AppleScript for Weblogs: Once upon a time there was Manila Express. It was the tool that drove my early weblogging experience. Once installed, (more . . .)

Stickies Express: There's a script that's been reproduced many times around the net. I found it at Studio Log as part of (more . . .)

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My personal website is at ODBlog . I write about decision theory at my site On Deciding . . . Better . This site is a hyperlinked set of essays using Tinderbox.

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AppleScript has to be fully installed properly. On my OS X Panther install, that took two steps.

First, the Applescript menu needs to be enabled. Inside the "Applescript" folder (which is in the "Applications" folder, you'll find the "Install Script Menu" script. Run it and the script menu will be added to the left hand side of the menu bar, available in all applications. You'll see the Example Scripts that are in the AppleScript folder. These can be hidden with a command in the Script Menu.

Second, you need to turn on the ability to script the GUI. You do this by checking "Enable access for assistive devices" in the "Universal Access" pane of System Preferences.Even core applications like Safari can't be fully scripted, so you need to control them through making choices in the graphical user interface. In the Bloggers Express script, we'll end up needing to use the GUI menu to activate the Copy command.

Now its easy enough to open the Scripting Editor. Scripts from the web can be pasted into the window and saved in the Users' Script folder (found in the Library folder).

Next, I found a solid starting example, Stickies Express, for Bloggers Express.

Copyright 2003 by James J. Vornov