This is from an email correspondence I had with the Engineering Manager of Automator at Apple in September of 2004:
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There have been some discussions about the various ways to interact with
Applescript on the Revolution listserv. Since Automator is a high-level
interface for Applescript, I wanted to find out if the applescript it generates
is actually available? That is, is the actual applescript code viewable and
accessible?
This is inaccurate. Automator could be described as a high-level interface for scripting or automation, but it's not tied to AppleScript.
Automator does not generate an AppleScript to represent the entire workflow. Each action is a separate bundle executed independently by the Automator engine.
Is the actual applescript code viewable and accessible?
An individual action may be backed by an AppleScript (many use no AppleScript at all), but the way we are planning to ship them, a customer wouldn't have access to the script. It is a compiled script with the script source removed.
This would allow a script-savvy application to execute the script, but not view it, so it would be accessible, but not viewable. But without the surrounding infrastructure of the action bundle, the script alone might not help you too much. You'd have to reimplement what's in the surrounding bundle.
Since Revolution can execute applescript directly, it seems that the combination
of Revolution and Automator could be very powerful. Build inter-application
processes with Automator and include these in a more robust Revolution
application.
This is doable, but it has little to do with AppleScript. Revolution would need to learn how to load and execute action bundles, which is easy to do using Cocoa.
Thanks for the clarification, Howard.
If they're not using compiled AppleScript for these "action bundles", it looks like yet another OS X-only API to support. Too bad, as making AppleScript dictionaries is already well adopted.
On the bright side, with their increased adoption for OS X it probably has as much as 1.8% of the global desktop market by now. For Tiger we may see a whopping 1.6% adoption in less than a year -- woo hoo! ;)
When will the industry grow up to create a universal platform-independent application interoperability standard?
Maybe that'll happen the day after the various Linux window managers get together and create a common standard mechanism for app installation essentials (icon, Start menu shortcuts, file associations).
Hey, I can dream can't I? :)
-- Richard Gaskin Fourth World Media Corporation __________________________________________________ Rev tools and more: http://www.fourthworld.com/rev
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