Tag Archives: Applescript

Part Two of a short tutorial on how AppleScript can streamline your work, make you more productive, and save you time! This lesson focuses on how to plan a new script and prepare to write it!

Click Here To Read Part One of “Learn To Speak AppleScript”


To recap the end of Part One, your goal will be to build a script that will save your emails as text files. The actual programming will be covered in Part Three and, when we get there, I’ll try to stay more “conceptual”.

My goal will be to give you a feel for how an AppleScript does its job — but still include enough real-life code to keep it interesting for more experienced scripters (or for people who came here from a search engine looking for a bit of code to get their scripts up and running!)

But, if you are a beginner, don’t let those computer code snippets intimidate you! They are included primarily so that you can see what a real-life Script looks like and not with any expectation that you master the intricacies of the AppleScript language.

After all, this is really an exercise in teaching you the fundamentals of thinking and speaking AppleScript. In other words, this is going to be more like an English class in literature where we talk about books and what they mean — and not a grammar lesson.

In fact, that metaphor is actually a pretty good way to get started!
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Tech Links for Tuesday, March 2, 2010
  • Two Cool AppleScripts

    I recently became aware of a project on the Broken City Lab website that used one of my AppleScripts as a reference: This post about Using AppleScript With Arduino, LCDs, and PHP documents Justin Langlois’s efforts to use AppleScript to drive an external hardware project. Not only do we share the same first name but, since his last name is the same as my Canadian grandfather’s, it has set me off on a wild theory about having a distant AppleScripting cousin north of the border.

    And in another weird confluence, I discovered yet other AppleScripting Justin (how many of us are there, anyways?) — Justin Blanton. He recently served up this cool bit of code on his site: An AppleScript-driven “kitchen timer” that works with Launchbar. Some of his use-case examples are:

    • Remembering to leave in 10 minutes to pick up the takeout order I just made.
    • Remembering to get the coffee out of the french press in four minutes.
    • Remembering to call someone back in 20 minutes.
    • Remembering to take the pizza out of the oven in 15 minutes (when I’m not within earshot of the oven alarm).

    Looks pretty handy…. well done!
    (Via Broken City Lab and justinblanton.com )

  • www.macheist.com MacHeist ~ Stay tuned…
    After a brief delay, the latest MacHeist nanoBundle 2 is live and there’s lots of goodies to be had: MacJournal, RipIt, Clips, CoverScout, Flow, RapidWeaver, and (after 50,000 bundles are sold) Tales of Monkey Island….All for $20! That’s over $240 off of the total list prices and, even better, 25% of your purchase goes to charity!
    (Via www.macheist.com )
  • SCOTTEVEST – Travel Clothing
    In case you’ve never heard of Scottevest, they’re the Idaho-based purveyors of tech-friendly Travelwear. During their 40% Off Sale last week, I picked up a couple of jackets (for an upcoming review and “Travel Tech” series) which arrived today. I thought I’d try the Quantum Jacket while running errands here in chilly NYC today and, I have to say, I’m impressed. Combined with my also-newly-purchased Tavo Gloves (which let you operate your iPhone without suffering frostbitten fingers), I was well-equipped to withstand a Category 5 Geek-alanche!1 — or at least to win a few Nerd Merit Badges!
    (Via www.scottevest.com )
  • Petition to make “Hella” the prefix for 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 – Boing Boing
    C’mon — the California Academy of Science totally has to be behind this effort, right? (Wassup Kevin!)
    (Via www.boingboing.net )
  • Schneier on Security: More on the Al-Mabhouh Assassination
    Bruce Schneier is like a bearded, truth-seeking missile — here he is, deconstructing some recent events you may have heard about in Dubai:

    The truth is that Mr. Mabhouh’s assassination was conducted according to the book — a military operation in which the environment is completely controlled by the assassins. At least 25 people are needed to carry off something like this. You need “eyes on” the target 24 hours a day to ensure that when the time comes he is alone. You need coverage of the police — assassinations go very wrong when the police stumble into the middle of one. You need coverage of the hotel security staff, the maids, the outside of the hotel. You even need people in back-up accommodations in the event the team needs a place to hide.

    (Via www.schneier.com )

  1. Yes, I realize that I am mixing a couple of weather-related things together in an awkward, unfortunate way [↩]

Part One of a short tutorial on how AppleScript can streamline your work, make you more productive, and save you time!


Here’s something for both new and experienced Mac users — Part One of a short tutorial on how AppleScript can streamline your work, make you more productive, and save you time!

What Exactly is AppleScript?

AppleScript is an English-like language used to write programs that control applications on your computer. The “English-like” part is important — it means that you don’t need to have a computer science degree to use it.

Simply put, it’s programming for regular people who want to get things done faster.


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