AppleScript in a Nutshell

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For those who've been waiting, O'Reilly will be releasing a new AppleScript book in November 2004. The title is "AppleScript: The Definitive Guide" and it is written by Matt Neuburg. The book goes way more in-depth on AppleScript than the old Nutshell book.

Chuck Toporek

Below O'Reilly Standard.

I know AppleScript has loosely defined commands but this book does little to provide the "Quick Reference" promised on the cover.

There is no real attempt to descibe the language in the book and - inexcusable for a reference book - the index is next useless (I suspect it was machine compiled. I suspect that with a proper index that had been checked an proofed it might be a better book .As it is it gathers dust.

The only excuse for owning this is that it is one of the few AS books around.

Save your money - look for tutorial online. You'll learn more that way.

A Disappointment.

M

Mark Anderson

The book <u>is</u> terrible.

However it is wonderfully matched with its subject matter. Applescript is idiosyncratic and incomplete, and so is the book. So perhaps the author did the best job he that could be done, and his book may qualify as the least-worst book on Applescript.

I rated it average, because it makes the 'average mistakes' that pervade programming books. Starting with Example 1-1 which doesn't work, through many other examples that don't, to the incomplete specification of important functions. I eventually found the Errata web page that confirmed that the examples don't work, but I have yet to find any complete specification of the baroque language.

For example 'filespec' is an important datatype apprarently essential to creating a file. The book gives no specification of how to create one, except in one special case that it repeated in many examples, which don't work (see Errata, again). And important though it is, it does not rate an entry in the index.

Finally the last paragragh of the book describes an intriguing class that represents a Web Page, but gives not a clue of how you can use it.

You are welcome to use these comments for marketing purposes :-)

Dave Pullin

This book is terrible.

I own many ORA "Nutshell" books and this falls WAY off the mark. The structure of the book is horrible. The examples are useless and trying to find an answer to simple questions is a farce.

Try determining if an AppleScript variable can be used as a array. Using the book, try to read a list of files into a array and print them out. You won't be able to determine how to do this because there is no command definition and usage for the command "set" in the book. This is atypical of an ORA Nutshell book.

Part III, Part IV & Part V are useless to anyone who wants to create productive scripts. It is 265 pages of filler that is useless unless you want to write parlor tricks!

There is no section that breaks down every command in the language and presents it like the other Nutshell books.

Avoid this book. It needs a major rewrite!

Tim McManus

One of the best books on Apple scripting that I have read. I wish there were more workflow examples. If you use and rely on Applescripts then get this book!

James Alcasid