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What's New In Script Debugger 4.0

Simplified User Interface

Script Debugger 4.0’s simplified User Interface displays more information in a smaller space and takes greater advantage of the wide-screen displays on recent Macintosh computers.

Script Debugger 3.0 had seven kinds of windows (Script editor, Value Viewer, Result Viewer, Apple Event Log, Properties & Globals, Expressions, Dictionary and Explorer).  In version 4.0, this has been reduced to four (Script Editor, Viewer, AppleEvent Log and Dictionary).  Along with the reduction in windows that you have to manage, each of them has been redesigned to reduce clutter while at the same time displaying more information.

Concurrent Script Execution

In Script Debugger 4.0, you can run and debug more than one script at a time, enabling you to debug interactions across scripts.

Modern File Formats

Script Debugger 4.0 supports all AppleScript file formats, including the new bundled formats introduced in Mac OS X.  It also supports long file names and Unicode characters in file names.

Improved Script Editor

The redesigned Script Debugger 4.0 script editor window offers a more feature rich environment for creating and editing scripts.  Improvements include:

• The Table Of Contents menu has been revised to better represent the structure of complex scripts.
• The editor can now display invisible characters, line number, tab stops and indentation.
• Script source code can now be displayed in «chevron» syntax (requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later).
• The addition of a new AppleEvent history menu that lets you quickly re-execute AppleEvent handlers.
• The addition of a new Lookup Term inspector and Find Definition command to find application terminology definitions in application and scripting addition dictionaries.
• Improved handling of dropped files in editor.  Script Debugger 4.0 offers several new options for pasting file paths (paste Alias, HFS path, POSIX path, or Finder object reference).
• Clippings can now wrap existing code and control text selection through a simple tagging language.
• Tell blocks can now paste directly into scripts from the Edit menu (or from the script window’s contextual menu).
• The script’s description is included when a script is printed.
• The Applications inspector can display command or event handler templates directly into scripts.
• The editor responds to applescript://URLs for inserting sample code from web pages.

Improved Value Viewer

The functionality of Script Debugger 3.0’s Viewer and Inspector windows has been combined into Script Debugger 4.0’s Value Viewer that can explore object specifiers and view images.  When viewing file references, Script Debugger displays the file’s icon and shows the file path in three formats (HFS path, POSIX path or Finder object specifier).

Improved Debugging

Major improvements in Script Debugger 4.0’s AppleScript debugger include:

• Break-On-Exception now pauses script execution at the point where an exception is thrown.  This lets you examine the cause of an error, including the value of all variables at the time the exception was thrown.
• Code-Coverage display is now more readable.
• Breakpoints are now persistent when using external debugging capabilities.
• An execution timer has been added.
• Tooltip expression evaluation has been improved (e.g. hovering over a (){}[] character evaluates the entire sub-expression).
• AppleEvent Log entries link to source line that generated the event.

Improved Dictionary Window

Script Debugger 4.0’s dictionary window has been re-implemented to take advantage of the latest Mac OS X technologies.  As part of this re-implementation, the user interface has been reworked and provides the following benefits:

• Supports Mac OS X sdef dictionary meta-data which provides much more usable scripting dictionaries, including expanded documentation and sample code (where provided by application developers).
• Unified Dictionary Explorer/Value Browsers can now ‘explore’ external object specifiers no matter where they appear (in variables, dictionaries, error values, results, etc.).
• Application dictionary display has been completely restructured to make dictionary information simpler to understand and navigate.
• Dictionary searching (intra and cross-dictionary).
• Dictionary display includes command and event templates that can be copied and pasted into your code.
• Sophisticated ‘aete’ ->sdef conversion (significantly better than that performed by the Tiger Script Editor). No other scripting tool extracts as much information from old-style dictionaries.
• Hyper-linking in dictionaries that allows you to jump to related definitions.
• Where-Used links in dictionaries to find where data types/classes/records or enumerations are used.
• Modernized Open Dictionary menu, making it easier to open dictionaries.
• Applications palette can generate command and event templates.
• Paste Tell command lets you create tell blocks for any running application; paste command and event handler templates.

Manifest Improvements

The Manifest command (that lists the applications and scripting additions on which your scripts depend) has been improved to list the specific commands that your script uses.

Other Improvements

In addition to the extensive list of new features above, Script Debugger 4.0 also offers:

• Simplified preferences panel.
• Redesigned inspector (floating palette) management, making it easier to use all of Script Debugger’s inspectors, even on smaller screens.
• The inclusion of JavaScript OSA 2.0, allowing you to script in JavaScript.

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