Customer Reviews

AppleScript Studio Programming for the Absolute Beginner

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The book has too many errors and is poorly edited. Some of the errors are minor. For example, pg 26 step 5 says to quit the Interface Builder and save when prompted. The very next step says to select the button control and click Show Inspector... hmm, can't do that if the Interface Builder is closed. There are several instances of these kind of errors sprinkled throughout, and I'm only on pg 57 (of 363.)

Which brings me to my next problem. The second project is creating the Fortune Teller app. I've stopped at pg 57 because I can't get the app to run. The code is typed in exactly as in the book and it gives me an error when I build and run it. I'm running OS X 10.4, same as the author. No problem I thought, I'll just go to the web site and see if there are any corrections. Appendix A is called "What's on the companion web site?" and describes the code examples in the book. That's great, but they neglected to print the url to get to the site. I searched for 10 mins looking for it and found it in small print on the back of the book [...].

Now for the inexcusable part. I found the web page for this book with the download link to the code samples. The link shows as "33031_AppleScript_Source.ZIP". However, the link is really pointing to "33031_AppleScript_Source.exe". An executable? Well, not really because when I downloaded it, Get Info shows it as a document. I can't even open this document. I tried changing the extension to .zip but that didn't work. I also tried .gz and some other popular compression extensions but nothing works.

It's a shame. This book has the potential to be a great introduction to Applescripting and building apps that interact and leverage the power of other apps on your system. As it stands, I think absolute beginners, the target audience for this book, would quickly become frustrated and give up.

This book is a wonderful idea, but unfortunately, it's a total disaster. Here's why:

1) The book is poorly edited and a vast majority of the examples provided in it simply don't work.

2) The book claims that there's a companion website, but they don't tell you where it is.

3) After searching the web, I finally found on the company's website an MS Windows-only executable file, which contains the book's examples. Unfortunately, Mac users cannot open "Microsoft" programs, making the example files worthless.

As I said, this book is a good idea, but they did a terrible job producing it. This is definitely a DON'T BUY ITEM...

Someone needs to write a book on Applescript Studio. This sure isn't it. 95% of it is on Applescript ONLY. This was supposed to on Applescript Studio, remember? I suspect the Studio part was left out because the author doesn't really know it very well. What few items look at Applescript Studio, and they are very few, are screen shots of menus, etc. This book was a big disappointment! I would buy a real Applescript Studio book in a heartbeat. Hopefully there is someone capable and willing to write it.

Very, very, poor.

I gave this book five stars because it deserves it. The other reviews are from folks who still don't know their
programming environment. The book is also the only one available that is contemporary enough to incorporate Tiger utilities. The VTC training course (you can view examples online) is excellent but outdated--the instructor
still uses Project Builder instead of XCode.
I think this is an excellent beginners book in that the author uses "fun" applications, which can be of psychologicl help for those who have never programmed.
I have a degree in Computer Science with a focus on Unix System Administration. I've read ALOT of technical books and know how hard it is to convey subjects such as programming to the novice.
In my estimation this guy has done a great starter book.

AppleScript has been growing in popularity since its introduction a dozen or so years ago. Down through the years it has been expanded and developed to a higher level. With the release of OS X, it has dramatically increased its utility, power and ease of use. Now bundled under the general name AppleScript Studio, it is included with OS X after version 10.1.2.

Basically AppleScript is an English language like programming language that continues the Apple tradition of making their computers easy to use. It is a fast to learn, fast to write language.

This book follows the same concepts, it begins with a simple application (a Knock-Knock joke), goes into the editing system, and from there into the standard programming rules: variables, conditional logic, loops, strings, building a GUI and so on. (Yes, I know AppleScript is a scripting language that doesn't do GUIs. But Cocoa is supplied almost as a part of AppleScript, and Cocoa does do GUIs.)

This is an excellent beginners book to learn programming the Apple way.