NOT good thinking - Andreas..

Whether you want to create a QK shortcut or write a routine in AppleScript, recording what you do by hand is a bad, BAD way of going about it. Your scripting abilities will improve much more quickly - I promise you! - if you do NOT start from a recording.

A very simple example is that a recording tells you to click on an item before doing something with it (opening it, moving it, whatever). To have your script click on the item before performing the action would be dreadful.

If you want to record then train to be a recording engineer; if you want to write scripts (in any language) DO NOT use recording.

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Monday, July 09 2007 @ 04:45 AM PDT

Nah, just thinking different (ly) - Cowicide

> To have your script click on the item before
> performing the action would be dreadful.

Oh noes, dude... dreadful premature discharge? Look here, automation that Apple will set up properly won't do that... now will it, honey-bunch? What it will do is intelligently repeat one's actions at the proper time because Apple will symbiotically integrate said actions within the OS processes. Kinda like all that "Core" stuff (you know, like "Core Image", "Core Video") that's now pretty tightly integrated into Leopard and to some extent, Tiger.

Hell, they might even call what I'm talking about "Core Play", (heh...)

> If you want to record then train to be a recording engineer;

k, i gets rites on dat

> if you want to write scripts (in any language) DO NOT use recording.

You missed my point, I DO NOT want to write more goddam scripts (like most ppl on this Earth who enjoy the great outdoors, etc.) and I DO want to use recording despite your sage, dire warnings.

I already write Applescripts (and FYI, Javascript, Perl, etc, etc.. too) and it sucks in cases when the alternative I've mentioned would be MUCH faster and easier. You know, perform actions, have the OS record them and replay them at will... AND, of course, I can edit the recordings in various ways IF I want to.. (boolean pun intended).

Oh, yeah... and here's the kicker... it'll make things much easier for people who have no desire to learn any form of scripting whatsoever (which I dare say is most ppl who use computers nowadays) and they won't need to hire programmers to do certain things that they will easily do themselves with simple "recording". Screw the programmers, they should be spending their time making kick ass advanced things like "Core Play" anyway, heh... It's time to demystify computers and make the dam-dings work for everybody... not just the geeks. Like I said, it's 2007... c'mon... let's evolve here...

tell application "Safari"
close window 1
end tell

Yay! I closed a fricken' Safari window by typing over 40 characters instead of just... one... simple... "click"

Get it?

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Tuesday, July 10 2007 @ 03:37 AM PDT

A difference... - Andreas..

Sorry, I didn't take into consideration one huge difference between us: I luuuv scripting/programming. Writing and debugging and tweaking a new gizmo is my idea of fun! A lot of my gizmos make system tweaks or gather system or comms info that would be painful to keep doing by hand – and "by hand" would mean issuing a set of terminal commands, which I don't think would 'record' very well.

Oh, BTW, a script to close a window isn't a very good example, now is it?

Keep happy!
 

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Wednesday, July 11 2007 @ 07:25 AM PDT

Bah.... - Cowicide

> Oh, BTW, a script to close a window isn't a very good example, now is it?

Haha... well, I think it is, just to make a point. But, if you insist, here's a practical reason to close a window (I think) for Remote Desktop. It launches the Remote Desktop app, automatically connects with my other Mac and controls it, then closes that pesky Remote Desktop app list, history, etc. window thang which is just "in the way" cuz I don't need it while controlling the Mac usually.

BTW, to open the script (and, by proxy, Remote Desktop), I use a "ninja-style" mouse gesture (using xGestures, of course) where I hold down my middle scroll wheel button (while in the Finder or any other app), quickly move [left, down, left] (while I make a "pfft" "pfft" "pfft" sound with my mouth), then release the button & it instantly takes care of bidness so I'm connected to my remote with no fuss, no keystrokes, no typing, no nutin'... at all... faster than any other way on Earth until I hook my mouse up to my skull. "Boom" as Steve would say...

tell application "Remote Desktop"
control computer 1
close window "Remote Desktop"
end tell

Now then... Why would I want to type that out (as I must, cuz Apple Script Editor "record" doesn't work with ARD) when (if it could) it would've been quicker to just have Script Editor record me do that and spit out the same code and be done faster? (And thank Gawd Apple finally made ARD 3.x scriptable, BTW).

That script is about as basic as you can get and it still takes well over 70 characters instead compared to around 4 clicks of a mouse if you recorded it. See, Recording isn't so evil after all.

I'm not like "anti-scripting" or anything and I certainly want to be able to edit stuff I record if needed, but in cases like this (and many udders) it would be very helpful to just let me record the crap quickly, save the script and moove on. And, like I said, it would make automation FAR more user-friendly for the average computer user out there too.

I am evil zen productivity master, hear me record...

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Thursday, July 12 2007 @ 06:33 PM PDT

Way Back... - pseudonym

Anyone old enough to remember "MacroMaker" and Mac System 6? You could record virtually ANYTHING and assign it to a keystroke.

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Wednesday, October 17 2007 @ 03:03 PM PDT

Way Back... - Cowicide

that's what I'm talkin' about brother!

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Tuesday, October 13 2009 @ 05:01 PM PDT