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First of all, support and documentation is virtually non-existent for any of those options. Have you tried to use JS alone to automate anything? Eventually you'

First of all, support and documentation is virtually non-existent for any of those options. Have you tried to use JS alone to automate anything? Eventually you'll end up on the GitHub wiki like the rest of us, trying to convert 15 year old AppleScript examples into JS. It's a nightmare. This is related my point that AppleScript is an an anachronism. Apple must know that as well and don't want to spend any resources on the problem. So it's just sort of stuck.

hhas02 5y ago
You are correct about SB and JXA. Counterpoint: https://sourceforge.net/projects/appscript/files/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/appscript/files/ Type an AppleScript command into ASTranslate[1] and run it, and you get its instant translation to Python/Ruby appscript syntax. Appscript users adored ASTranslate: it answered 95% of their “How do I…” questions at a tap of a button. Appscript was great tech—a genuine AppleScript replacement—but it was ASTranslate that sold it. Back when I was enthusiastically supplying Sal Soghoian with 6 weeks of 100% free unpaid[2] JXA testing, feedback, and advice (up to and including writing a complete reference implementation of how a JavaScript OSA component should work for his team to learn/steal from), automatic AS-to-JS command translation I told him was THE Killer Feature Script Editor needed to make JXA a success. And yes, I provided Sal a free reference implementation of this feature—see the JABDemo app[3] in the JavaScriptOSA zip file. (Still works!) Incredibly quick and simple too: just add a toggle switch to Script Editor’s existing Apple event logging pane, to choose which language to format outgoing Apple events in: AS or JXA. A couple hours’ work to implement and test; would’ve done more than a year’s user community support[4] to make JXA both instantly usable and popular AF. Yep, I’d have done better advising a doorknob. #PEBKAC -- [1][3] You’ll need to do the right-click-to-open shuffle to get them to run, as these are ancient apps that I’ve not updated with modern codesigning and notarization. But they still run, and they still rock at what they do. [2] Again, an important lesson in business learned. Never do world-expert consultancy for less than three figures an hour. Because jerks like that appreciate it by exactly as much as they pay for it. Give to them it for free, they don’t give a shit. [4] Which they didn’t do either. And after Soghoian ghosted me, and made it clear that JXA was going to be garbage that they simply didn’t care about themselves, damned if I was going to do it for them either. Which is a shame, because after lead-authoring Apress’s monster Learn AppleScript 3rd edition, I could’ve knocked out “Learn JXA” in 6 months and sold JXA for them.

hhas02 5y ago

You are correct about SB and JXA. Counterpoint: https://sourceforge.net/projects/appscript/files/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/appscript/files/ Type an AppleScript command into ASTranslate[1] and run it, and you get its instant translation to Python/Ruby appscript syntax. Appscript users adored ASTranslate: it answered 95% of their “How do I…” questions at a tap of a button. Appscript was great tech—a genuine AppleScript replacement—but it was ASTranslate that sold it. Back when I was enthusiastically supplying Sal Soghoian with 6 weeks of 100% free unpaid[2] JXA testing, feedback, and advice (up to and including writing a complete reference implementation of how a JavaScript OSA component should work for his team to learn/steal from), automatic AS-to-JS command translation I told him was THE Killer Feature Script Editor needed to make JXA a success. And yes, I provided Sal a free reference implementation of this feature—see the JABDemo app[3] in the JavaScriptOSA zip file. (Still works!) Incredibly quick and simple too: just add a toggle switch to Script Editor’s existing Apple event logging pane, to choose which language to format outgoing Apple events in: AS or JXA. A couple hours’ work to implement and test; would’ve done more than a year’s user community support[4] to make JXA both instantly usable and popular AF. Yep, I’d have done better advising a doorknob. #PEBKAC -- [1][3] You’ll need to do the right-click-to-open shuffle to get them to run, as these are ancient apps that I’ve not updated with modern codesigning and notarization. But they still run, and they still rock at what they do. [2] Again, an important lesson in business learned. Never do world-expert consultancy for less than three figures an hour. Because jerks like that appreciate it by exactly as much as they pay for it. Give to them it for free, they don’t give a shit. [4] Which they didn’t do either. And after Soghoian ghosted me, and made it clear that JXA was going to be garbage that they simply didn’t care about themselves, damned if I was going to do it for them either. Which is a shame, because after lead-authoring Apress’s monster Learn AppleScript 3rd edition, I could’ve knocked out “Learn JXA” in 6 months and sold JXA for them.