{"id":25116,"date":"2019-04-29T11:08:30","date_gmt":"2019-04-29T15:08:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=25116"},"modified":"2019-05-09T14:51:14","modified_gmt":"2019-05-09T18:51:14","slug":"the-under-appreciated-awesomeness-of-apple-events-the-technology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2019\/04\/29\/the-under-appreciated-awesomeness-of-apple-events-the-technology\/","title":{"rendered":"The Under-Appreciated Awesomeness of Apple Events (the Technology)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brent Simmons<\/a> (tweet<\/a>):<\/p>\n

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That’s where automation — Apple events — comes in. It doesn’t get in the way of the UI, but if you can find your way to Script Editor (or a similar app: there are others), you can learn how to write any feature or workflow you can dream of (as long as it’s technically possible).<\/p>\n

Part of the genius of this is that you’re scripting the apps you already use. You’re scripting these great GUI apps that you know and love. No command line, no piping\/launching\/closing. Just pulling information from apps and telling them to do things.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

An outside observer might think Mac users just use pretty — and pretty simple — apps, and that’s the whole story. But that completely misses the power and genius of Macs.<\/p>\n

I can’t think of another platform with the sheer level of automation power that OS X (now macOS) has.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Jon Gotow<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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With Marzipan<\/a> reportedly coming in macOS 10.15 this year, Apple is further de-emphasizing the cooperative nature of macOS apps, and will most likely not support Apple events in the “iPad apps adapted to run on the Mac” context of Marzipan.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

And as Brent says (and as I detailed in an earlier post<\/a>), many Mac apps use Apple events to directly integrate with other applications. They tie everything together for you, taking your Mac experience from ‘good’ to ‘great’. Just in my own apps, Default Folder X<\/a> communicates this way with the Finder, Path Finder, ForkLift, Terminal and iTerm2 to give you seamless access to folders no matter where you need them. App Tamer<\/a> uses Apple events to make sure it doesn’t interrupt iTunes and Spotify when they’re streaming music for you. And there are numerous other examples throughout the Mac ecosystem (and probably on your Mac right now).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n