Frontier: The Definitive Guide (Paperback)

by Matt Neuburg (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
This definitive guide is the first book devoted exclusively to teaching and documenting Userland Frontier, a powerful scripting environment for Web site management and system level scripting. Packed with examples, advice, tricks, and tips, Frontier: The Definitive Guide teaches you Frontier from the ground up. Learn how to automate repetitive processes, control remote computers across a network, beef up your Web site by generating hundreds of related Web pages automatically, and more. Whether you're a complete Frontier beginner or an experienced hand in need of a clear, ordered reference, you'll find what you need to make the most of Frontier. Even if you've never programmed before, you'll be cranking out Web pages or writing your own custom scripts in no time, joining the ranks of thousands of Macintosh power users who make Frontier their "home base." (Covers Frontier 4.2.3 for the Macintosh.) This book covers Frontier's:

• Simple but sophisticated multithreaded scripting language (UserTalk) and its elegant debugging environment
• Integrated database with instant access to data, text, outlines, and tables
• Totally automated environment, where scripts can create dialogs, open windows, edit text, alter menus
• Ability to hook into the system and to read and write files, open documents, and read the clipboard
• Capacity for sending and receiving Apple events, so it can drive any scriptable application and be integrated into other scripting applications
• Network capability to function as a client or server over AppleTalk or the Internet

About the Author
Matt Neuburg started programming computers in 1968, when he was 14 years old, as a member of a literally underground high school club that met once a week to do timesharing on a bank of PDP-10s by way of primitive teletype machines. He also occasionally used Princeton University's IBM-360/67, but gave it up in frustration when one day he dropped his punch cards. He majored in Greek at Swarthmore College, and received his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1981, writing his doctoral dissertation (about Aeschylus) on a mainframe. He proceeded to teach classical languages, literature, and culture at many well-known institutions of higher learning and to publish numerous scholarly articles unlikely to interest anyone. Meanwhile, he obtained an Apple IIc and became hopelessly hooked on computers again, migrating to a Macintosh in 1990. He wrote some educational and utility freeware, became an early regular contributor to the online journal TidBITS, and in 1995 left academe to edit MacTech Magazine. In August 1996 he became a freelancer.

Product Details

• Paperback: 616 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly; 1 edition (March 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565923839
• ISBN-13: 978-1565923836
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,458,544 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent guide to Frontier scripting, November 3, 1999

By	Jeff Montgomery (Amherst, NY) - See all my reviews

This book is so useful on a daily basis that I finally purchased a second copy so that I wouldn't have to lug it back and forth between home and work. It takes second place only to my O'Reilly "Java In A Nutshell" as the most beat-up book I own.

It covers Frontier only up to version 4, but all of the material is still very relevant; notably, the language syntax is still the same and almost all of the operators and scripts remain as they are described in this book.

The layout of the book is extremely clear, it has an excellent operator list/reference in the back, and Matt does a good job of distilling his personal experience in such a way as to help you avoid common pitfalls.

It is an indespensable reference if you do Frontier scripting. Excellent!

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Readable, instructive, a great book about a great tool, February 1, 1999

By A Customer

For anybody interested in the flexible and powerful content-management/web design/scripting environment called "Frontier", this book is a must read.

Not only is this book an invaluable resource of "scripting wisdom", Neuburg also qualifies as a teacher in the best sense of the world: No matter where on the "learning curve" you start, he takes you by the hand and enables you to the next steps with this wonderful tool by yourself. A rare achievement in the world of software documentation.

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Useful reference for users of Radio, February 21, 2005

By	David R. Downes (Washington DC) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is useful for those such as I who use intermediate/advanced features of the Radio Userland software, which is written in UserTalk, the language of Frontier. Radio is a great program: you can use its basic features with only basic computer knowledge, but if you are willing to work at it, the program offers tremendous flexibility and user control. This book gives a lot of basic information about the UserTalk language and how it is incorporated into Frontier, and much of this information is relevant for Radio, such as the identity of operators, basic syntax and many of the 'verbs' that carry out basic functions in both Radio and Manila. Unfortunately, it omits some aspects that were added later on, such as the xml and rss verbs, simply because it was published in 1998 and not revised since then.