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Scripts in OSX?
Posted by Rod in Apple at 7:47 pm on Sunday, 23 March 2008

Does anyone know much about scripts in OSX? I’ve seen a scripts icon in most of my apps but never really looked at it.

I’ve been using Mars Edit and was a bit surprised there is not a WYSISYG editor. Rather you use Markup to insert html codes and check in preview (let me know if I’m missing something).

In the Markup codes there are no list tags to I googled and found a list script and installed it. Low and behold I now have a scrip that adds list tags in Mars Edit.

So I think scripts are a standard way to extend any OSX program. Is that right?

What other scripts do you recommend?

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Comments(2)

    Comment by Miraz Jordan at 4:40 pm on 24 March 2008

    Applescript is an excellent way to extend many Mac programs. I have some information about Applescript in a short series of MacTips, of which this is the last:

    http://mactips.info/tips/2005/10/applescript-103

    There are thousands of scripts available that others have created, or you can write your own (warning: can be frustrating and head breaking and also exciting and addictive).

    http://mactips.info/blog/2008/02/newbies-guide-to-applescript

    I use a great many scripts with BBEdit, to help create HTML, and often in combination with Mars Edit:

    http://mactips.info/blog/2008/02/marsedit-21-search-tags-drafts-on-the-server-and-a-great-developer

    Text Expander is another fantastic utility - it has a whole lot of HTML expansions available in a free (maybe default) file:

    http://mactips.info/blog/2007/10/textexpander-20-brings-snippet-groups-applescript-hotkeys

    And BTW: you can edit the tags that Mars Edit has available: create a new post, click on the Markup dropdown and scroll all the way to the bottom for the Edit link. I have many snippets of text and links etc I often use stored as ‘tags’.

    iTunes is one bit of software for which there are thousands of scripts available:

    http://dougscripts.com/itunes/




    Comment by Matt Cooney at 8:12 pm on 24 March 2008

    That sounds like AppleScript: http://www.apple.com/applescript/

    There are lots of script repositories … including this one for iTunes: http://dougscripts.com/itunes/