The followi typographical conventions are used in this book:
Constant width
Is used to indicate command-line computer output and code examples,
as well as AppleScript class names, objects, parameters, data types,
properties, methods, constants, variables, and flow-control
statements like repeat.
Constant width bold
Is used to indicate user input in examples.
Is used to introduce new terms and to indicate URLs, user-defined files and directories, commands, file extensions, filenames, directory or folder names, and UNC pathnames.
Italic is also used to highlight chapter titles and, in some instances, to visually separate the topic of a list.
This is an example of a warning, which alerts to a potential pitfall in the program. Warnings can also refer to a procedure that might be dangerous if not carried out in a specific way.
We use a shorthand path notation to show you how to reach a given user interface element or option. The path notation is relative to a well-known location. For example, the following path:
| Script Editor’s File → Open Dictionary |
means “Open the Script Editor’s File menu, then choose Open Dictionary.”
AppleScript
uses the colon to separate the directories in a file path, as in
MyStartupDisk:Desktop Folder:myfile. The major
scripting additions that deal with file paths, such as
choose file, choose file
name (Mac OS X and OS 9.1), choose
folder, and path to, display their
file paths in alias return values as colons. The
chapters that deal with Mac OS X, however, will often identify the
locations of files and folders with the Unix-style slash character
/ as the path delimiter (e.g.,
/users/bruceper/documents/). This is the path
delimiter used by Darwin, which is the core operating system for Mac
OS X and has Unix origins. The opening slash character in the file
path /users/bruceper/ sets the beginning of the
path to the “users” folder on the
disk or partition where Mac OS X is located. AppleScript on Mac OS X
still generally uses colons as the path delimiter, however, which
maintains consistency with older scripts (OS 8/9). One place where
you can use the slash character to locate a path for AppleScript is
in setting the target property for a Finder
window, as in:
set the target of Finder window 1 to "/users/bruceper/"
Constant Width
On occasion, you will find a command description such as
connect
remote
access configuration object, which means that the
connect command takes a remote access configuration object as a parameter.