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References For Learning & Using Applescript
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| REFERENCES FOR LEARNING & USING APPLESCRIPT Modified: 2016/05/25 15:01 | |
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| NOTES | |
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| AppleScript is a rather peculiar scripting language to learn. | |
| Its so-called natural language syntax is loved by some and hated by others. | |
| It has a relatively small core language, but many if not most scriptable applications have | |
| terminology and syntax unique to that app. This means you have to be willing to learn the | |
| quirks of every new app you work with. | |
| You can become an absolute expert at scripting BBEdit and not understand much about | |
| scripting Capture One. | |
| Fortunately many apps have similar ways of doing things, so the more you learn the more | |
| intuitively you can puzzle out idiosyncrasies in new apps. Nevertheless it's a good idea | |
| to reach out for help if you've been beating your head against the wall for more than an | |
| hour or two. Dain brammage isn't of much use to anyone. | |
| Despite AppleScript's quirks it is an enormous productivity enhancer for me. | |
| When it debuted in 1993 I thought it was junk, but a year or two later an OSAX (library) | |
| came out that added regular expression support to AppleScript. That simple addition plus | |
| the productivity utilities I already had like QuicKeys and KeyQuencer allowed me to | |
| rapidly process text and do many other things most Mac-users never even thought of, so I | |
| was off to the races. | |
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| ONLINE APPLESCRIPT COMMUNITIES | |
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| The Applescript Users List | |
| http://lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/applescript-users | |
| MacScripter.net | |
| http://macscripter.net | |
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| APPLESCRIPT & MAC AUTOMATION WEBSITES | |
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| MacOSXAutomation.com | |
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| Published personally by Sal Soghoian — a long-time Apple employee and AppleScript Maven. | |
| http://macosxautomation.com | |
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| Doug’s Applescripts for iTunes | |
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| 455 (and counting) AppleScripts for Apple's iTunes that will help make managing your | |
| digital music collection easier and more fun! | |
| http://dougscripts.com/itunes/ | |
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| APPLESCRIPT TUTORIALS | |
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| Applescript For Absolute Starters | |
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| A very, very basic tutorial. It's old but still pretty relevant. | |
| http://files.macscripter.net/sourcebook/AS4ASb2.pdf | |
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| OFFICIAL APPLESCRIPT DOCUMENTATION — THE APPLESCRIPT LANGUAGE GUIDE | |
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| If you're going to work with Applescript you need access to The Applescript Language Guide. | |
| It is a syntax reference and not a tutorial. | |
| Downloadable PDF: | |
| https://applescriptlibrary.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/applescriptlanguageguide-2013.pdf | |
| Apple quite shamefully has stopped producing PDF verions of the ASLG, but the 2013 version (for 10.9.x) is still available. | |
| Download it, so you have a local searchable copy. It won't be complete, but it's still a handy reference. | |
| Online Version (up-to-date): | |
| http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/AppleScript/Conceptual/AppleScriptLangGuide/introduction/ASLR_intro.html | |
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| APPLESCRIPT BOOKS I RECOMMEND | |
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| NOTE: Trying to learn Applescript without buying at least one good reference is a fool's | |
| errand. | |
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| Learn AppleScript: The Comprehensive Guide to Scripting and Automation on Mac OS X | |
| by Hamish Sanderson & Hanaan Rosenthal | |
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| http://www.google.com/search?btnI=I%27m+Feeling+Lucky&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=amazon.com+ISBN-13%3A+978-1430223610 | |
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| AppleScript: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition | |
| by Matt Neuburg | |
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| http://www.google.com/search?btnI=I%27m+Feeling+Lucky&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=amazon.com+ISBN-13%3A+978-0596102111 | |
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| APPLESCRIPT BOOKS I HAVE NOT EVALUATED | |
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| AppleScript 1-2-3: A Self-Paced Guide to Learning AppleScript (Apple Pro Training Series) | |
| by Sal Soghoian and Bill Cheeseman | |
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| http://www.google.com/search?btnI=I%27m+Feeling+Lucky&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=amazon.com+ISBN-13%3A+978-0321149312 | |
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| AppleScript: A Beginner's Guide | |
| by Guy Hart-Davis | |
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| http://www.google.com/search?btnI=I%27m+Feeling+Lucky&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=amazon.com+ISBN-13%3A+978-0071639545 | |
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| ESSENTIAL AUTOMATION UTILITIES | |
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| NOTE: If you have Keyboard Maestro you really don't need FastScripts, however I like how | |
| FS' UI works — so I use both utilities on my system. | |
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| FastScripts — $9.95 U.S. | |
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| FastScripts is an enhanced replacement for Apple's own AppleScript menu. | |
| It provides many usability improvements, a refined UI, Global & App-Specific Keyboard | |
| Shortcuts. It is scripting language agnostic and handles AppleScript, Perl, any language | |
| recognized by the shell, Automator workflows — even applications or documents. | |
| I've used it since 2003. | |
| https://red-sweater.com/fastscripts/ | |
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| Keyboard Maestro — $36.00 U.S. | |
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| Keyboard Maestro goes far beyond running AppleScripts | |
| Whether you are a power user or a grandparent (or both!), your time is precious. So why | |
| waste it when Keyboard Maestro can help improve almost every aspect of using your Mac. | |
| Even the simplest things, like typing your email address, or going to Gmail or Facebook, | |
| launching Pages, or duplicating a line, all take time and add frustration. | |
| I've used the OSX version since 2003 (and used the old Mac OS version for many years | |
| before that). | |
| http://www.keyboardmaestro.com/main/ | |
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| APPLESCRIPT EDITORS | |
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| Script Editor — Apple software pre-installed on OSX (called Applescript Editor on some Oses) | |
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| The Apple-Provided 'Script Editor' (pre-Snow Leopard) and 'Applescript Editor' (Snow | |
| Leopard & Lion) is not a bad editor and provides searchable access to application | |
| dictionaries. (It has been renamed to 'Script Editor' again in Yosemite.) | |
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| Script Debugger — $199.00 U.S. | |
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| When I began scripting Apple's Script Editor didn't even have find/replace. After some | |
| months of fighting with it I gave up and spent $129.95 (in 1995) on Script Debugger v1.0 | |
| after evaluating both it and Scripter. | |
| You wouldn't believe how much aggravation that purchase (and upgrades) has saved me. | |
| http://www.latenightsw.com | |
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| Smile — freeware | |
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| A powerful and useful Applescript Development Environment. Using a Terminal window you can | |
| step through scripts line-by-line. Although this is not as convenient as in Script | |
| Debugger it's better than the Applescript Editor can do. | |
| Smile can create custom dialogs, open web pages and process them, create scientific | |
| graphs, and many other things. | |
| A small excerpt: | |
| • Extract data from files (default data formats supported: text, binary, FITS, XNF, ...), | |
| • Perform data processing using commands provided with Smile or controlling external code | |
| • Visualize your data in the most usual forms (curves, scatter plots, bar graphs, contour | |
| lines, color maps and vector fields in 2D, and 3D surfaces) | |
| • Customize the interaction of the user with the plots (handling mouse clicks, contextual | |
| menus, keyboard events...) and create custom interfaces | |
| • Export your plot as a PDF file, as a bitmap picture (PNG, JPEG, TIFF, BMP, PSD) or as a | |
| QuickTime movie. | |
| Full feature list: | |
| http://www.satimage.fr/software/en/smilelab/gallery/smile_features.html | |
| Downloads: | |
| http://www.satimage.fr/software/en/downloads/index.html | |
| I do primary development with Script Debugger, but I always keep Smile on my system for | |
| testing and other jobs. | |
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| OSAXEN I RECOMMEND | |
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| An OSAX or Open Scripting Architecture Extension is a library that adds features to | |
| AppleScript. | |
| The Satimage.osax from Satimage is a companion to the Smile AppleScript Editor, but it is | |
| available as a stand-alone component. | |
| http://www.satimage.fr/software/en/downloads/downloads_companion_osaxen.html | |
| There are several more available on this page, but the one I MUST have on my system is the | |
| Satimage.osax. | |
| It adds regular expression support and many other useful features to AppleScript. | |
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| SCRIPTABLE PLAIN-TEXT EDITORS | |
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| BBEdit — $49.95 U.S. | |
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| Programming & HTML Editor Extraordinaire. | |
| Mightily Scriptable. | |
| http://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit/ | |
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| TextWrangler — freeware | |
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| If you work with plain text documents and don't own BBEdit do yourself a favor and install | |
| it. | |
| http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/index.html | |
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| SCRIPTABLE STYLED-TEXT EDITORS | |
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| Tex-Edit Plus — $15.00 U.S. | |
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| A highly scriptable styled-text editor and very useful for learning Applescript. The | |
| unregistered version is not crippled in any way. | |
| http://www.tex-edit.com/ | |
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| Jedit X — $28.00 U.S. | |
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| A Cocoa text editor — yet another super TextEdit for plain and rich text. | |
| Far more scriptable than TextEdit. | |
| http://www.artman21.com/en/jedit_x/ | |
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| USEFUL APPLESCRIPT TOOLS | |
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| AppleScriptObjC Explorer — $49.95 U.S. | |
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| A script editor that takes advantage of AppleScript's ability to call Cocoa methods in OS | |
| X 10.6 and later. | |
| http://www.macosxautomation.com/applescript/apps/explorer.html | |
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| UI Browser — $55.00 | |
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| A utility for exploring AppleScript GUI Scripting and Accessibility technologies. | |
| The price seems a litte steep, but if you need to develop scripts using System Events and | |
| GUI-Scripting this vital tool will keep you from pulling your hair out. | |
| http://pfiddlesoft.com/uibrowser/ | |
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| UI Actions | |
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| Brings AppleScript "Attachability" to all OSX Applications | |
| Attach a UI Action script to any standard native Mac OS X application, and UI Actions | |
| automatically runs the script whenever you perform specified user actions in the target | |
| application. You write the script, and you select the user action that triggers it, such | |
| as choosing a menu item, changing the value of a text field, opening a drawer or window, | |
| or activating an application. | |
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| Platypus — freeware | |
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| A developer tool that can be used to create native, flawlessly integrated Mac OS X | |
| applications from interpreted scripts such as shell scripts or Perl and Python programs. | |
| http://www.sveinbjorn.org/platypus | |
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| Myriad Helpers — freeware | |
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| A collection of Objective-C files that simplify some of the coding involved in | |
| AppleScriptObjC. | |
| http://www.macosxautomation.com/applescript/apps/helpers.html | |
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| EventScripts — $3.99 U.S. — App-Store | |
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| A simple application for triggering AppleScripts or shell scripts whenever certain events | |
| occur. | |
| http://mousedown.net/mouseware/EventScripts.html | |
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| JSONhelper — freeware — App-Store | |
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| An small utility application which allows you to do useful things with JSON (JavaScript | |
| Object Notation) directly from AppleScript. | |
| https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/json-helper-for-applescript/id453114608 | |
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| Location Helper — freeware — App-Store | |
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| https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/location-helper-for-applescript/id488536386 | |
| Brings the power of Core Location to AppleScript | |
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