programming-for-dummies

76
Scripting Languages
Customizing a program
Besides letting you automate a program, scripting languages also let you
customize a program, which can make the program easier. For example, you
might have a spreadsheet that calculates your company’s invoices. However,
to use this spreadsheet, you need to know the specific place in the spreadsheet
to type new invoice information. Type this information in the wrong
place, and the spreadsheet doesn’t work right.
To avoid this problem, you can write a program in a scripting language that
can display a window with boxes to type in new invoice information. Then
the scripting language program automatically plugs that new information in
the correct place in the spreadsheet every time.
For even more power, a scripting language can combine automation with
customization to make programs perform tasks on their own. If you use the
Mac OS X operating system, you can use its built-in scripting language —
AppleScript — to control your Macintosh.
For example, you can write an AppleScript program that tells your computer
to download files over the Internet at a specific time each day, move files from
one folder to another while renaming those files in the process, or retrieve
waiting e-mail messages and sort them into categories. Figure 3-7 shows an
AppleScript program that can retrieve stock quotes off the Internet.
Figure 3-7:
AppleScript
lets you
customize
and
automate
the Mac OS
X operating
system.