I'm playing with the F-Script object browser to explore the scripting capabilities of various applications on my system. Starting with the SBApplication class, I can connect to an application, visualize its scripting interface as regular methods and manipulate it interactively just like a regular object. This is using the Scripting Bridge, the Cocoa/AppleScript bridge provided [...]
Archive for November, 2007
Fun with Leopard’s Scripting Bridge (Part 2)
Posted in F-Script on November 29, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Fun with Leopard’s Scripting Bridge (Part 1)
Posted in F-Script on November 27, 2007 | 7 Comments »
I have just released a new alpha of F-Script 2.0. Included is support for the Scripting Bridge. It is available for download at FScriptSources-2_0_alpha.zip. The Scripting Bridge, introduced in Leopard, is a Cocoa/AppleScript bridge: it allows manipulating scriptable applications as if they were Cocoa objects, automatically taking care of the communication details (e.g. creating and [...]
F-Script Plugin for Interface Builder 3
Posted in F-Script on November 25, 2007 | 3 Comments »
Leopard comes with a brand new version of Interface Builder. The classic palette system is gone, replaced by a new plugin model that renders the old F-Script palette unusable. In order to fix that, I have implemented a plugin for Interface Builder 3. It contains two elements that you can drag-and-drop from the Library window [...]
Browsing Objective-C 2 Properties
Posted in Cocoa, F-Script, General on November 20, 2007 | 3 Comments »
In F-Script 2.0, the object browser allows navigating Objective-C 2 properties. Adding this feature was pretty easy, using the class_copyPropertyList() and property_getName() functions provided by the Objective-C runtime. The hardest part was to choose the color of the properties sections in the browser. Magenta looks fine… No new syntax is needed to access properties using [...]
NSView Exploration
Posted in F-Script on November 19, 2007 | 1 Comment »
Visual elements in a Cocoa application are NSView objects (and have been since the early days of NEXTSTEP in the 80s). F-Script 2.0 makes it easier to select and explore them with the object browser. The Select View tool, which let you select an NSView by just clicking on it on screen, now provides visual [...]
Garbage Collection
Posted in Cocoa, F-Script on November 19, 2007 | 1 Comment »
New in F-Script 2.0 is a fast, concurrent, generational garbage collector. It was a lot of work to implement. Fortunately, Apple did all of it, as F-Script 2.0 uses the new Cocoa garbage collector. As with Objective-C, when you run F-Script in GC mode you no longer have to manage retain counts and to care [...]
Gentlemen, we have rebuilt it
Posted in Cocoa, F-Script on November 19, 2007 | 2 Comments »
F-Script 2.0 is under development. An early alpha version is available for download: FScriptSources-2_0_alpha.zip. Leopard only. I’ll discuss some of the new features.
