🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1b0r3eINNne5@gap.caltech.edu>, toddpw@cco.caltech.edu (Todd P. Whitesel) writes:
> ldo@waikato.ac.nz (Lawrence D'Oliveiro, Waikato University) writes:
>
>>Apple's AppleEvent Object Model seems to me to be one step on this road, which
>
> Yes, but it's only a step. I would love to be wrong on this, but AppleEvents
> seems to be more of a kludge based on the existing Event architecture that is
> inherent in the Mac GUI. I have not been keeping current on this but as of last
> summer I was not too impressed by AppleEvents. I hope it has improved since, or
> that I did not get to see the whole story, because what I did see looked quite
> lacking when compared to OLE.

That's strange. I thought of OLE as being roughly equivalent to Publish/
Subscribe under Macintosh System 7, only without the network transparency.
That is, it allows you to embed a data object in one document, that actually
comes from another document (possibly another application). Any updates in
the original document are automatically propagated to subscribers, and the
subscriber can also invoke a "Go To Publisher" function (which relies heavily
on the AppleEvent infrastructure in order to work), which automatically brings
up the publisher document (perhaps launching the corresponding application if
it isn't already running), and autoscrolls it to the portion that was
published.

AppleEvents do more than this. The Object Model, in particular, gives a way
to reference objects like windows, documents and files, and parts thereof,
eg "find all the bold text on pages 2 to 4 of document Fred and make it blue".
This allows applications to call on the services of other applications, eg a
word processing program doesn't need to provide drawing tools to manipulate
graphics, it can make use of the services of an existing drawing program.

AppleEvents aren't a scripting language per se, but they do provide the
basis on which you can build a scripting system to coordinate tasks involving
a whole bunch of applications working in concert.

Lawrence D'Oliveiro                       fone: +64-7-856-2889
Computer Services Dept                     fax: +64-7-838-4066
University of Waikato            electric mail: ldo@waikato.ac.nz
Hamilton, New Zealand    37^ 47' 26" S, 175^ 19' 7" E, GMT+13:00
Actually, of course, they were right within the circumstances of their study,
but most of us can't afford such expensive circumstances.
				       -- Bruce Tognazzini, "Tog on Interface"