Rating: 
Summary: Impossible to find anything
Review: A co-worker gave me this book since I'm doing some Applescript work, and I must say, my frustration level just goes up every time I open it. I'm having more luck finding information on the web than I am in this book. The index is very poorly edited, and seems to be missing a lot of functionality. The book feels like a rush job and just isn't ready for prime time.
Rating:
Summary: Impossible to find anything
Review: A co-worker gave me this book since I'm doing some Applescript work, and I must say, my frustration level just goes up every time I open it. I'm having more luck finding information on the web than I am in this book. The index is very poorly edited, and seems to be missing a lot of functionality. The book feels like a rush job and just isn't ready for prime time.
Rating: 
Summary: Useless
Review: A second nomination for worst O'Reilly book ever. Mistakes, confusion and just bad information are plentiful in this title by someone who knows nothing about AppleScript clearly. Why did O'Reilly pick this author to write the book when experts exist? Most all other of their titles are written by known authorities in their field - Bruce Perry is NOT an AppleScript authority.
Rating: 
Summary: The best AppleScript resource yet!
Review: After a weekend with "the book", I can say that this one is a real winner. I'm very happy with the detail and the way it was intelligently sectioned out. The writing is clean with no excessive story telling and nothing extraneous to read - it was obviously edited by real pros. An example in the section on "Application Switcher" the author outlines the "cycling keystroke" class as follows. "cycling keystroke(keystroke object) You can set the keyboard combination for cycling through open programs (each program will become the highlighted program on the desktop in sequence as you press this key combo). This example changes this cycling keystroke to Control-F1: tell application "Application Switcher" set stroke to {key:F1 key, modifiers: {control down}} set cycling keystroke to stroke end tell The keystroke object takes the form of a record type..." and it goes on in more detail. Then it tells you a little later what would be valid keystrokes to use. This is merely one example. The breadth of material is somewhat narrow, however it goes into great detail about all universal Applescript functionality. It's not specialized to one program's library, but extensively covers the details of Data Types, Operators, Reference Forms, Variables and Constants, Flow Control statements, and Subroutines. This book will help take you to the next level of AppleScripting. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in AS, though. If I'd had this a couple of years ago, I could have had much tighter and reliable code now. I'm really looking forward to reading this one several times over the years. I think we have a new AS reference for the pros, folks. IMO, of course.
Rating:
Summary: The best AppleScript resource yet!
Review: After a weekend with "the book", I can say that this one is a real winner. I'm very happy with the detail and the way it was intelligently sectioned out. The writing is clean with no excessive story telling and nothing extraneous to read - it was obviously edited by real pros. An example in the section on "Application Switcher" the author outlines the "cycling keystroke" class as follows. "cycling keystroke(keystroke object) You can set the keyboard combination for cycling through open programs (each program will become the highlighted program on the desktop in sequence as you press this key combo). This example changes this cycling keystroke to Control-F1: tell application "Application Switcher" set stroke to {key:F1 key, modifiers: {control down}} set cycling keystroke to stroke end tell The keystroke object takes the form of a record type..." and it goes on in more detail. Then it tells you a little later what would be valid keystrokes to use. This is merely one example. The breadth of material is somewhat narrow, however it goes into great detail about all universal Applescript functionality. It's not specialized to one program's library, but extensively covers the details of Data Types, Operators, Reference Forms, Variables and Constants, Flow Control statements, and Subroutines. This book will help take you to the next level of AppleScripting. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in AS, though. If I'd had this a couple of years ago, I could have had much tighter and reliable code now. I'm really looking forward to reading this one several times over the years. I think we have a new AS reference for the pros, folks. IMO, of course.
Rating:
Summary: A difficult subject that's not made any easier
Review: First, be warned that the book largely covers OS 9; what coverage of OS X there is, is now largely dated (pre-10.2). As other reviews have stated, it's hard to get anything done when using this book as a reference. AppleScript is a very unique technology, and the book makes an admirable start at explaining how it works. But any time I pick this book up, I'm goal oriented: I want to set the topmost window in Terminal to 100x50 and make the text yellow. How do I do that? I want to open a URL in Mozilla and execute some JavaScript via AppleScript. How do I do that? I want to show the Desktop by hiding all applications and making Finder minimize its windows. How do I do that? Again, as others have pointed out, finding scripts on the Net has been my best resource. This book has helped marginally at best. One good thing the book could have done: when I open an application's dictionary, how can I write loops and subroutines to manipulate the objects I see? How can I write code to discover what they do? The problem with any book on AppleScript is that every application has a different interface (sort of... they all have the standard suite (and the book doesn't seem to tell you how to even manipulate the standard suite, very frustrating)) but then any decent application will have lots of custom commands and objects you can manipulate. I'll give a tepid "yes" to buying this book, but it's certainly not the genre-breaker we are all still looking for.
Rating:
Summary: You can't learn how to script here!
Review: I have a specific need. I tried to learn how to implement it via AppleScript with this book, and the other leading book in the field, and frankly you can't learn scripting from the books in existence now. I am really frustrated with the poor documentation available for Applescript. I gave two stars because there is SOME information here, but extracting it is very difficult.
Rating: 
Summary: Belongs in AppleScript reference library
Review: I use this book mostly for reference. There are a number of examples throughout the book, but you probably won't find any that are specific to the problem you are trying to solve. I recommend this book to be used in conjunction with the numerous resources on the web. This book becomes invaluable once you have some AppleScript experience under you belt.
Rating:
Summary: Belongs in AppleScript reference library
Review: I use this book mostly for reference. There are a number of examples throughout the book, but you probably won't find any that are specific to the problem you are trying to solve. I recommend this book to be used in conjunction with the numerous resources on the web. This book becomes invaluable once you have some AppleScript experience under you belt.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing and dumbded down
Review: I was hoping for an overview as complete as Apple's original docs, but updated and spiced with real-world observations. Bad luck! This book blithely glosses over (or completely omits) key concepts - presumably those perceived by the author to be "advanced". An example: Try looking up "file" and "alias" in the index. You'll discover that AS aliases are just like Finder aliases - this in direct contradiction to Apple's docs! Nowhere does this book explain how to use the file keyword correctly. The few spicy, real-world observations are not reliable and are occasionally inaccurate. (To the author's credit, these are usually introduced as first-person experiences: "In my tests..." or some such.) Always do your own tests and don't rely on this book. I can't imagine who this book would be good for - it's too shallow for the intermediate AppleScripter, and a novice would benefit from a tutorial, not a reference. I feel I wasted my money. Back to printing out the old Apple guide and having Kinkos bind it.
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