This series of video tutorials provide an introduction to Script Debugger’s key features. Use Script Debugger’s Help menu to access detailed documentation provided in Script Debugger’s on-line help.
Video tutorials presented by Matt Neuburg, author of AppleScript: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition, and more recently Programming iOS 5: Fundamentals of iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Development.
- Tour of the Script Window
- Editing Your Script
- AppleScript Power Features
- Running a Script
- Explorers and Outliners
- The Dictionary Window
- Debug Mode
- Advanced Debug Mode
Starting up Script Debugger. Template Chooser. Tabbed windows. Default window size. Elements of a script window, and how to hide and show them.
Text entry: delimiter pairs, blocks, new line creation, clippings and placeholders, code completion, text substitution, drag and drop, paste tell. Navigation by handler; navigation by line number. Block shading and selection. Balance. Line wrapping. Split pane. View options. Comment and uncomment.
Libraries; flattening. Manifest. Recover script.
Ways of viewing the result. Event log. Timer. Variables pane; persistence of globals. Running individual handlers.
Source view vs. Best view. Outliners; hoisting, explorer windows, filtering. View options. AEPrint view. Where explorers appear in the interface. Tell Context inspector. More about outliners: editing, getting a reference.
Opening a dictionary. Terminology list. Dictionary info and navigation. Searching the dictionary. Object model. Dictionary explorer.
Pausing. Stepping. Execute to here. Breakpoints. Variables while paused. Call stack. Expressions. A real-life example of debugging in action.
Saving in debug mode. Editing in debug mode. Trace. Event handlers. Code coverage. More about breakpoints: creating, disabling, removing; temporary breakpoints, conditional breakpoints. Mini debugger.
Late Night Software Ltd., established in 1995, is a privately held company that specializes in the development of award-winning Macintosh scripting tools.
