AppleScript: The Definitive Guide (Definitive Guides)

By Matt Neuburg

Book Overview

Mac users everywhere--even those who know nothing about programming--are discovering the value of the latest version of AppleScript, Apple's vastly improved scripting language for Mac OS X Tiger. And with this new edition of the top-selling AppleScript: The Definitive Guide, anyone, regardless of your level of experience, can learn to use AppleScript to make your Mac time more efficient and more enjoyable by automating repetitive tasks, customizing applications, and even controlling complex workflows. Fully revised and updated--and with more and better examples than ever--AppleScript: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition explores AppleScript 1.10 from the ground up. You will learn how AppleScript works and how to use it in a variety of contexts: in everyday scripts to process automation, in CGI scripts for developing applications in Cocoa, or in combination with other scripting languages like Perl and Ruby. AppleScript has shipped with every Mac since System 7 in 1991, and its ease of use and English-friendly dialect are highly appealing to most Mac fans. Novices, developers, and everyone in between who wants to know how, where, and why to use AppleScript will find AppleScript: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition to be the most complete source on the subject available. It's as perfect for beginners who want to write their first script as it is for experienced users who need a definitive reference close at hand. AppleScript: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition begins with a relevant and useful AppleScript overview and then gets quickly to the language itself; when you have a good handle on that, you get to see AppleScript in action, and learn how to put it into action for you. An entirely new chapter shows developers how to make your Mac applications scriptable, and how to give them that Mac OS X look and feel with AppleScript Studio. Thorough appendixes deliver additional tools and resources you won't find anywhere else. Reviewed and approved by Apple, this indispensable guide carries the ADC (Apple Developer Connection) logo. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0596005571
• ISBN13: 9780596005573
• Release Date: November 2003
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media
• Length: 453 Pages
• Weight: 1.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 7.0" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Another awesome reference guide from O'Reilly

I love O'Reilly & Associates' books, and have a number of them on my bookshelf. They are often the books I turn to first on technical subjects, and /AppleScript: The Definitive Guide/ is no exception in that regard. Matt Neuburg has a relaxed writing style that makes this guide enjoyable to read, insofar as reference books are enjoyable to any degree. He makes a point of going into detail about the quirks of AppleScript...

Mac Guild Review

AppleScript The Definitive GuideWhat the Book is AboutThis book aims to provide a complete explanatory manual and reference to AppleScript, up to date with Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther).Target AudienceThe introduction states that the book assumes no prior knowledge of AppleScript or of any other programming language. While I agree that no knowledge of AppleScript is required, it's challenging to consider someone with no programming...

Applescript: The Definitive Guide Rocks!!!!!

I have been a scripter going on 12 years and have written scripts for pretty much every scriptable app. Other than Danny Goodman's book written a long time ago, there has not been reference book that is as thorough and as enjoyable as Applescript: The Definitive Guide. I bought one copy and then bought another so I could have a copy at work and at home.If you are new to scripting and looking for a basic manual or, if like...

At last, the truth about AppleScript

Apple has long pushed AppleScript as an easy-to-learn, English-like way of automating repetitive tasks on a Mac. Alas, I and many, many others have discovered from painful experience that AppleScript is hugely difficult to approach -- its learning curve never seems to flatten out. Even after writing thousands of lines of code in several programs that (eventually) worked, I still feel I'm groping in the dark every time I try...

Buy This Book!

This is an excellent book by a gifted writer. Neuburg has the ability to understand AppleScript at a deep level, and then communicate that understanding clearly and coherently. The coherence of his approach brings the novice along with the text while keeping the expert engaged by virtue of passing on little known facts, strategies for dealing with Applescript's eccentricities and frustrations, and amusing and important asides...