AppleScript studio programming for the absolute beginner

384 Pages·2006·10.48 MB·English

by  Jr. Jerry Lee Ford

AppleScript Studio®
Programming for
the Absolute
Beginner
JERRY LEE FORD, JR.
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ISBN-10: 1-59863-303-1
ISBN-13: 978-1-59863-303-0
eISBN-10: 1-59863-781-9
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2006904399
Printed in the United States of America
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Thomson Course Technology PTR,
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To my wonderful children, Alexander, William, and Molly,
and my beautiful wife, Mary.
A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS
T
his book represents the hard work and effort of many individuals. I would
like to thank Mitzi Koontz,, this book’s acquisitions editor. Thanks also go
out to John Flynt, who served as the book’s technical editor. I’d be remiss
if I did not thank Jenny Davidson for lending her considerable talents as both
project and copy editor. Finally, I’d like to thank everyone else at Thomson Course
Technology for all their contributions and hard work.
A A
BOUT THE UTHOR
J
erry Lee Ford, Jr. is an author, educator, and an IT professional with over
17 years of experience in information technology, including roles as an
automation analyst, technical manager, technical support analyst, au-
tomation engineer, and security analyst. Jerry has a master’s degree in Business
Administration from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia.
He is the author of 18 books and co-author of 2 additional books. His published
works include Beginning REALbasic, Perl Programming for the Absolute Beginner,
Microsoft Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition Programming for the Absolute Beginner,
VBScript Professional Projects, Microsoft Windows Shell Scripting and WSH Administrator’s
Guide, Learn VBScript in a Weekend, Microsoft Windows Shell Scripting for the Absolute
Beginner, Learn JavaScript in a Weekend, and Microsoft Windows XP Professional Admin-
istrator’s Guide. He has over five years’ experience as an adjunct instructor teaching
networking courses in Information Technology. Jerry lives in Richmond, Virginia,
with his wife, Mary, and their children William, Alexander, and Molly.
Table of Contents
Introduction........................................................... xii
Why AppleScript Studio?................................................................................................. xiii
Who Should Read This Book?.......................................................................................... xiv
What You Need to Begin.................................................................................................... xv
How This Book Is Organized............................................................................................ xvi
Conventions Used in This Book...................................................................................... xix
Part I Introducing AppleScript Studio...............................1
Chapter 1 AppleScript Studio Basics.........................................3
Project Preview: The Knock-Knock Application............................................................. 4
Introducing AppleScript Studio......................................................................................... 6
A Little AppleScript Studio History.......................................................................... 6
A Quick Overview of AppleScript Studio Components....................................... 6
A Few Words About Object-Oriented Programming..................................................... 8
AppleScript: AppleScript Studio’s Programming Language....................................... 9
When to Write AppleScript...................................................................................... 11
When to Develop AppleScript Studio Applications........................................... 11
Working with the Script Editor............................................................................... 12
Accessing Application Dictionaries........................................................................ 15
Back to the Knock-Knock Application............................................................................ 17
Designing the Game................................................................................................... 18
Step 1: Creating a New AppleScript Studio Application................................... 19
Step 2: Creating a Graphical User Interface......................................................... 21
Step 3: Modifying Control Attributes and Attaching Controls to Event
Handlers......................................................................................................................... 25
Step 4: Editing Your AppleScript............................................................................. 28
Step 5: Building and Running Your Mac OS X Application.............................. 30
Summary................................................................................................................................ 30
vi AppleScript Studio Programming for the Absolute Beginner
Chapter 2 The AppleScript Studio Application Development
Environment............................................................. 31
Project Preview: The AppleScript Studio Fortune Teller Game............................... 32
Project Templates................................................................................................................ 33
Setting Xcode Preferences................................................................................................. 36
Working with the Xcode Project Window.................................................................... 37
The Project Window Toolbar.................................................................................... 38
Groups & Files.............................................................................................................. 38
The Project Windows Detail View........................................................................... 40
The Editor Window..................................................................................................... 41
The Info Window......................................................................................................... 46
Integration with the Interface Builder.......................................................................... 48
The Terminology Browser.................................................................................................. 48
Debugging Capabilities...................................................................................................... 49
The Apple Developer Reference Library......................................................................... 50
Back to the AppleScript Studio Fortune Teller Game................................................ 51
Designing the AppleScript Studio Fortune Teller Game.................................. 51
Step 1: Creating a New Project................................................................................. 52
Step 2: Creating the User Interface......................................................................... 52
Step 3: Attaching Controls to Event Handlers..................................................... 55
Step 4: Adding a Little Programming Logic......................................................... 56
Step 5: Testing the Execution of the AppleScript Studio Fortune Teller
Application.................................................................................................................... 57
Summary................................................................................................................................ 58
Chapter 3 Building a Graphical User Interface................... 59
Project Preview: The Typo-Matic Typing Test Game................................................... 60
Create Graphical User Interfaces..................................................................................... 63
Cocoa Controls............................................................................................................. 65
MainMenu.nib.............................................................................................................. 67
MainMenu.nib – MainMenu..................................................................................... 67
Window.......................................................................................................................... 68
Cocoa Interface Elements.................................................................................................. 68
Cocoa Menus................................................................................................................. 68
Cocoa Controls and Indicators................................................................................ 74
Cocoa Text Controls.................................................................................................... 80
Cocoa Windows............................................................................................................ 83
Cocoa Data Views........................................................................................................ 93
Cocoa Container Views.............................................................................................. 94
Back to the Typo-Matic Typing Test Game.................................................................... 95
Designing the Game................................................................................................... 95
Step 1: Creating a New Project................................................................................. 96
Contents vii
Step 2: Creating the User Interface......................................................................... 96
Step 3: Customizing Menus and Control Attributes, and Associating
Controls with Event Handlers.................................................................................. 97
Step 4: Adding a Little Programming Logic....................................................... 100
Step 5: Testing the Execution of the Typo-matic Typing Test Game
Application.................................................................................................................. 104
Summary.............................................................................................................................. 105
Part II Learning How to Write AppleScripts..................107
Chapter 4 Working with Values, Variables, and Classes. 109
Project Preview: The Star Trek Trivia Game............................................................... 109
AppleScript—The Technology......................................................................................... 112
AppleScript—The Scripting Language.......................................................................... 112
Language Extensibility............................................................................................. 112
Language Features.................................................................................................... 113
Managing Data Using Variables..................................................................................... 116
Storing Values in Variables..................................................................................... 116
Retrieving Variable Values...................................................................................... 117
Naming Variables.............................................................................................................. 118
Case Sensitivity.......................................................................................................... 119
Undefined Variables................................................................................................. 120
Working with Different Variable Classes.................................................................... 121
The String Class......................................................................................................... 121
The Real Class............................................................................................................. 121
The Integer Class....................................................................................................... 121
The Date Class............................................................................................................ 122
The Boolean Class...................................................................................................... 124
Back to the Star Trek Trivia Game................................................................................ 124
Designing the Game................................................................................................. 124
Step 1: Creating a New Project............................................................................... 125
Step 2: Creating the User Interface....................................................................... 125
Step 3: Customizing Control Properties.............................................................. 128
Step 4: Adding a Little Programming Logic....................................................... 129
Step 5: Testing the Execution of the Star Trek Trivia Game.......................... 138
Application Code Review......................................................................................... 139
Summary.............................................................................................................................. 142
viii AppleScript Studio Programming for the Absolute Beginner
Chapter 5 Applying Conditional Logic and Building
Loops........................................................................ 145
Project Preview: The Guess a Number Game............................................................. 146
Implementing Conditional Logic.................................................................................. 149
The if Statement........................................................................................................ 149
The if…else Statement.............................................................................................. 150
The if…else if Statement.......................................................................................... 151
Nested if Statements................................................................................................ 152
Different Types of Comparisons.................................................................................... 153
Building Compound Tests............................................................................................... 154
Iterative Processing........................................................................................................... 155
Creating an Endless Loop........................................................................................ 156
Iterating a Set Number of Times........................................................................... 157
Looping While a Condition Proves true.............................................................. 157
Looping Until a Condition Proves false............................................................... 158
Controlling Loop Execution with a Counter...................................................... 159
Processing List Contents.......................................................................................... 159
Back to the Guess a Number Game............................................................................... 160
Step 1: Creating a New Project............................................................................... 160
Step 2: Creating the User Interface....................................................................... 161
Step 3: Customizing Control Properties.............................................................. 163
Step 4: Adding a Little Programming Logic....................................................... 165
Step 5: Testing the Execution of the Guess a Number Game........................ 171
Summary.............................................................................................................................. 171
Chapter 6 Working with Strings, Lists, and Records......... 173
Project Preview: Alexander’s Tall Tale......................................................................... 174
Manipulating Strings........................................................................................................ 176
Assigning Strings to Variables............................................................................... 176
Getting Information About a String.................................................................... 176
Concatenating Strings............................................................................................. 177
Controlling String Format...................................................................................... 177
Advanced Comparisons........................................................................................... 178
Working with Characters, Words, and Paragraphs......................................... 180
Defining and Accessing Lists.......................................................................................... 181
Working with Lists.................................................................................................... 181
Retrieving Elements from a List............................................................................ 182
Making Changes to Lists.......................................................................................... 183
Storing and Retrieving Data Using Records............................................................... 184
Creating and Accessing Records............................................................................ 184
Modifying Record Property Values....................................................................... 185
Working with a List of Records............................................................................. 185
Contents ix
Back to Alexander’s Tall Tale.......................................................................................... 186
Step 1: Creating a New Project............................................................................... 187
Step 2: Creating the User Interface....................................................................... 187
Step 3: Customizing Control Properties.............................................................. 188
Step 4: Adding a Little Program Code.................................................................. 191
Step 5: Testing the Execution of Alexander’s Tall Tale Game....................... 195
Summary.............................................................................................................................. 195
Chapter 7 Organizing Scripts with Handlers..................... 197
Project Preview: The Rock, Paper, Scissors Game...................................................... 198
Working with Event Handlers....................................................................................... 200
Creating Custom Event Handlers......................................................................... 201
Defining and Calling Handlers.............................................................................. 201
Passing Arguments to Handlers............................................................................ 202
Returning a Result from an Event Handler....................................................... 204
Understanding Scope....................................................................................................... 205
Local Scope.................................................................................................................. 205
Global Scope............................................................................................................... 206
Back to the Rock, Paper, Scissors Game....................................................................... 208
Step 1: Creating a New Project............................................................................... 209
Step 2: Creating the User Interface....................................................................... 209
Step 3: Customizing Control Properties.............................................................. 211
Step 4: Adding a Little Programming Logic....................................................... 212
Step 5: Testing the Execution of the Rock, Paper, Scissors Game................ 220
Summary.............................................................................................................................. 221
Part III Advanced Topics.....................................................223
Chapter 8 Working with Files and Folders......................... 225
Project Preview: The Slot Machine Game.................................................................... 225
Mac and POSIX Paths........................................................................................................ 228
Full and Relative Paths..................................................................................................... 230
Establishing a File Reference.......................................................................................... 231
Working with Text Files................................................................................................... 233
Accessing Files and Folders..................................................................................... 233
Reading from and Writing to Files....................................................................... 234
Creating Small Database Files........................................................................................ 238
Creating and Saving the Database File................................................................ 238
Retrieving and Accessing Database Records...................................................... 239
Back to the Slot Machine Game..................................................................................... 242
Step 1: Creating a New Project............................................................................... 243