Binding: Paperback Dewey Decimal Number: 005.133 EAN: 9780596102111 ISBN: 0596102119 Label: O'Reilly Media, Inc. Manufacturer: O'Reilly Media, Inc. Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 590 Publication Date: January 04, 2006 Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc. Sales Rank: 325672 Studio: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Product DescriptionMac 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.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - Excellent reference manual for a niche language
This is an exhaustive reference manual for AppleScript, a scripting language included with all Macintoshes. It is not a tutorial, but if you have some programming experience of any kind you will be able to use this manual to construct AppleScripts. The book was published in January 2006 and is up-to-date through Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4). It includes a little coverage of Automator. There is some description of other helpful tools such as Script Debugger, a third-party replacement for Apple's Script Editor ... Read More
Rating: - the grammar book of AppleScript
We wouldn't know something, especially certain technology very well until we know its limitations (or exceptions).
The extensive explorations in this book chart out the boundaries of AppleScript.
If one needs to consult "dictionaries" to acquire AppleScript vocabulary, this book is definitely the grammar book for speaking the language correct-ly.
Rating: - A book to be read again and again -- or not at all!
No, don't start with "AppleScript: The Definitive Guide." Although I was highly motivated, diligent, and intelligent (if I may say so), Neuburg's exigent, articulate, and idiosyncratic "guide" defeated me, and I had to buy and work all the exercises in another book (Kochan's "Beginning Applescript") to obtain the background needed to appreciate this one.
The highly praised chapter in the first edition about conquering FrameMaker has been moved to an Appendix in the 2nd Edition, but since Neuberg ... Read More
Rating: - Excellent book, but even better with Amazon or O'Reilly "search"
Matt Neuburg's AppleScript book is an excellent overview of AppleScript. Alas, it is limited, as all such books are, by AppleScript's peculiar nature.
The problem is that AppleScript is primarily useful when it interacts with scriptable Applications; this means that many important commands one may think of as belonging to AppleScript belong to Applications instead [2]. If you working to extend an existing script, and decide to research a command in the excellent book index Matt built himself ... Read More
Rating: - Not helpful to a beginner
It seems like key pieces of information have been left out of this book, which is very atypical for any of the Definitive Guide series from O'Reilly, and of O'Reilly books in general. I picked up this book because it was the most recently published on the topic, and I'm still confused even after reading it. The first three chapters were on very basic subjects such as why you would want to use Applescript in general, where you would want to use it, and basic concepts. Next, part two is all about the syntax ... Read More
- Excellent reference manual for a niche language
- Not helpful to a beginner
