Re: [Pythonmac-SIG] Python/appscript ready for primetime?
Karl Sweitzer wrote: > Is Python's appscript suitable and sufficiently mature for deployment > in a commercial application? > > With the demise of VBA in Microsoft Office, we are faced with > transitioning scripts that manipulate equations in Office and manage > the interoperation of our application with Office. AppleScript is an > obvious candidate, but coyote ugly in the eyes of many developers, > including us. We are looking for viable alternatives. > > Python, augmented by appscript to access the Word Object Model, is > the best candidate we've identified thus far. However, we have > negligible experience with Python and zero experience with appscript. > Further, we note that appscript has not reached version 1.0. It has been around for quite some time, however. > Has anybody out there used Python and appscript for a commercial > product? The Mac version of Goombah (www.goombah.com) uses it. > Does it deserve active consideration? Yes, you should consider it, although only you can determine if it will ultimately work for you. The greatest difficulty we had is that, at times translating AppleScript commands to appscript commands is tricky and there are not a lot of examples available, but we always got it working in the end. > Are there other > candidates we should be considering? Not in Python, that I'm aware of. I believe there are somewhat similar libraries for Ruby and Perl, though I have no experience with either. > If you have an opinion--or better yet, experience in this area--we'd > like to hear from you. > > Thanks. You're welcome. Mike ___ Pythonmac-SIG maillist - [email protected] http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/pythonmac-sig
Re: [Pythonmac-SIG] Python/appscript ready for primetime?
Karl, Karl Sweitzer wrote: > Is Python's appscript suitable and sufficiently mature for deployment > in a commercial application? I've used appscript for simple tasks (e.g. attaching a PDF to an email) in an in-house application where I work. It works great for what I need to do. My only complaint is that the AppleScript API's are not always documented very well--I'm not sure how Word's AppleScript is documented. That and AppleScript has the strangest grammar I have ever encountered in a programming language. > With the demise of VBA in Microsoft Office, we are faced with > transitioning scripts that manipulate equations in Office and manage > the interoperation of our application with Office. AppleScript is an > obvious candidate, but coyote ugly in the eyes of many developers, > including us. We are looking for viable alternatives. Depending on what you are doing, it may work out well for you to write a wrapper (implemented in Python and appscript) around the parts of the Word Object Model that you will be using. This would provide you with a nicer-to-use API than what appscript will give you, and then appscript becomes an implementation detail. Of course this may not be an option if you are using too much of the Word Object Model. > Python, augmented by appscript to access the Word Object Model, is > the best candidate we've identified thus far. However, we have > negligible experience with Python and zero experience with appscript. > Further, we note that appscript has not reached version 1.0. I think you will find Python to be a very nice alternative to VB. Make sure you really dig into learning Python. Compared to VB you'll find it much simpler to implement many things. But as the saying goes "you can write Fortran in any language". Be sure to learn the Python conventions and not just translate your VB conventions directly to Python. > Has anybody out there used Python and appscript for a commercial > product? Does it deserve active consideration? Are there other > candidates we should be considering? I would say it definitely deserves some consideration, and I personally don't know of any other candidates. ~ Daniel ___ Pythonmac-SIG maillist - [email protected] http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/pythonmac-sig
Re: [Pythonmac-SIG] Python/appscript ready for primetime?
Hi, Am 04.09.2007 um 20:29 schrieb Karl Sweitzer: > Is Python's appscript suitable and sufficiently mature for deployment > in a commercial application? You'll have to find out about the commercial part yourself, but... I started Python (with appscript, py2app, pyobjc (which you'll all need if want to go commercial)) about 5 month ago and it's simply the best tool I have. It takes a while (like any new language you learn) and AppleEvent Object hierarchies take their own time until they do what you want... plus you not only learn a new language but also some new FrameWorks. > With the demise of VBA in Microsoft Office, we are faced with > transitioning scripts that manipulate equations in Office and manage > the interoperation of our application with Office. AppleScript is an > obvious candidate, but coyote ugly in the eyes of many developers, > including us. We are looking for viable alternatives. I havent looked at recent Office versions but the older ones were (IIRC Word 8 or 9) had an impressive AppleEvent dictionary. > Python, augmented by appscript to access the Word Object Model, is > the best candidate we've identified thus far. However, we have > negligible experience with Python and zero experience with appscript. > Further, we note that appscript has not reached version 1.0. Most open source projects don't have a marketing department that pushes version numbers unnecessary. They tick by a different clock... and are usable at v0.1 ;-) appscript is very mature. > Has anybody out there used Python and appscript for a commercial > product? Not me. > Does it deserve active consideration? Yes! > Are there other > candidates we should be considering? The only candidates I would consider also use appscript (rb-appscript & objc-appscript; together with py-appscript in the sourceforge repository). If you're into Lisp: there seems to be some decent AppleEvent support in one of the commercial Lisps. I haven't used it and am not sure which one it was (MCL or LispWorks). If you find another one, please let me know. I switched over from Frontier and have nearly identical opinions about AppleScript... > If you have an opinion--or better yet, experience in this area--we'd > like to hear from you. The ability to develop in an interactive environment (have a look at your objects at the command line) together with very rich libraries and frameworks and the ability to tap into the world of cocoa make py- appscript the __only__ candidate I would consider for your needs Take a look at the appscript, pyobjc and py2app examples. http://sourceforge.net/projects/pyobjc/ http://undefined.org/python/py2app.html -karsten ___ Pythonmac-SIG maillist - [email protected] http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/pythonmac-sig
Re: [Pythonmac-SIG] Python/appscript ready for primetime?
Karl Sweitzer wrote: > Is Python's appscript suitable and sufficiently mature for > deployment in a commercial application? For Apple event IPC, yes. Py-appscript has been around since 2003 and provides the same level of functionality as AppleScript and virtually [1] the same level of application compatibility. If you also need OSA attachability support (which allows you to attach scripts to applications that support it, e.g. Mail rules, folder actions), AppleScript remains the most dependable option here. There is a PyOSA component on the appscript site that's usable with care, but it's not yet mature enough for deploying in the wild. > With the demise of VBA in Microsoft Office, we are faced with > transitioning scripts that manipulate equations in Office and > manage the interoperation of our application with Office. > AppleScript is an obvious candidate, but coyote ugly in the eyes of > many developers, including us. We are looking for viable alternatives. AppleScript is the benchmark by which other Apple event bridges are best measured (even if the language sucks in other respects), since that's what application developers generally develop and test against. Of the third-party alternatives, appscript is by far the best candidate. The Python and Ruby versions are quite mature; the ObjC version still needs a bit of work (I just need to make some time for it) though is already pretty usable. > Python, augmented by appscript to access the Word Object Model, is > the best candidate we've identified thus far. However, we have > negligible experience with Python and zero experience with appscript. For general advice on Python, best place to ask is comp.lang.python. For Mac-specific advice, including questions on appscript, ask here. For Mac Office advice, probably best to start with the microsoft.public.mac.office.* newsgroups. Best person to speak to about Office scripting is Paul Berkowitz, author of MacTech's VBA-to- AppleScript transition guide which you'll no doubt want to read if you've not already done so. Another person you might want to speak to is Matt Neuburg, author of "AppleScript: The Definitive Guide" (which I'd recommend buying if you need to learn AppleScript). And I'll be happy to provide advice on AppleScript and appscript, of course. > Further, we note that appscript has not reached version 1.0. Sub-1.0 version numbers are pretty common in OSS, and don't tell you much about a project's functionality/reliability/stability/maturity. The core appscript modules (CarbonX.AE, aem, appscript) have been pretty stable over the last couple years; one or two significant API shake-ups, but mainly just periodical bug fixes, feature enhancements and/or compatibility improvements. The Ruby version of appscript recently went beta, and I'm hoping to do the same with the Python version sometime before the year's end. BTW, I am planning some changes for the next release of py-appscript as part of the pre-beta tidy-up - ask if you want details - but nothing that'll stop you using it right now. There's also work to do on 64-bit compatibility (this is true of all Mac-specific Python extensions that need it, btw, including those in the standard library), which will happen sometime after Leopard's release once I can afford a new laptop. > Has anybody out there used Python and appscript for a commercial > product? I believe Omni are using Rails and rb-appscript to provide a web interface to their upcoming OmniFocus product, and there may be others I don't know about. > Are there other candidates we should be considering? Python/Ruby/ObjC appscript would be your best choice; as well as being the best third-party Apple event bridge, it also provides several very useful developer tools: - built-in help systems for exploring dictionaries and object models in interactive Python and Ruby interpreters (the osadict command-line tool bundled with py-appscript also provides access to most of this system, which is handy if you're using objc-appscript) - ASDictionary for exporting application dictionaries to HTML in AppleScript and Python/Ruby/ObjC appscript formats - ASTranslate for converting application commands from AppleScript to Python or Ruby appscript syntax. If you want a list of all the other available bridges then just let us know, although there aren't any I would recommend. HTH has [1] There may still be the odd as-yet undiscovered compatibility issue since there are a lot of quirky applications out there. I think I've dealt with 3 or 4 this year, though new reports are increasingly rare as appscript is pretty good these days at mimicking AppleScript's own undocumented quirks and general sloppiness. However, if you should discover any compatibility problems that don't exist in AppleScript then file a bug report and I'll fix them and/or provide a suitable workaround ASAP
