AppleScript For Absolute Starters

A primer by Bert Altenburg for beginners just learning AppleScript

AppleScript is an English-like scripting language that allows you to make applications talk to each other. Apple is breathing new life into AppleScript, as evidenced by the new Script Editor 2.0, AppleScript Studio, GUI Scripting and the upcoming new version of Mac OS X code-named Panther.

Several books on AppleScript exist, but they generally give a cursory introduction only, before they dig into the juicy stuff that makes AppleScript shine: communication between different applications. That is where AppleScript can save you a lot of time and give you most of the fun. AppleScript for Absolute Starters is a free, slow-paced booklet that will give you the foundation to enjoy these books and actually put AppleScript to use.

Because AppleScript for Absolute Starters is in an electronic format, it is possible to keep it up to date with the latest developments. In the future, multiple versions of the booklet will exist, and if you don’t have the latest version of Mac OS X, you should download the booklet appropriate for your system.

AppleScript for Absolute Starters is written for Mac OS X 10.2. The current versions of the book require the beta version of Script Editor 2.0 available for download from Apple.

Download AppleScript for Absolute Starters (AS4AS) for Mac OS X 10.2 in PDF format.