AppleScript in a Nutshell (In a Nutshell (O'Reilly))

Cocoa and Carbon may have grabbed the attention of Mac OS programmers lately, but AppleScript remains the tool of choice for programmers who prefer to interact with their operating system and applications at a relatively high level. AppleScript in a Nutshell documents AppleScript throughout its evolution, including the versions that ship with Mac OS X and Mac OS 9.1. Explanations of how to script the Mac OS X desktop and the TextEdit application that accompanies Mac OS X are particularly handy.

The lion's share of Bruce Perry's treatment of the language explains, with a minimum of frills, how each aspect of the AppleScript language works. This is classic O'Reilly, and it works well. For each statement (such as "with transaction") and reserved word (such as "anything"), you get a concise statement of syntax, examples of proper usage, an explanation of what's going on, and caveats where they're required. Classes--the one that the Finder uses to represent folders, for instance--are presented with each of their properties and methods listed alphabetically, and explained, usually with an example. The scripting techniques that are specific to applications, such as Sherlock 2 and the Speech Listener--are similar, with commands and classes presented alphabetically with all options presented explicitly. This book is a comprehensive treatment of a really useful language. Check out Learning Carbon and Learning Cocoa if you want to delve deeper into Mac OS programming. --David Wall

Topics covered:

• The core of the AppleScript language
• The scriptable aspects of Mac OS versions 9, 9.1, and X
• Scripting applications
• Scripting for network configuration
• Scripting additions