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July 24, 2004
AppleScript - Apple's other platform DNA
In a nutshell, powerful. AppleScript is one of the many hidden OS X gems that truly works behind the scenes. By itself, it's not terribly interesting but in combination with an application such as NoteTaker or a tool like Ecto; magic starts to happen.
Keep in mind, AppleScript is not a new idea or a forgotten technology either. However, it's neither a development system nor a programming language either. So what exactly is it? In short, it's an action-driven system for controlling and invoking programmatic event behavior among and between applications that previously had no connection or common application use. A clever way to combine applications and make them accomplish productive tasks on behalf of the user.
An OS X application such as NoteTaker is infinitely more powerful if it's AppleScript-ready. For users, it means more value, more productivity and more potential for new and interesting features when used with other applications.
But not every feature or user need is predictable or routine. AppleScript provides another means by which an application can do more or at least leverage its core feature set without requiring new commands. Most importantly, it doesn't have to know about every current and future application; it just has to be AppleScript-enabled as if pre-programmed for any number of possible scripts.
For example, when NoteTaker was first released in December 2002, there was no intense commercial focus on weblogs and certainly no knowledge about Ecto. Moving forward to 2004, NoteTaker users were actively creating web notebooks but also asking the obvious... what about weblog creation? To make a long story short, an enterprising NoteTaker user made the connection that an AppleScript "weblog script" could easily and quickly provide an elegant solution in combination with Ecto (based on its own AppleScript support). The rest is history. Serendipity.
Posted by scott at July 24, 2004 11:11 AM