By Ben Waldie This month's column serves as the last in a series of columns covering handler usage in AppleScript. Part 1 of this series introduced handlers and discussed the benefits of writing and using subroutine handlers. It also looked at writing and calling subroutine handlers, as well as proper usage of handler parameters. You can read part 1 here. Part 2 of this series...
by Kevin Bradley (Data)Basic Instinct In a now well-known gaffe, the translators of a Japanese game called "Zero Wing" mistranslated a line of dialog as "All your base are belong to us." And while scripters sometimes feel that the coders at Apple created a similar Frankensteinian grammar for Applescript, sometimes the gang at 1...
by Kevin Bradley Speaking of History... The most overlooked, under-rated feature of the Mac operating system has to be the speech recognition and text-to-speech tools. Most folks activate them, play with them for a few minutes, then turn them off and forget about them. But with a little help from Applescript (and a good microphone) you can control your Mac verbally and create your own additions to Apple's speakable items. The text-to-speech part...
by Adam Bell One of the frustrations for a non-scripter is to find one in a scriptable application's forums, on the MacScripter Forums (bbs.applescript.net) or Apple's own AppleScript Discussions that does precisely what they are looking for, but not know how to use it. I answer a lot of mails from folks like that. This tutorial...
by Craig Smith Every once in a while, you want stuff to happen automatically at certain times on certain days, or you want a particular event to precipitate some kind of action. Mail makes this easy with the Rules system, iCal has the Run script alarm option, and you can achieve some measure of success with Folder Actions as well. If you want to dig into a little UNIX, launchd is...
By Ben Waldie Last month's column focused on providing an introduction to handlers, discussed the benefits of using subroutine handlers, explored writing and calling subroutine handlers, and discussed handler parameter usage. You can read last month's column here. In this month's column, we will continue discussing handlers, in preparation for...
by Kevin Bradley Applescript Studio's 'Secret Handshake' In any group, be it Masons or Girl Scouts, there are always secrets within that group, things that are known only to the group and not to the outside world. (With Girl Scouts it's what is in the cookies, I think.) Among Applescript Studio coders there are also some arcane secrets, bits of information and tricks that get passed from one to another of us (usually through the Macscripter BBS)....
by Adam Bell Introduction to Billable I decided recently to stop using Excel X to generate invoices for the occasional consulting jobs I do and looked around for an application to replace it. I am (as you might imagine) an AppleScript nut, so when I look for an application to accomplish something I want to do, I look for one that I can script so I can extend its capabilities and personalize it for my intended use if it doesn't meet all my needs. I found Mike Zomek's...
By Ben Waldie Welcome AppleScript developers! Some of you may be familiar with my regular AppleScript columns in X-Ray Magazine and MacTech Magazine. I am pleased to announce that, in addition to my columns in those fine publications, I will be writing regular AppleScript columns, presently on a monthly basis, for MacScripter. Be sure to check back on a weekly basis, though, for excellent AppleScript-related columns by many other great authors! I have chosen to begin...
by Chris Johnsen If you have ever found yourself in a situation where you needed to produce a piece of text (or series of texts) with a predefined format, you have found an application for structured text generation. For some uses, the predefined format may be something simple like the text "Looping with num = " followed by a number. Such a format might be useful for a debug statement in a repeat loop. It might be used...
by Kevin Bradley Scoping Out The Problem This month's topic isn't very sexy, but it just might help you track down those pesky error messages dealing with variables. If you have ever gotten the dreaded "The variable yourvariable is not defined," message, pull up a chair and lend an ear. The "not defined" message means that in some dark corner of your script you used a variable that you thought was kosher and...
by Craig Smith Versions for testing: Mac OS X 10.4.10 iPhoto Library Manager Version 3.2.6b1 (3.2.6b1) ($19.95, Shareware) 3.2.6b1 version upgraded to 3.2.6 on 20 July 2007 Scripts tested on iBook G4 and Intel iMac iPhoto Library Manager (iPLM) takes iPhoto to the next level. Period. If you are an...
by Adam Bell, massively aided by Nigel Garvey & Kai Edwards Scripters often need to identify, predict, or calculate dates in their scripts - for publishing, accounting, labeling files and archives, or finding special dates. This is often just a minor part of what the script actually does, but achieving the result can become a production number in its own right. For instance, AppleScript doesn't (at the time of writing) provide numerical equivalents for months, so...
by Kevin Bradley Like Andy Ihnatko, I just love Applescript Studio. I think it's one of the coolest features of OS X, and have spent the last year throwing together applications. During that time, I've found several ways to polish an Applescript Studio application to make it more, well, professional. And while it's possible to find most or all of this information in...
by Adam Bell Introduction I wanted a simple, friendly GUI to a database of thoughts and ideas that was also a writiing tool; in essence an easily searched, easily edited journal that would allow me to attach images and other media. I wanted this note manager/snippet collector to be scriptable (what else, coming from the editor of these pages?). I didn't need a powerful (and expensive) database manager like DEVONThink; but I did...