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October 1997, Vol. 8, No. 10
Script for success
AppleScript gives publishers easy ways to automate pagination
It may be an apocryphal story, but it is alleged in the computer industry that after Apple Computer had successfully built a graphical version of the Basic programming language for the Macintosh, Microsoft convinced Apple to kill the product -- so that Microsoft would have an open field for what eventually became Visual Basic.
The hammer Microsoft held over Apple’s head, the story goes, is that the software giant would stop development of Word and Excel for the Mac if Apple continued with its Basic environment.
I won't comment on the truth -- or potential truth -- of that story, but there never has been a good Basic for the Mac. Though some lament that particular situation, it left an opening for another high-level development environment that was easy to use and yet powerful enough to create automation tools for real-world problems.
Into this gap came, first, Frontier from UserLand Software of Redwood City, Calif. A rather complex environment -- and initially, at least, an expensive environment -- Frontier didn't appeal to the masses (it has gained more acceptance since becoming freeware).
But in the interim, Apple came forward with AppleScript. A language that even a non-programmer can understand, AppleScript is much like the company’s earlier effort at programming-for-non-programmers, HyperTalk, which is the development environment for HyperCard (and, like the first incarnation of HyperCard, AppleScript is free).
At the same juncture, the company introduced into the operating system a concept it called AppleEvents. These were inter-application communication calls that allowed users to control multiple applications through a single user interface -- although, unfortunately, AppleScript didn't have a user interface. (A company called Software Designs Unlimited did create an interface for AppleScript -- it’s called FaceSpan, and SDU sold it to Digital Technology International of Orem, Utah, last year.)
So, here in the latter part of 1997, we have the ability to control a variety of Macintosh applications with AppleScript, allowing for a great deal of automation of work.
Work like -- pagination.
Inside, we visit two havens of AppleScripting: the Los Angeles Times and The Register-Guard in Eugene, Ore.
Interestingly, the Times scripts Quark XPress in producing its TV Times magazine, while The Register-Guard uses it with its DT front-end and pagination system. AppleScript works with any program that supports AppleEvents, so it isn't limited to working with just XPress or just with DT applications.
Ed Stockly, who is the TV book’s production supervisor, gives us background not only on AppleScript, but also on how the newspaper uses the environment to make production quicker and easier. Though a longtime computer hobbyist (he bought an Apple IIe in 1982), Stockly doesn't claim to be a professional programmer ("Math has always been my worst subject," he said).
Senior Editor Pete Wetmore visits with the folks in Eugene and comes away with a new appreciation for how pagination can be automated using a tool like AppleScript.
Also inside, Correspondent Marion J. Love takes a look at the newest applications available for moving data from legacy front-end systems to environments such as the Web and relational databases.
Lastly, we visit what has turned out to be the last of the Electronic Photojournalism Workshops. The National Press Photographers Association had become worried about flagging attendance at EPW and the annual Digital photography conferences, and so it has linked up with the Poynter Institute of St. Petersburg, Fla., to attempt to continue digital photography exploration and education through a seminar that Poynter will host every year.
Jeff Adams, a longtime EPW participant and the director of photography at the Dayton (Ohio) Daily News, gives us a look at the inside of this last EPW. He finds it compares favorably with the first, held eight years ago on Martha’s Vineyard.
What a different world it would be if the NPPA hadn't started the EPW -- and what a different world it would be if Apple hadn't been bullied into killing a Mac Basic.
-- David M. Cole
Also see Hellbox
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