AppleScript Handbook: Mac OS X 3rd Edition
reviewed by Robert Pritchett
Author: Danny Goodman SpiderWorks Lulu Booksites: http://spiderworks.com/books/ashandbook.php http://www.lulu.com/content/154130 Released: 2005 Pages: 405, eBook, 228 pages. $35 USD printed, $15 USD eBook. ISBN: 0974434493 or 09744344026 (eBook) Requirements: Mac OS X and Developer Tools installed. Maybe BBEdit for one of the examples. For all levels of experience. Strengths: Takes a well-made book up a notch in teaching how to do AppleScripting. Weaknesses: None found. Okay, one or two typos. |
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AppleScript Handbook: Mac OS X 3rd Edition by Danny Goodman is another eBook that can be obtained as hardcopy from either Lulu.com or SpiderWorks. However, the electronic copies come with the AppleScript examples that require a Customer Username and Password to get to.
This book is the up-to-date 3rd edition of one of two books on the subject. This one has up-to-date AppleScripts after the previous version was written over 10 years ago, so this is a complete rewrite.
There are 16 chapters and 2 Appendices. The chapters deal with tools needed, how to learn AppleScript and write one, including a crash course on programming fundamentals, issuing commands, scripting addition commands and dictionaries, describing references and properties as objects, working with values, variables and expressions as data, working through control structures, and using AppleScript Operators, doing some troubleshooting and error checking and debugging, using subroutines, handlers and Script Libraries, properties, objects and “Agents” and looking at 3rd-party applications. The Appendices have a quick reference and ASCII Table.
I found the first chapter very helpful because Mac OS X has resources in various places and AppleScript does have AppleScript Studio, but there are locations where scripts are put that aren’t necessarily intuitive. Thankfully, there is also some discussion of AppleScript Studio, so we are able to begin with the learning process required to come up to speed, such as syntax, using applications that are AppleScript-friendly and any dictionaries the apps may already have.
Danny Goodman has done a great job by showing which parts of his book are for either beginners, intermediate level or advanced. You want to learn AppleScripting? This is a good place to start. Done AppleScripting already? This is a great place to take it even further. Then laces like http://macscripter.net/ will make more sense.
