Applescript Resources for Mac OS X

A couple of people who have read the tutorials have asked me about other Applescript and Automator resources, this list should give you a start. If anyone knows of resources that could be added please get in touch.

Podcasts

Applescript Introduction
Mac Automation Made Simple
Learn Automator
iScript Netcast
Automator.US
Developing Applescript Applications (Under MacOSX 10.6)

Videos

Websites

Tools

Whilst you can store the scripts anywhere an alternative is to “Show Script menu in the menu bar” which is available from the Applescript Editor preferences as shown below. You can then activate scripts from a drop down menu on the right-hand side of the main top menu bar.

appprefs

SMILE is a programming and working environment that you may want to use in a variety of situations. You may want to perform a scientific work, to handle cgi requests, to automate an intensive file processing task, to produce computed graphics, to edit XML files, to work with Unicode texts, to make GUI of your scripts, etc.
Script Debugger and advanced script editor
Platypus a developer tool for the Mac OS X operating system. It can be used to create native, flawlessly integrated Mac OS X applications from interpreted scripts such as shell scripts or Perl and Python programs. This is done by wrapping the script in an application bundle directory structure along with an executable binary that runs the script.
UI Browser assistant for Apple's AppleScript GUI Scripting and Accessibility technologies. It helps you to explore, manipulate, and monitor the User Interface elements of most Mac OS X applications running on your computer.
Shane's ASObjC Utilities 0.9 This is a class that you can use as a superclass, and it lets you easily do things like convert between AS dates and NSDates, convert aliases/files to NSURLs, convert NSURLs to HFS paths, make AS dates from strings, and a couple of other things. There are also categories that let you get and set AS dates in date pickers, and use HFS paths with path controls.
Myriad Helpers a collection of Objective-C files that simplify some of the coding involved in AppleScriptObjC.
AppleScriptObjC Explorer is a script editor that takes advantage of AppleScript's ability to call Cocoa methods in OS X 10.6 and later. This is a very useful application for testing and debugging bits of code given the paucity of tools provided by Apple. AppleScriptObjC applications are normally written in Xcode, and testing involves repeated building and running of the application. There are no debugging tools, apart from basic logging to the console. AppleScriptObjC Explorer makes building and testing AppleScriptObjC code simpler in two main ways: You can test bits of code without having to use Xcode, and without having to rebuild and run your whole application after every change. You can log what's happening. The logging is not as detailed as normal AppleScript logging, but it's much better than that normally provided in Xcode's console.
ASObjC Runner is a scriptable faceless background helper application. It has a dictionary with a range of commands focused on the areas where vanilla AppleScript comes up short. You use it like a scripting addition, except you address the commands to the application. It provides better string handling (e.g. change case, encoding URL’s, regular expression, formatting dates), list sorting and filtering, improved file handling and progress dialog boxes.
KosmicTask is an integrated scripting environment for Mac OS X which supports a wide variety of scripting languages.
EventScripts is a simple application for triggering AppleScripts or shell scripts whenever certain events occur

Useful Scripts

AppleScriptHTML 2.4 : Turn AppleScript code into clean HTML
AppleScript Library : A collection of invaluable scripts and routines

Books (links to Amazon etc.)

There is also a video training course Apple Mailing Lists --------------------------

Updated 16 October 2012

Macs in Chemistry