Hello all !!!
I’m Pascal from Montréal. Always have been intrigue by Apple script. So last week i decided to dive in. First move was to buy Sal Sagohian Apple script 1-2-3 book and start at the very first page. I’ve realized the book was published over 10 years ago and was wandering if it is still relevant today.
I guess so… But some times the script examples does not compile. Anyways, for now just want to make sure i’m at the right place for beginner’s questions or is there more specific place. I suppose by now you’ve noticed that english is not my mother tongue… i guess it could be worst…
Most of the Applescript books are old. It’s an old language, and not a particularly common/active language, so I don’t think there are a lot of new books. And I believe most of what’s in the old books still applies. I don’t have Sal’s book, but I suspect that learning from it will teach you the fundamentals correctly without teaching you a bunch of stuff that no longer works. Once you have the basics down, you’ll probably learn from the internet anyway.
And I think you’re in the best place for asking any level of Applescript questions.
I started with Sal’s book almost 3 years ago and still refer to it often. I also purchased most every other book available and rarely refer to them but found “Learn AppleScript” Third Edition to be the most useful of the other books. MacScripter has of course been extremely helpful.
It was the Script Debugger application though that actually allowed me to accomplish some useful scripting. It’s hard to overstate how helpful Script Debugger was to me as a novice scripter. I know some of the most accomplished script writers survive without it but I would have had a very hard time accomplishing anything very complex without it.
The one other discovery that allowed me to get over the hump on some scripts was when I discovered that using the “Watch Me Do” function in automator can be used to find how to refer to menu items to, as they say, “script the GUI.”
I have managed to create some very useful scripts, a few of which I use every day and some that I use less often but which save me considerable time and increase accuracy when I do use them. At this point I have about a dozen scripts that I use routinely.
Trying to learn Applescript has been at times very, very frustrating. After a lot of effort I’m still at the very beginner stage and understand only a small portion of what gets posted on MacScripter.
From what I’ve seen beginner’s questions are welcome on MacScripter as long as the question is asking for help with something that you’ve made an attempt to solve or find out on your own but have been unable to. Asking for solutions from scratch seems to be frowned on.
Good luck. If you find the magic bullet for learning Applescript please share it.