4 ms·

AppleScript was just like that.

BizarroLand 4y ago
Does anyone know if there is a software that can open other software, manipulate that software, and then take the results of that manipulation and do other things with it? I'm envisioning something like being able to tell the managing software to take your most recent photo, apply a filter to it, resize it with Waifu2x and then post it to your instagram or something similar. Or to tell it to open Krita, make a line drawing of a character based on a photo, then use that as the input for stable diffusion 16 times and show me the results in a new folder. I'm guessing the rudiments of such a system exist but that the control and orchestration element is missing.
- kalleboo 4y ago
  On Apple platforms there is AppleScript, Automator and Shortcuts that can all do that, if the apps support it.
8ytecoder 4y ago
I’ve been using Shortcuts pretty extensively. There are challenges of course. But for the most part, it’s great. Most good apps expose their actions. The usual culprits like Outlook lock it down based on corporate policy. You can even make bespoke API calls. Siri is much more usable for me because of this. There are major glaring issues - like the rigidness of the Timer and the lack of a separate “sleep” timer. No option to pause the shortcut for an extended period of time. And the all too familiar Apple bugs these days. In spite of all this it’s definitely one of the exciting things Apple has released - especially after they made it portable between the phone, watch, iPad, mac and HomePod - albeit limited.
jfk13 4y ago
I don't think AppleScript achieved anything like the approachability, discoverability, and delight of HyperCard. It wanted to appear similar, but was constantly stumbling over the wildly varying levels (and quality) of support found in different parts of the ecosystem.
- analog31 4y ago
  A crippling problem was that there were only a tiny handful of scriptable apps.
shadowgovt 4y ago
On the user side, AppleScript was great. On the side of developers writing apps to support AppleScript, it was a nightmare because the language was too flexible. I remember having to build parse trees to handle my DirectObjects and the various other English-language-sentence-diagram portions of an AppleEvent.

Does anyone know if there is a software that can open other software, manipulate that software, and then take the results of that manipulation and do other things with it? I'm envisioning something like being able to tell the managing software to take your most recent photo, apply a filter to it, resize it with Waifu2x and then post it to your instagram or something similar. Or to tell it to open Krita, make a line drawing of a character based on a photo, then use that as the input for stable diffusion 16 times and show me the results in a new folder. I'm guessing the rudiments of such a system exist but that the control and orchestration element is missing.

kalleboo 4y ago
On Apple platforms there is AppleScript, Automator and Shortcuts that can all do that, if the apps support it.

8ytecoder 4y ago

I’ve been using Shortcuts pretty extensively. There are challenges of course. But for the most part, it’s great. Most good apps expose their actions. The usual culprits like Outlook lock it down based on corporate policy. You can even make bespoke API calls. Siri is much more usable for me because of this. There are major glaring issues - like the rigidness of the Timer and the lack of a separate “sleep” timer. No option to pause the shortcut for an extended period of time. And the all too familiar Apple bugs these days. In spite of all this it’s definitely one of the exciting things Apple has released - especially after they made it portable between the phone, watch, iPad, mac and HomePod - albeit limited.

jfk13 4y ago

I don't think AppleScript achieved anything like the approachability, discoverability, and delight of HyperCard. It wanted to appear similar, but was constantly stumbling over the wildly varying levels (and quality) of support found in different parts of the ecosystem.

analog31 4y ago
A crippling problem was that there were only a tiny handful of scriptable apps.

shadowgovt 4y ago

On the user side, AppleScript was great. On the side of developers writing apps to support AppleScript, it was a nightmare because the language was too flexible. I remember having to build parse trees to handle my DirectObjects and the various other English-language-sentence-diagram portions of an AppleEvent.