[Pythonmac-SIG] [ann] PyOSA 0.1.0, Appscript Installer 1.5.1 released

[has]

On 27 Mar 2007, at 17:35, Kevin Walzer wrote:

>> Announcing the first release of PyOSA, a new OSA language  
>> component for Python.
>
> I'm confused--how is this different from appscript?

In a nutshell, PyOSA makes Python a *full* peer to AppleScript.  
Appscript is an Apple event bridge, allowing Python scripts to send  
Apple events to applications. That's great when you want to control  
one process from another, but no help if you need a script that  
controls and/or is controlled by its host process. For that level of  
integration/interaction, you need a full OSA language.

PyOSA packages the Python interpreter as an OSA language component,  
allowing Python scripts to be attached to any OSA-aware application.  
It also fully integrates appscript, allowing PyOSA scripts to send  
events directly to the host process and vice-versa. Attachability and  
integrated Apple event support are essential for tasks like Folder  
Actions and Mail rules, which you just can't do with appscript alone.

For example, you could create a Mail rule that runs an 'AppleScript'  
action whenever new messages are received. That rule would load a  
PyOSA script and call its 'perform_mail_action_with_messages'  
function, passing it a list of message references. The script could  
then go through those messages, getting and setting their properties,  
moving them to other mailboxes, and so on.

Cool stuff, in other words, and even this is a relatively trivial  
example of OSA's full potential. Unfortunately, for various  
historical reasons, OSA has never seen widespread adoption beyond the  
AppleScript language and a relatively small number of applications.  
But hopefully a new generation of OSA language components will begin  
to change this situation for the better.

HTH

has
-- 
http://appscript.sourceforge.net
http://rb-appscript.rubyforge.org
http://appscript.sourceforge.net/objc-appscript.html