Language Guide

CHAPTER 1
AppleScript, Scripts, and Scriptable Applications
What Can You Do With Scripts? 5
The script shown at the bottom of Figure 1-1 is written in AppleScript English,
which is a dialect of the AppleScript scripting language that resembles English.
This guide describes AppleScript English and how you can use it to write
scripts. Other dialects, such as AppleScript Japanese and AppleScript French,
are designed to resemble other human languages. Still others, such as the
Programmer’s Dialect, resemble other programming languages. For informa-
tion about dialects other than AppleScript English, see the guide for the dialect
you want to use. For information about installing dialects, see Getting Started
With AppleScript.
All AppleScript dialects share many features with other scripting, programming,
and macro languages. If you’ve used any of these languages, you’ll find
AppleScript dialects very easy to learn and use.
AppleScript comes with an application called Script Editor that you can use to
create and modify scripts. You can also use Script Editor to translate scripts
from one AppleScript dialect to another.
What Can You Do With Scripts? 1
AppleScript lets you automate, integrate, and customize applications. The
following sections provide examples.
Automating Activities 1
Scripts make it easy to perform repetitive tasks. For example, if you want
to change the style of the word “AppleScript” to bold throughout a document
named Introduction, you can write a script that does the job instead of
searching for each occurrence of the word, selecting it, and changing it from
the Style menu.
Figure 1-2 shows the script and what happens when you run it.