rb-appscript 0.5

rb-appscript 0.5 gives a tool to monitor scriptable Mac OS X applications applying ordinary Ruby scripts. Appscript makes Ruby a serious alternative to Apples own AppleScript language for automating your Mac.

Simple all-in-one binary installers are provided for Apple-installed Ruby 1.8 on Mac OS 10.4.x, and source files are included for installing appscript on other OS/Ruby versions. Example scripts, documentation and tutorial are also included.

Enhancements:

• OSAX module no longer errors on import in 10.5 if a ScriptingAdditions folder (e.g. ~/Library/ScriptingAdditions) doesn't exist
• added Appscript: Application#is_running method
• added hfs_path, #hfs_path methods to MacTypes: Alias, MacTypes:FileURL; existing path, #path methods now use CFURL functions to convert between POSIX paths and URLs
• aem/appscript now raises Connect: CantLaunchApplicationError instead of AE:MacOSError if unable to launch an application. Users should update existing code as necessary.
• fixed extconf.rb so that universal binaries build correctly
• built-in help system now uses ASDictionary 0.9.0+ instead of AppscriptHelpAgent. (AppscriptHelpAgent is no longer used as-of rb-appscript 0.5.0 and may be removed if previously installed.)
• #help method now writes messages to stderr instead of stdout
• Appscript: Reference#respond_to? now has identical signature to Object#respond_to? (optional second argument was previously missing)
• fixed bug in AE.convert_long_date_time_to_unix_seconds (used to unpack AEDescs of typeLongDateTime) where it would crash if passed a FixNum instead of a BigNum
• now allow methods that have been added to Object class at runtime (e.g. importing the pp module adds #pretty_print and #pretty_inspect) to be invoked on Appscript:Reference and Appscript:Application instances, assuming that the reference object doesnt already have a property/element/command by the same name. In other words, instances of these classes now behave more or less the same as instances of ordinary subclasses that use bound methods rather than #method_missing to handle incoming messages. Previously, calling (e.g.) #pretty_inspect on an appscript reference would result in a property/element/command not found error.
• improved behaviour of Appscript:Application#AS_new_reference when argument is nil (now returns a new reference to the root application object)
• OSAX:Application initialiser now optionally accepts static terminology glue module as its second argument. This is partly to provide scripts that need to run in 64-bit processes with a workaround for accessing the OSAX module, which cant yet automatically obtain osax terminology under 64-bit (see TODO file).
• added process_exists_for_path?, process_exists_for_pid?, process_exists_for_url?, process_exists_for_desc? class methods to AEM: Application
• deprecated AEM:Application.is_running? (will be removed in 1.0.0); any existing code that uses this method should be updated to use AEM: Application.process_exists_for_path? instead
• fixed minor formatting flaw in generic references #to_s method
• AEM:Application is now a subclass of AEMReference: Base, allowing aem Codecs instances to pack it
• added AB_export_vcard.rb sample script

Requirements:

• Mac OS X 10.3 or later
• Ruby 1.8 or later.