an interchange format is shown the end of this post. It is extensible.

Just below are links to the stuff I've been working on along these lines. However, the thing to base any comments on is not the software itself, but rather the form of the property list it creates. I believe a basic form which is extensible can provide for the needs of all the various kinds of users mentioned above. There is an overview at the top of <http://www.vcn.bc.ca/~philip/mm/ModuleManager.html> and a bit of an outline of what I think is getting closer to "good form" at <http://www.vcn.bc.ca/~philip/mm/ModuleManager.html#MMLibraryDescriptionCreateMinimal>.

The software consists of a framework and a test file showing how to call into the framework APIs. These two items are used in a test osax, Carbon app, and Cocoa app Xcode project which uses the 10.5 SDK. I have also compiled the framework with the 10.4 SDK and can make that version available if anyone wants to try it. Download it here:

curl -O http://www.vcn.bc.ca/~philip/mm/MMTesting.0.5.zip

Note that the framework level interface is currently not for AppleScript users proper. Its goal is to present facilities which make it easy for developers to create shell tools, osaxen, and applications which all levels of scriptors can use.

If you can "see" into the property list form discussed, I'd like to know if you think there is _basic library information_ it can't contain to make it useful as an interchange format. For Tommy and Tetsuro, this might mean technical things which you need. For Takaaki and Ed, it probably means if you can see a straight-forward and simple AppleScript vocabulary evolving from the listing of the seven main areas at the top the HTML file. For Shane, I think it means a regex search though all library titles, file names, and scripts (test, properties, and handlers) and a filtering of the clip-able result in a text view.

###

Current library description overview:

Library
BaseURIString
Files
Kind
[array of file descriptions]
Flags
IsReserved
Kind
PermitOverrides
SearchRecursively
TrackAliases
[custom key/value pairs]
FolderInfo
Kind
POSIXPath
URLString
Kind
ParentID
Properties
Kind
Title
[custom key/value pairs]
UUID
[custom key/value pairs]

Philip Aker
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Democracy: Two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch.