An awful hack (not cleaned up) to programmatically rename events (adding number prefixes to follow a certain schema) in iPhoto even though it doesn't seem to support that via AppleScript. Exploiting the convenient keyboard shortcuts.

automatically_rename_event_titles_in_iphoto.rb

NUMBER = DATA.readlines.inject({}) { |h, line|
  number, name = line.chop.split(". ", 2)
  h[number] = name
  h
}

def osascript(cmd)
  system "osascript", "-e", cmd
end

def assign(number, name)
  `echo | pbcopy` #  clear out clipboard in case the title is empty and the cmd+c fails
  osascript %{tell app "System Events" to keystroke "c" using command down}  # copy
  actual_name = `pbpaste`
  name_was_empty = actual_name.to_s.chop.empty?  # names generated from dates may show as empty when you try to edit them

  if (actual_name == name) || name_was_empty
    puts "go on"
    osascript %{tell app "System Events" to keystroke (ASCII character 28)}  # left
    osascript %{tell app "System Events" to keystroke "#{number}. "}
    osascript %{tell app "System Events" to keystroke #{name.inspect}} if name_was_empty
    osascript %{tell app "System Events" to keystroke tab}
  else
    puts "Got: #{actual_name.inspect} but expected #{name.inspect} (number: #{number})"
    osascript %{tell app "iPhoto" to display dialog "Not the name I expected. Bailing!"}
    exit 1
  end
end

osascript %{tell app "iPhoto" to activate}
osascript %{tell app "iPhoto" to display dialog "Click the '#{NUMBER.values.first}' event title and wait…"}
sleep 3
NUMBER.each do |number, name|
  assign(number, name)
end
__END__
62. Fashion St. Louis
55. 29 apr 2012
…