Apple AppleScript Finder Guide - Manual (Page 20)

C H A P T E R 1
Introduction to Finder Scripting
8
Recording Actions in the Finder
After you run the new script, the windows have the views specified in the
script even if you’ve previously changed them.
To modify recorded scripts or create new scripts that control the Finder, you
may need to look up the definitions of some of Finder terms. Like any
scriptable application, the Finder contains a dictionary of the AppleScript terms
that you can use to control the application. To open the dictionary, drag the
Finder’s icon over the icon of the Script Editor, the script-editing application
that comes with AppleScript. If you run across an unfamiliar word in a
recorded script, you can look it up quickly in the dictionary. If you need a
comprehensive definition with examples, look up the term’s entry in this book.
Simplifying Recorded Scripts 1
As is often true of scriptable applications, the Finder allows you to express the
same action in several different ways. Recorded scripts are precisely worded
so as to avoid ambiguity in variety of circumstances. In the script shown in
Listing 1-1 on page 6, however, there is no need to specify the folder and
disk to which a window belongs. If you wish, you can specify a window by
name only:
set view of window "Letters" to size
To work correctly, the preceding statement must be contained in a Tell state-
ment that names the Finder as the target application, and the window named
Letters must be open. The container for a Finder window is always the Finder
itself. If more than one window named Letters is open, the Finder changes the
View property for all windows with that name to size.
The previous section described how to add three lines at the end of the script
shown in Listing 1-1 that set the window’s views to different values. If instead
you want all the windows opened by that script to have the same view, you
could add just one line:
set view of windows to name
The plural form windows identifies all open Finder windows.
After opening a window, the recorded script in Listing 1-1 adjusts the window’s
Position and Size properties separately. The terms Position and Size name
two different properties of a window. Each property consists of a list of two