Re: About the accessibility stuff...
Re: About the accessibility stuff...
- Subject: Re: About the accessibility stuff...
- From: Bill Cheeseman <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 16:23:36 -0400
on 02-06-10 2:57 PM, Matthew Formica at email@hidden wrote:
>
AppleScript lets you control the model of an application. The upcoming
>
accessibility API will let you control the UI of an application. "Click on
>
Button 1" and such is exactly the sort of thing that the accessibility API
>
will provide. And for the 99% case, no code will have to be added to Cocoa
>
apps for them to be automatically accessible; and Carbon apps should get a
>
lot of behavior for free as well. But given all this, it doesn't mean that
>
this API is necessarily always the best thing to use for automation - if you
>
just want behavior to be executed, AppleScript is probably the way to go
>
because you can bypass the GUI - instead of telling the app "switch to this
>
tab, click this button, in the window that opens, type this text and hit
>
return," you can just say "do this behavior."
You're on the inside and I am not, but I will go out on a limb and say I
don't fully agree with the way you're characterizing the AppleScript side of
this.
It is true that traditional AppleScript focused on controlling the model
(data and its behaviors) without needing access to the view (GUI). But
AppleScript Studio significantly broadens AppleScript's focus for Cocoa
applications and, of course, for AppleScript Studio applications. The
AppKitScripting.framework at the core of AppleScript Studio supports
terminology representing Cocoa view widgets exposed to scripters -- buttons,
menus, sliders, windows, panels, sheets, the whole GUI shebang. So, with
AppleScript Studio, you can use AppleScript to manipulate an application's
GUI by saying things like (paraphrasing, as I don't have the dictionary in
front of me) 'set selected of checkbox 1 to true'.
This is one of the things an application tester wants -- to exercise the
GUI, not just the underlying data behaviors. And it's here today, with
AppleScript Studio.
What I'm not clear on is what, if anything, the accessibility APIs will add
to this. I wouldn't expect them to duplicate AppKitScripting.framework. So,
are you saying that the new accessibility APIs and the existing
AppKitScripting framework are going to be merged in some fashion? Or that
one will be based on the other?
--
Bill Cheeseman - email@hidden
Quechee Software, Quechee, Vermont, USA
http://www.quecheesoftware.com
The AppleScript Sourcebook -
http://www.AppleScriptSourcebook.com
Vermont Recipes -
http://www.stepwise.com/Articles/VermontRecipes
Croquet Club of Vermont -
http://members.valley.net/croquetvermont
_______________________________________________
cocoa-dev mailing list | email@hidden
Help/Unsubscribe/Archives:
http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/cocoa-dev
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.