AppleScript: The Missing Manual

From newspapers to NASA, Mac users around the world use AppleScript to automate their daily computing routines. Famed for its similarity to English and its ease of integration with other programs, AppleScript is the perfect programming language for time-squeezed Mac fans. As beginners quickly realize, however, AppleScript has one major shortcoming: it comes without a manual.

No more. You don't need a degree in computer science, a fancy system administrator title, or even a pocket protector and pair of nerdy glasses to learn the Mac's most popular scripting language; you just need the proper guide at your side. AppleScript: The Missing Manual is that guide.

Brilliantly compiled by author Adam Goldstein, AppleScript: The Missing Manual is brimming with useful examples. You'll learn how to clean up your Desktop with a single click, for example, and how to automatically optimize pictures for a website. Along the way, you ll learn the overall grammar of AppleScript, so you can write your own customized scripts when you feel the need.

Naturally, AppleScript: The Missing Manual isn't merely for the uninitiated scripter. While its hands-on approach certainly keeps novices from feeling intimidated, this comprehensive guide is also suited for system administrators, web and graphics professionals, musicians, scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and others who need to learn the ins and outs of AppleScript for their daily work.

Thanks to AppleScript: The Missing Manual, the path from consumer to seasoned script has never been clearer. Now you, too, can automate your Macintosh in no time.

Written for the average Mac OS X user, this guide explains how to use the AppleScript language for automating common tasks, such as controlling files, creating lists, organizing a photo library, and playing music. The 16-year-old author also discusses linking scripts to folders, scripting programs that don't have dictionaries, mixing AppleScript and Unix, and debugging scripts. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Adam Goldstein got his programming start in Kindergarten, when he first played around with Logo on an old Apple II. Through middle school, Adam wrote useless but amusing HyperCard programs. Nowadays, he runs GoldfishSoft, a shareware company that makes games and utilities for Mac OS X. Adam was a technical editor for O'Reilly's best-selling Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, and an editor for Mac OS X Panther Power User. When he's not writing books or code, Adam attends MIT.