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Script debugger11/5/2023 ![]() Other improvements bring Script Debugger into the modern Leopard world: Unicode literal strings are legal, limitations on script length are removed, and Quick Look and Spotlight are supported. The drudgery relief is palpable all over the AppleScript world. And my absolute favorite: Type the start of an AppleScript block (like a “repeat” or a “tell”) Script Debugger can enter the corresponding block closing for you (“end repeat”, “end tell”). Type an opening delimiter (like a left parenthesis) Script Debugger can close it (withĪ right parenthesis). Type a user-defined abbreviation Script Debugger will expand it (so that typing just “dd”, for example, could enter an entire “display dialog” command with all the trimmings). Start to type an AppleScript term Script Debugger can complete it. Even better, Script Debugger uses its internal knowledge of AppleScript language syntax to make text entry far more convenient. The editing window can be split horizontally and vertically, the code block structure can be highlighted, find-and-replace can use regular expressions, and menu item shortcuts can be customized. ![]() Overall, users will experience Script Debugger 4.5 as a vastly more sophisticated editor. Also, Script Debugger is now much more canny about that perpetual bugbear of AppleScript on Mac OS X, the annoying tendency of applications to launch when their scripting dictionary is accessed in several situations it warns when this might happen, and can even prevent it. ![]() This permits automation and enables some new debugging techniques. What’s new in Script Debugger 4.5? Most profound is that Script Debugger itself is now once again scriptable (having lost its scriptability in the trauma of being rewritten as a Cocoa application in version 4.0, owing to the shortcomings of Cocoa’s own scriptability implementation). Graphically, that iTunes currently has such a thing as “album of file track 2 of browser window 1’s view” armed with that kind of knowledge, you can easily start scripting. It also helps solve the perennial headache of scripters everywhere, learning what aspects of a scriptable application are scriptable, by exposing the application’s “object model” in real time before you’ve written a single line of code. In an amazing feat of technical magic, Script Debugger instruments AppleScript so as to make it debuggable, letting you set breakpoints and step through your script one line at a time, watching the values change. For the last few months I’ve been assisting Mark Alldritt, veteran programming wizard and AppleScript master extraordinaire, with the documentation and development of the new version of Script Debugger, the flagship application of his Late Night Software.Īs a Late Night employee, I can’t praise Script Debugger 4.5 without risking a conflict of interest, but it’s fine for me to tell you what it does and why I use it (and in any case my opinion is already a matter of public record). A couple of years ago, my TidBITS contributions fell off temporarily while I worked flat out on some projects connected with AppleScript (“ Notes From the AppleScript World,” ). 1675: Apple “Wonderlust” event, OS security updates, Apple CSAM pullback, Mozilla car privacy report, iPhone weather apps, bike tour iPhone photos, do you use the iPhone 14 Pro Always-On display?Īs is so often the case in the cyclic world of software development, history repeats itself, but (despite Marx’s dictum) it’s better the second time.1676: OS dates, iPhone 15 lineup, Apple Watch Series 9 & Ultra 2, USB-C AirPods Pro, USB-C cable advice, more from Wonderlust.1677: iOS 17.0.2 for iPhone 15, OS security updates, new AirPods features, restore Slack sidebar, Orion HDMI display app, Apple carbon neutrality reactions.1678: macOS 14 Sonoma available, two portable laptop stands, iPhone Always-On display poll results, which Web browsers do you use?. ![]() #1679: iOS 17’s Check In, iOS 17.03 addresses overheating, Mac browser popularity, Arc adds AI features, do you use Finder tags?.
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