NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Applescript

AppleScript is a scripting language devised by Apple, Inc., and built into Mac OS. More generally, AppleScript is the word used to designate the Mac OS scripting interface, which is meant to operate in parallel with the graphical user interface. Image File history File links AppleScript_Editor. ... Software development is the translation of a user need or marketing goal into a software product. ... It has been suggested that this article be split into multiple articles accessible from a disambiguation page. ... A software release refers to the creation and availability of a new version of a computer software product. ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ... June 30 is the 181st day of the year (182nd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 184 days remaining. ... An operating system (OS) is a computer program that manages the hardware and software resources of a computer. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Mac OS X (official IPA pronunciation: ) is a line of proprietary, graphical operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. ... Sherlock 2 for Mac OS 9 with the new metallic appearance Mac OS 9, introduced by Apple Computer on 1999-10-23, is the last version of the Classic Macintosh Operating System (Mac OS) released before being succeeded by Mac OS X. Upon introduction, Mac OS 9 was advertised as... Scripting languages (commonly called scripting programming languages or script languages) are computer programming languages that are typically interpreted and can be typed directly from a keyboard. ... A software license is a legal agreement which may take the form of a proprietary or gratuitous license as well as a memorandum of contract between a producer and a user of computer software. ... A software license is a type of proprietary or gratiuitious license as well as a memorandum of contract between a producer and a user of computer software — sometimes called an End User License Agreement (EULA) — that specifies the perimeters of the permission granted by the owner to the... The Apple Public Source License is the open source license under which Apple Computers Darwin Project was released. ... A website (or Web site) is a collection of web pages, typically common to a particular domain name or subdomain on the World Wide Web on the Internet. ... Scripting languages (commonly called scripting programming languages or script languages) are computer programming languages that are typically interpreted and can be typed directly from a keyboard. ... Apple Inc. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... A graphical user interface (or GUI, often pronounced gooey), is a particular case of user interface for interacting with a computer which employs graphical images and widgets in addition to text to represent the information and actions available to the user. ...

History

The AppleScript project was an outgrowth of the HyperCard project. HyperCard had an English language-based scripting language called HyperTalk, which could be used for embedding logic and behavior into a HyperCard stack. Apple engineers recognized that a similar scripting language could be designed to be used with any application, and the AppleScript project was born. The Mac OS required extensive upgrades to implement AppleScript. (See below for details). Much of the underlying technology changes were made as part of the massive System 7 release, notably the Apple events concept. AppleScript was vying for developer attention along with many other new technologies introduced at the same time (balloon help, publish and subscribe, etc.). For some applications, AppleScript was among the most difficult of the System 7 technologies to implement, requiring a re-write of major portions of the "low level" code in an application. Apple's own application framework, MacApp, did not directly support Apple events for some time. HyperCard HyperCard is an application program and a simple programming environment produced by Apple Computer which runs natively only in Mac OS versions 9 or earlier (it can still be used in Mac OS Xs Classic mode). ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... HyperTalk is a high-level programming language created in 1987 by Dan Winkler and used in conjunction with Apple Computers HyperCard hypermedia program by Bill Atkinson. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... System 7 (codenamed Big Bang) was a version of Mac OS, the operating system of the Apple Macintosh computer. ... Apple Events are the canonical high-level interprocess communication mechanism in Mac OS, first appearing in System 7 and supported by every version since then, including Mac OS X. The starting point is a dynamically-typed, extensible descriptor format called an AEDesc, which is just an OSType code specifying the... Balloon help was a tooltips-type help system introduced by Apple Computer in their System 7 operating system release. ... Publish and Subscribe was a document linking model introduced by Apple Computer in System 7. ... MacApp was Apple Computers primary object oriented application framework for the Mac OS for much of the 1990s. ...

AppleScript was released in October 1993 as part of System 7.1.1 (System 7 Pro, the first major upgrade to System 7). QuarkXPress (ver. 3.2) was one of the first major software applications that supported AppleScript, and as a result, AppleScript was widely adopted within the publishing segment of the Apple market. It is arguable that the main reason that the Mac remained a powerhouse in the publishing market after Quark (and other applications) were ported to Microsoft Windows, was that Mac users could automate complex workflows. System 7 (codenamed Big Bang) was a version of Mac OS, the operating system of the Apple Macintosh computer. ... QuarkXPress is a page layout application for Mac OS X and Windows, produced by Quark, Inc. ... Microsoft Windows is the name of several families of proprietary software operating systems by Microsoft. ...

The move to Mac OS X and its Cocoa frameworks has seen AppleScript come into its own. Cocoa applications offer basic scriptability with no effort on the part of the developer, and are "well-scriptable" for the cost of writing a text file. AppleScript Studio, released with Mac OS X v10.2, allows users to build entire applications using AppleScript and Cocoa objects. Mac OS X (official IPA pronunciation: ) is a line of proprietary, graphical operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. ... A Cocoa application being developed using Xcode. ... AppleScript is a scripting language devised by Apple Computer, and built into Mac OS. More generally, AppleScript is the word used to designate the Mac OS scripting interface, which is meant to operate in parallel with the graphical user interface. ... Mac OS X version 10. ...

Basic concepts

AppleScript was designed to be used primarily as a scripting language, offering users an intelligent mechanism to control and exchange information with various applications.

Prior to System 7, the Mac OS application runtime had only a rudimentary event model that could specify a small and fixed number of low-level events such as "key was pressed" or "mouse was clicked". Each application was responsible for decoding these low-level events into meaningful high-level user actions, such as "choose cut from the Edit menu". In many cases, the code for reading the event and decoding it was mixed together; for instance, the code handling a mouse click might decode it to selecting the Quit item from the File menu, and then quit the application immediately. System 7 (codenamed Big Bang) was a version of Mac OS, the operating system of the Apple Macintosh computer. ... The event model is a programming paradigm commonly used in building graphical user interfaces. ...

Adding AppleScript support required the author to fully separate this decoding from carrying out the command, a task Apple referred to as factoring (...the application). Application developers were encouraged to write two complete event handling "stacks", one for handling the low-level events (clicks, etc.), and another for high-level events (AppleEvents). The actual work code that handled these commands, once decoded, was to be completely separated and called identically from both stacks. Refactoring is the process of rewriting a computer program or other material to improve its structure or readability, while explicitly keeping its meaning or behavior. ...

AppleScript in Mac OS X

In Mac OS X AppleScript is simpler for developers to implement, particularly for those applications being developed in Cocoa. Unlike the Mac OS where events are handled by the applications, under Cocoa, events are decoded into a "high level" command by the NSApplication object, and the messages dispatched directly to the correct object. That is, all Cocoa applications are "factored" by default; the developer doesn't write any of the event handling code (normally) and writes only the "work methods" that those events will call. Mac OS X (official IPA pronunciation: ) is a line of proprietary, graphical operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. ... A Cocoa application being developed using Xcode. ...

Another major advantage is that Cocoa objects are presented to the outside world (other applications and even machines) in a standardized format that anyone can examine directly. Under Cocoa AppleScript is much "thinner"; the script engine decodes the script, translates object names from human-readable to their internal format, and then calls those methods on the target application directly.

The natural language metaphor

Whereas Apple Events are a way to send messages into applications, AppleScript is a particular language designed to send Apple Events. In keeping with the Mac OS tradition of ease-of-use, the AppleScript language is designed on the natural language metaphor, just as the graphical user interface is designed on the desktop metaphor. AppleScript programs are generally readable by anyone, and editable by most. The language is based largely on HyperCard's HyperTalk language, extended to refer not only to the HyperCard world of cards and stacks, but also theoretically to any document. To this end, the AppleScript team introduced the AppleEvent Object Model (AEOM), which specified the objects any particular application "knew". The term natural language is used to distinguish languages spoken and signed (by hand signals and facial expressions) by humans for general-purpose communication from constructs such as writing, computer-programming languages or the languages used in the study of formal logic, especially mathematical logic. ... Look up metaphor in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... A graphical user interface (or GUI, often pronounced gooey), is a particular case of user interface for interacting with a computer which employs graphical images and widgets in addition to text to represent the information and actions available to the user. ... The AppleEvent Object Model (AEOM) was a set of protocols built on top of AppleEvents by which applications running under Mac OS could control each others functions. ...

Generally, AEOM defined a number of objects, like "document" or "paragraph", and the actions that could be done to them, like "cut" and "close". The system also defined ways to refer to properties of objects, so one could refer to the "third paragraph of the document 'Good Day'", or the "color of the last word of the front window". AEOM uses an application dictionary to associate the Apple Events with human-readable terms, allowing the translation back and forth between human-readable AppleScript and bytecode Apple Events. To discover what elements of a program are scriptable, dictionaries for supported applications may be viewed. (In the Xcode and Script Editor applications, this is under File → Open Dictionary.) Bytecode is a binary representation of an executable program designed to be executed by a virtual machine rather than by dedicated hardware. ... Xcode is Apple Computers IDE for developing applications and other software for Mac OS X. It is shipped free with Mac OS X. First introduced on October 24, 2003 along with the release of Mac OS X v10. ... Aside from their main developer tools Xcode and Interface Builder, Apple Computer also provide a number of other tools that aid software developers in creating applications for the Apple Macintosh platform. ...

To designate which application is meant to be the target of such a message, AppleScript uses a "tell block" construct:

Alternatively, the tell block may be expressed in one line by using an infinitive: In grammar, the infinitive is the form of a verb that has no inflection to indicate person, number, mood or tense. ...

Though for events in the "Core Suite" (activate, open, reopen, close, print, and quit), the application may be supplied as the direct object to transitive commands: The accusative case of a noun is, generally, the case used to mark the direct object of a verb. ...

The concept of an object hierarchy can be expressed using nested blocks: In strictly mathematical branches of computer science the term object is used in a purely mathematical sense to refer to any thing. While this interpretation is useful in the discussion of abstract theory, it is not concrete enough to serve as a primitive datatype in the discussion of more concrete... A hierarchy (in Greek: , it is derived from -hieros, sacred, and -arkho, rule) is a system of ranking and organizing things or people, where each element of the system (except for the top element) is subordinate to a single other element. ...

The concept of an object hierarchy can also be expressed using nested prepositional phrases: In strictly mathematical branches of computer science the term object is used in a purely mathematical sense to refer to any thing. While this interpretation is useful in the discussion of abstract theory, it is not concrete enough to serve as a primitive datatype in the discussion of more concrete... A hierarchy (in Greek: , it is derived from -hieros, sacred, and -arkho, rule) is a system of ranking and organizing things or people, where each element of the system (except for the top element) is subordinate to a single other element. ... A prepositional phrase (PP) is a linguistic term for a phrase whose head is a preposition. ...

which in another programming language might be expressed as sequential function calls: A programming language is an artificial language that can be used to control the behavior of a machine, particularly a computer. ... In computer science, a subroutine (function, method, procedure, or subprogram) is a portion of code within a larger program, which performs a specific task and is relatively independent of the remaining code. ...

Many applications do not store pointers directly into anything but the lowest level objects; for instance, a word processor almost certainly has an object that returns all of the characters in a document, but may not have objects representing pages, paragraphs or documents as a whole. Since the authors intended AppleScript to be added to existing applications without too much redesign, they also provided a second way to write accessors known as iterators. Using iterators requires the developer only to keep track of the current location of an object, and provide a method to find the "next one". For instance, paragraph objects could be supported with a single pointer to the current paragraph, and a method that finds the next one by looking for a return character. A word processor (also more formally known as a document preparation system) is a computer application used for the production (including composition, editing, formatting, and possibly printing) of any sort of viewable or printed material. ...

Note the similarities between the AEOM model and the considerably more recent DOM system used in XML. Both decompose a document into a hierarchy of objects, and offer the programmer a standardized iterative method to access the contents. Differences between the systems lie primarily in the user-level syntax, with AppleScript introducing a number of different ways to refer to any particular object. For instance, AppleScript includes syntax for ordinal counting, "the first paragraph", as well as cardinal, "paragraph one". Likewise, the numbers themselves can be referred to as text or numerically, "five", "fifth" and "5" are all supported, they are called synonyms. Also, to add to the English-likeness, the word "the" can be used anywhere in the script legally. Document Object Model (DOM) is a platform- and language-independent standard object model for representing HTML or XML and related formats. ... The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a W3C-recommended general-purpose markup language that supports a wide variety of applications. ...

AppleScript on its own

AppleScript need not depend on other applications. For very simple tasks, AppleScript can be used for self-contained applets. For instance, the script: An applet is a software component that runs in the context of another program, for example a web browser. ...

brings up a dialog box requesting a number of inches from the user. This number is then converted to pixels, assuming 72 pixels per inch. A second dialog box is then brought up displaying the result. Example of dialog box from Microsoft Windows Dialog boxes are special windows which are used by computer programs or by the operating system to display information to the user, or to get a response if needed. ... An inch (plural: inches; symbol or abbreviation: in or, sometimes, â€³ - a double prime) is the name of a unit of length in a number of different systems, including English units, Imperial units, and United States customary units. ... This example shows an image with a portion greatly enlarged, in which the individual pixels are rendered as little squares and can easily be seen. ... The square shown above is 200 pixels by 200 pixels. ...

AppleScript Studio

With Mac OS X, AppleScript has grown well beyond its humble beginnings. AppleScript Studio is a development environment, which comes free with Mac OS X, which uses AppleScript as the primary programming language, in conjunction with the Cocoa framework used to construct graphical user interfaces. Mac OS X (official IPA pronunciation: ) is a line of proprietary, graphical operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. ... A Cocoa application being developed using Xcode. ...

With Mac OS X v10.3 ("Panther") and Mac OS X v10.4 ("Tiger"), AppleScript Studio and Project Builder have been rolled into the Xcode IDE. Interface Builder, another component of Xcode, lets you build a user interface in a drag-and-drop fashion (similar to Visual Basic) and then "run" the user interface to see what the forms and menus looks like. To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Mac OS X version 10. ... An integrated development environment (IDE), also known as integrated design environment and integrated debugging environment, is a type of computer software that assists computer programmers in developing software. ... Interface Builder is a software development application on Apple Computers Mac OS X operating system. ... Drag-and-drop refers to the act of (or support for the act of) clicking on a virtual object and dragging it to, or onto, another virtual object. ... Visual Basic (VB) is an event driven programming language and associated development environment from Microsoft for its COM programming model. ...

Script Editor

Panther and Tiger also come with an enhanced version of Script Editor for writing, editing, compiling and running AppleScripts. One new feature of this editor is that if you right-click (or control-click) on the editing area, you get a pop-up menu with a large range of options for script fragments to paste into your script. This is an excellent feature for people learning to write AppleScript. From that menu, you can also open the directory where these scripts are kept. You can also add your own scripts (which will appear in the pop-up menu after you restart Script Editor). The Script editor also has a record button, which can be used to create AppleScript commands from user interface actions from certain applications. Recording works with a limited number of applications.

AppleScript dialects

AppleScript initially supported the idea of multiple dialects: different syntactic representations of the same script. The standard dialect was English; French and Japanese dialects were also produced. (A C dialect was publicly discussed, but never shipped.) A dialect could redefine the keywords and even the grammar of the language, so that, for instance, commands in the Japanese dialect had the verb at the end. Because AppleScript stores scripts in a compiled form, it could compile a script in one dialect and decompile it in another. While the project was a technical success, few application developers provided terminology in multiple languages, which meant that scripts were a confusing mix of languages in most cases. Support for multiple dialects was dropped by Apple in Mac OS 8.5. The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... C is a general-purpose, procedural, imperative computer programming language developed in 1972 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system. ... Mac OS 8 is a series of versions of the Mac OS that supported a transition through major changes in the Macintosh hardware platform. ...

AppleScript language essentials

Applets and droplets

It is possible to save an AppleScript script as an executable file or applet If the script has a run handler:

or if the script has an implicit run handler (commands in the script's top level, outside of any other handler):

The run handler or the implicit run handler will be invoked when the user double-clicks the applet. (If there are no handlers in the script, the entire script is an implicit run handler.)

then the applet also becomes a droplet: if the user drags and drops filesystem items onto the script, it will be launched and the open handler will be invoked with a list of aliases to the dropped items. A droplet can also run as an applet when double-clicked if it has a run handler or an implicit run handler.

(Note: "on" is a synonym for "to" when starting a handler; for example, "on run" instead of "to run".) Look up Synonym in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Open Scripting Architecture

An important aspect of the AppleScript implementation was the Open Scripting Architecture (OSA). Apple provided OSA for third-party scripting/automation products such as QuicKeys and UserLand Frontier, to function on an equal status with AppleScript. AppleScript was implemented as a scripting component, and the basic specs for interfacing such components to the OSA were public, allowing other developers to add their own scripting components to the system. Public client APIs for loading, saving and compiling scripts would work the same for all such components, which also meant that applets and droplets could hold scripts in any of those scripting languages. UserLand Software is a US software company founded by Dave Winer, who co-developed the XML-RPC protocol with Microsoft in 1995. ... The Component Manager was one of many approaches to sharing code that originated on the pre-PowerPC Macintosh. ... A application programming interface (API) is the interface that a computer system, library or application provides in order to allow requests for services to be made of it by other computer programs, and/or to allow data to be exchanged between them. ...

Under Mac OS X, the JavaScript OSA component remains the only serious OSA language alternative to AppleScript, though the Macintosh versions of Perl, Python, Ruby, and Tcl all support native means of working with AppleEvents without being OSA components. Mac OS X (official IPA pronunciation: ) is a line of proprietary, graphical operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. ... JavaScript OSA, (originally JavaScript for OSA, abbreviated as JSOSA), is a freeware inter-process communication scripting language for the Macintosh computer. ... Perl is a dynamic programming language created by Larry Wall and first released in 1987. ... Python is a programming language created by Guido van Rossum in 1990. ... Ruby is a reflective, object-oriented programming language. ... Tcl (originally from Tool Command Language, but nonetheless conventionally rendered as Tcl rather than TCL; and pronounced like tickle) is a scripting language created by John Ousterhout. ...

One of the most interesting features of the architecture, the ability to write language extensions (called a "scripting addition", or "osax" for "Open Scripting Architecture eXtension"), which were based on Hypercard's external commands. Because an extension adds terms to the language, it sometimes became problematic to predict how the AppleScript compiler would behave given a specific syntax depending upon which OSAX were installed at runtime. The coiners of the term osax, Jon Pugh and Donald Olson consider the proper spelling to use all lowercase letters, "osax" and "osaxen".

See also

Sal Soghoian is the AppleScript Product Manager at Apple Computer. ... Script Debugger is a Macintosh computer source code editor and debugging environment for the AppleScript programming language, and other languages based on Apple computers Open Scripting Architecture. ... Smile is a Macintosh computer programming and working environment based on AppleScript. ... Automator is an application developed by Apple for Mac OS X that implements point-and-click (or drag-and-drop) creation of workflows for automating repetitive tasks. ...

Books

External links

Official

Apple Inc. ... The Apple Developer Connection is Apple Computers developer network. ...

MacScripter

MacScripter is "a repository of information for AppleScript tutorials, latest scripts, scripting articles, FAQ, and related links for the Macintosh," and operates the following sites: // Academia In British academic parlance, a tutorial is a small class of one, or only a few, students, in which the tutor (a professor or other academic staff member) gives individual attention to the students. ... FAQ is an abbreviation for Frequently Asked Question(s). The term refers to listed questions and answers, all supposed to be frequently asked in some context, and pertaining to a particular topic. ...

FAQ is an abbreviation for Frequently Asked Question(s). The term refers to listed questions and answers, all supposed to be frequently asked in some context, and pertaining to a particular topic. ... Automator is an application developed by Apple for Mac OS X that implements point-and-click (or drag-and-drop) creation of workflows for automating repetitive tasks. ... Xcode is Apple Computers IDE for developing applications and other software for Mac OS X. It is shipped free with Mac OS X. First introduced on October 24, 2003 along with the release of Mac OS X v10. ... Automator is an application developed by Apple for Mac OS X that implements point-and-click (or drag-and-drop) creation of workflows for automating repetitive tasks. ... Automator is an application developed by Apple for Mac OS X that implements point-and-click (or drag-and-drop) creation of workflows for automating repetitive tasks. ... A software developer is a programmer who is concerned with one or more facets of the software development process, a somewhat broader scope of computer programming. ...

Other Resources

v • d • e

Mac OS X

Applications
Address Book • Automator • Calculator • Chess • Dashboard • Dictionary • DVD Player • Finder • Front Row • Grapher • iCal • iChat • iSync • iTunes • Mail • Photo Booth • Preview • QuickTime Player • Safari • Sherlock • Stickies • TextEdit The Open Directory Project (ODP), also known as dmoz (from directory. ... PDF is an abbreviation with several meanings: Portable Document Format Post-doctoral fellowship Probability density function There also is an electronic design automation company named PDF Solutions. ... Mac OS X (official IPA pronunciation: ) is a line of proprietary, graphical operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. ... An address book or a name and address book (NAB) is a book or a collection of data storing contact details (for example: address, telephone number, e-mail address, fax number, mobile phone number). ... Automator is an application developed by Apple for Mac OS X that implements point-and-click (or drag-and-drop) creation of workflows for automating repetitive tasks. ... Calculator is a basic calculator application made by Apple Computer and bundled with Mac OS X. It has three modes: basic, scientific, and programmer. ... Chess is a chess game for Mac OS X, featuring a high quality graphical display and support for chess variants such as crazyhouse and suicide chess. ... Dashboard is an application for Apple Computers Mac OS X 10. ... Dictionary is an application introduced with Mac OS X v10. ... This page relates to Apple software. ... The Finder is the default application program used on the Mac OS and Mac OS X operating systems that is responsible for the overall user-management of files, disks, network volumes and the launching of other applications. ... Front Row Music menu screenshot Front Row is a software application for Apples Macintosh computers that acts as a front-end for QuickTime, DVD Player and the iTunes and iPhoto libraries and allows for users to browse media on their computers using the Apple Remote. ... Grapher is a software program bundled with Mac OS X v10. ... The correct title of this article is iCal. ... iChat is an AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), ICQ and Jabber client for Mac OS X. Using a Jabber-like protocol and Bonjour for user discovery, it also allows for LAN communication. ... iSync 1. ... The correct title of this article is . ... Mail (aka Mail. ... Photo Booth is a small software application for taking photos with an iSight camera by Apple Computer for Mac OS X. It features 16 built-in effects that can be applied to photos. ... Preview is Mac OS Xs application for displaying images and Portable Document Format (PDF) documents. ... QuickTime is a multimedia technology developed by Apple Computer, capable of handling various formats of digital video, sound, text, animation, music, and immersive virtual reality panoramic images. ... Safari is a web browser developed by Apple Inc. ... Sherlock 2 for Mac OS 9, Files Channel Sherlock, named after Sherlock Holmes, is the file and web searching tool made by Apple Computer for the Mac OS, introduced with Mac OS 8. ... Stickies is a Macintosh application for putting Post-it note-like windows on the screen, with short reminders, notes and other clippings. ... A screenshot of Apples TextEdit. ...

Utilities
Activity Monitor • AirPort Admin Utility • Audio MIDI Setup • Bluetooth File Exchange • BOMArchiveHelper • Classic • ColorSync Utility • Console • Crash Reporter • DigitalColor Meter • Directory Access • DiskImageMounter • Disk Utility • Font Book • Grab • Help Viewer • Image Capture • Installer • Internet Connect • Keychain Access • Migration Assistant • NetInfo Manager • Network Utility • ODBC Administrator • Printer Setup Utility • Software Update • System Preferences • System Profiler • Terminal • Universal Access • VoiceOver • X11
Activity Monitor is the name of a utility for performing different tasks to a computer process in the Mac OS X operating system. ... The AirPort Admin Utility in Mac OS X serves to allow the user to configure AirPort Wifi Base Stations to create a wireless network. ... The Audio MIDI Setup utility is a program that comes with the Mac OS X operating system for adjusting the computers audio input and output configuration settings and managing MIDI devices. ... Bluetooth File Exchange is an aptly-named utility that comes with the Mac OS X operating system, used to exchange files to or from a Bluetooth-enabled device. ... BOMArchiveHelper is the default archive file handler in Mac OS X. It is a service application that has no GUI when double-clicked, rather it is invoked by opening its associated files or by choosing Create archive of file in the Finders contextual menu. ... Classic, or Classic Environment, is a hardware and software abstraction layer in Mac OS X that allows applications compatible with Mac OS 9 to run on the OS X operating system. ... ColorSync Utility is an interface for Apples ColorSync specification on the Mac OS X operating system. ... Console is the default log viewer in Mac OS X. Categories: | ... A crash reporter is an application whose function is to report crash data to a third party, usually to the party responsible for the crashed program. ... DigitalColor Meter is a utility for measuring and displaying the colour values of pixels displayed on the screen of a Macintosh computer. ... Directory Access is a Mac OS X utility for connecting to network services. ... DiskImageMounter is the utility that handles mounting disk images in Mac OS X. Like BOMArchiveHelper it has no GUI when double-clicked, in fact doing so does nothing. ... Disk Utility is the name of a utility created by Apple for performing disk-related tasks in Mac OS X. These tasks include: the creation of disk images; mounting, unmounting, and ejecting disks (including both hard disks, removable media and disk images); enabling or disabling journaling; verifying a disks... Apples Font Book includes fonts, and dividing them into groups. ... Grab is an application by Apple Computer used to make screenshots of the users computer. ... Help Viewer is a WebCore based HTML viewer aimed at displaying help files and other documentation. ... Image Capture, first introduced in Mac OS X version 10. ... Installer is an application included in Mac OS X which extracts and installs files out of . ... The Internet Connect in Mac OS X serves to allow the user to activate connections to the internet via an ISP or VPN. It also provides a simple way to connect to an AirPort Network. ... Keychain Access in Mac OS X serves to allow the user to configure keychain passwords - unlocking, locking and displaying passwords saved by the system which are dynamically linked to ones login password. ... Migration Assistant is a/an utility by Apple Computer that imports users, applications, settings, various files and volumes to a new Macintosh computer from a (presumably) older one. ... NetInfo Manager is a utility that comes with Mac OS X. It is found in /Applications/Utilities/NetInfo Manager. ... Network Utility is a an application included with Mac OS X that provides a variety of computer network information. ... ODBC Administrator is a utility in the Mac OS X operating system for administering ODBC. Category: ... The Printer Setup Utility in Mac OS X serves to allow the user to configure printers physically connected to the computer, or connected via a network. ... Software Update is a software tool by Apple Computer that install the latest version of Apple software on computers running Mac OS X (there was also a Software update tool for classic Mac OS). ... System Preferences is the application used by Mac OS X to set user preferences. ... System Profiler is a software utility that has been bundled with Mac OS since Mac OS 7. ... Terminal is an application included with Apples Mac OS X operating system. ... Universal access to education is the ability of all people to have equal opportunity in education, regardless of their background or physical disabilities. ... A voice-over is a narration that is played on top of a video segment, usually with the audio for that segment muted or lowered. ... X11. ...

Technology & User interface (future features italicized)
⌘ • ⌥ • Apple Advanced Typography • AppleScript • Aqua • ATSUI • Audio Units • Bonjour • Boot Camp • Carbon • Cocoa • ColorSync • Core Animation • Core Audio • Core Data • Core Foundation • Core Image • Core Video • CUPS • Darwin • Exposé • FileVault • icns • Inkwell • I/O Kit • Keychain • Mach-O • OpenGL • plist • Quartz • QuickTime • Rosetta • Smart folder • Spaces • Spotlight • Time Machine • Uniform Type Identifier • Universal binary • WebKit • Xgrid • XNU The Command key The Command key, known as the open-Apple key in documentation previous to the Apple Macintosh family of computers, is a modifier key present on Apple keyboards. ... The Option key The Option key, known to latent PC users as Alt key, is a modifier key present on Apple keyboards. ... Apple Computer has been attentive to the typefaces used in its marketing, operating systems and industrial design. ... Mac OS X 10. ... The Apple Type Services for Unicode Imaging (ATSUI) is the Mac OS set of services for rendering Unicode-encoded text. ... Audio Units is a plug-in API developed by Apple Computer to add functionality to audio creation and recording software. ... Bonjour, formerly Rendezvous, is Apples trade name for its implementation of the IETF Zeroconf specification framework, a computer network technology used in Apples Mac OS X from version 10. ... Boot Camp is a software assistant made available by Apple Computer that assists users in installing Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (Home, Professional, and Media Center Editions only, not Tablet PC Edition) on Intel-based Macintosh computers. ... Carbon is the codename of Apple Computers API for the Macintosh operating system, which permits a good degree of forward and backward compatibility between source code written to run on the classic Mac OS, and the newer Mac OS X. The APIs are published and accessed in the form... A Cocoa application being developed using Xcode. ... ColorSync is Apples color management API for the Mac OS and Mac OS X. // Apple developed the original 1. ... Core Animation is an Apple Computer technology to create animations, to be released as part of Mac OS X v10. ... Core Audio is a fairly low-level API for dealing with sound in Apples Mac OS X operating system. ... Core Data is part of the Cocoa API in Mac OS X, first introduced in Mac OS X 10. ... Core Foundation (also called CF) is a Mac OS X framework and API. CF provides: Primitive types for data (raw bytes, Unicode strings, numbers, calendar dates, UUIDs) and collections (arrays, sets, dictionaries) Application preferences management (CFPropertyList, Preferences Utilities) XML parsing Bundle handling File system I/O (CFReadStream, CFWriteStream, CFURL) Network... Core Image is a technology in Mac OS X that heavily leverages the machines GPU for image related effects. ... Core Video Core Video is a new technology in Mac OS X 10. ... The Common Unix Printing System (CUPS) is a modular computer printing system for Unix-like operating systems that allows a computer to act as a powerful print server. ... Hexley, the mascot of Darwin Darwin is a free, open source, Unix-like operating system first released by Apple Computer in 2000. ... Mac OS X 10. ... FileVault is a system that protects files on a computer. ... The Apple Icon Image format is the icon format used in Apple Computers Mac OS X. It supports icons of 16Ã—16, 32Ã—32, 48Ã—48 and 128Ã—128 pixel icons, with both 1- and 8-bit alpha channels and multiple image states (example: open and closed folders). ... Inkwell, later renamed Ink, but still mostly referred to as Inkwell by Apple is the name of the handwriting recognition technology built into Apple Computers Mac OS X. It was introduced in version 10. ... The I/O Kit is an open-source framework in the XNU kernel that helps developers code device drivers for Darwin-enabled operating systems (one popularly known as Apples Mac OS X.) The I/O Kit framework was originally introduced at the release of Mac OS X along with... Keychain is Apple Computers password management system in Mac OS X and Mac OS 9. ... Mach-O, short for Mach object file format, is a file format for executables and object code. ... OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a standard specification defining a cross-language cross-platform API for writing applications that produce 3D computer graphics (and 2D computer graphics as well). ... In the Mac OS X Cocoa, NeXTSTEP, and GNUstep programming frameworks, property list files are files that store serialized objects. ... Quartz is the marketing name of the proprietary graphics layer that sits on top of the open source Darwin core of Mac OS X. Quartz is part of the Core Graphics framework. ... QuickTime is a multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc. ... Rosetta is a lightweight dynamic translation emulator for Mac OS X distributed by Apple. ... A Smart Folder is a special folder that dynamically contains content based on criterion that you specify. ... Spaces is a virtual desktop feature developed by Apple to be included in Mac OS X v10. ... Spotlight is an as-you-type, system-wide desktop search feature found in Mac OS X v10. ... Time Machine is an automatic backup utility announced on August 7, 2006 at Apple Computers Worldwide Developers Conference, scheduled to be included with the Mac OS X v10. ... A Uniform Type Identifier (UTI) is a string that uniquely identifies the type of a class of items. ... Universal Binary Logo A Universal binary is â€” in Apple Computers parlance â€” an application bundle that runs natively on both PowerPC- and x86 (Intel)-based Macintosh computers. ... WebKit is an application framework included with Mac OS X v10. ... In computers, Xgrid is software (Apple Computer, Inc. ... XNU is the name of the kernel that Apple acquired and developed for use in the Mac OS X operating system and released as open source as part of the Darwin operating system. ...

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