Meet Script Debugger’s Explorer!

The explorer lets you probe the objects of a running scriptable application, in real time. You can easily discover an application’s object model, insert object references into your scripts, and see the values of object properties — and even change those values.

To see a dictionary window’s explorer:

• Open a dictionary window and choose Dictionary > Explorer View (or click the Explorer button in the toolbar).

You can open multiple windows on the same dictionary. Bring a dictionary window to the front, and choose Dictionary > Open in New Window. This makes it easy to view different pieces of information simultaneously, or to have both a dictionary and an explorer open for the same application.

The illustration above shows iTunes’s dictionary explorer, as it appears on my machine. Its parts are:

1. The toolbar.

2. The info pane. This area is where you see the information about a running application. It is an explorer view. (Explorer views appear in several other places in Script Debugger’s interface.)

Read on, to learn about:

• What’s shown in an explorer view.

• Things you can do in an explorer view.

• How to open part of an explorer view as a separate window.

Note: A more focussed way to probe an application’s objects is the Tell Context inspector. It watches where you are working in a script window and probes the attributes of the current tell target.