Site Info & FAQ

Who's Doug?
What's AppleScript?
What's iTunes?
What's SoundJam?
Downloading FAQ
Send me Yours
Drop me a Line

Who's Doug?

Hello! My name is Doug Adams and I manage this site, which began in February 2001 as a site for SoundJam AppleScripts. As I mention elsewhere, SoundJam's AppleScript support was quite robust. However, when I couldn't find any info on writing AppleScripts for SoundJam (the SoundJam AS pages at Casady & Green's site provided nominal if not dubious help) I decided to write up what I'd learned and post a few useful AppleScripts. When SoundJam was reincarnated as iTunes, its splendid AppleScript architecture came with it, and I instantly had an iTunes site.

Thanks to many other thoughtful and sharing iTunes AppleScripters, this site now contains what The Macintosh iLife (Avondale Media) author Jim Heid has called "The ultimate collection of AppleScripts for iTunes, the iPod, and more." The site has also been mentioned in Mac OS X Hacks by Rael Dornfest and Kevin Hemenway, iPod: The Missing Manual by J.D. Biersdorfer, and iPod & iTunes Hacks by Hadley Stern (and to which I am a contributor) all published by O'Reilly, and iPod & iTunes Garage by Kirk McElhearn, published by Prentice Hall. The site's also been mentioned in MacWorld, Playlist, MacAddict, and various other blogs, foreign language magazines and sites. Apple has designated this site as an AppleScript Resource and also links here from their iTunes AppleScript page.

I'm a freelance audio/voice-over producer and I do a lot of audio stuff. I have a small home studio and do all my work on Macs (iMac G5 1.6 GHz, iMac Rev C/Sonnet HARMONized to 500 MHz (OS 9), iBook G3 900 MHz (OS 9), and 700 MHz eMac). I'm also a hand-coding HTML nut and in that regard I also weblish The Official AppleScripts for Tex-Edit Plus Archives, which offers free scripts and scripting info for the world's greatest shareware text editor, Tex-Edit Plus. Visitors to that site are encouraged to submit their AppleScripts, and I have archived around 200 to date. Like that site, the AppleScripts here are free to download and to learn from and to modify if you like.

Visitors like you help me keep the site going, and I appreciate your visits and feedback. I work on the site in my free time and pay for it out of my own pocket. If you've been to the site two, three, or more times and have gotten something good from it all I ask is that you please consider making a donation toward its upkeep by clicking on the "Click to Give", "Kagi", or "PayPal" button on the left. Or visit one of the site's sponsors. Think of it as treating me to a cup of coffee and doughnut, or taking me out to lunch!

Thanks for visiting!

What's AppleScript?

AppleScript is...

AppleScript is a programming language used to control Apple Events—the actions that happen on your computer—and lets you control the actions of applications, the Finder, and other so-called "scriptable" programs. An AppleScript "script" is a list of instructions and when you activate a script, the instructions are carried out. In addition, a script can perform computations and use the results in the instructions. This makes it equally powerful and flexible. Yet AppleScript commands and syntax are very much like ordinary English which makes it relatively easy for anyone to learn and use.

You don't have to know how to write AppleScripts in order to use them, however. If you are new to AppleScripts you can rest easy. Most AppleScripts from this site come with instructions on how to install and use them. And you can always ask a question or leave a message at the message board.

AppleScript is particularly useful for handling large repetitive tasks on lots of information (such as many many tracks in an iTunes Playlist), or a single lengthy operation requiring several keystrokes and intricate settings (such as prefixing every iTunes Artist tag with the track's Year; you wouldn't want to type all that for every track, would you? I'd wager you could write a script that did that, have run the script, and changed all the Artist tags in less time than it would have taken to do it by hand).

For more information on AppleScript, visit AppleScript at Apple. Also see some more links here.

What's SoundJam?

SoundJam was one of the first of the better MP3 players for the Macintosh and thanks to its ease of use, skinability, and audio quality, quickly became very popular. Other superior MP3 players such as SoundApp, Audion and MACast were/are quite capable, but—in my opinion—none has come close to the power of SoundJam. It was one of those few applications whose usefulness was expandable with AppleScript. And it had the best scriptability of Mac MP3 players by a long shot.

SoundJam's slow demise was not exactly smooth. In late 2000/early 2001, Apple acquired the distribution rights to SoundJam from Casady & Greene, a distributor of third-party software products, and retained SoundJam's developers to work on iTunes. iTunes debuted at the MacWorld Expo in San Francisco in January (the same Expo that debuted iDVD and the G4 TiBook). In May of 2001, Casady & Greene announced it was discontinuing publication of SoundJam at the request of its developers, who by then were working for Apple, and version 2.5.3 was the last release.

On July 3, 2003, Casady & Greene filed for bancruptcy and closed its doors.

You cannot download SoundJam from this site! I am also unaware of any sites where a working version can be obtained.

How do I download AppleScripts from this site?

On the Scripts pages along with each script is a link labeled [ download ]; click the link and, after you have read a brief plea to donate, the script will begin downloading. Many of the script entries also have [screenshot] links.

iTunes scripts from this site have been archived using the Mac OS X Finder's "Create Archive" menu command. A simple double-click should un-archive them. All SoundJam Scripts are StuffIt-archived/BinHex-encoded (with the "sit.hqx" extension). You must use StuffIt Expander to decompress and expand StuffIt archives.

AppleScripts for iTunes can be run several ways. You can put your compiled Scripts in iTunes' "Scripts" folder and they will appear in iTunes' Scripts Menu in the Menu Bar. When you click on a script's name in this menu that script will run. The Scripts folder must be located in the "iTunes" folder in OS 9. Or in the individual user's Documents folder. In OS X scripts can be made available to all Users in Library > iTunes (you may have to create the "iTunes" folder) or for single Users put scripts in Users > username > Library > iTunes. If no folder with the name "Scripts" exists in these places, just make one!

Intel Macs currently use Rosetta to run AppleScripts. AppleScripts do not need to be saved as Universal Binary (nor can they be); AppleScript Studio applications can be compiled to run on PowerPC and/or Intel Macs, but this is the developer's responsibility.

AppleScripts for SoundJam must be installed in SoundJam's "Scripts" folder (with the exception of "applets" and "droplets", which can pretty much go anywhere). This folder will be in the same folder as the SoundJam application. Scripts placed in it will be accessible under SoundJam's Scripts menu.

Note that you can put a folder of scripts in the "Scripts" folder and its contents will be listed as well.

If you use Apple's Script Menu, you can place compiled and application scripts there, too. Users of OS 9 can use the comparable "OSA Menu", available from Leonard Rosenthol's Lazerware Site. Of course, as mentioned above, "applets" and "droplets" run as applications and can be placed pretty much anywhere in either OS 9 or OS X.

For further information on using a particular script, see it's ReadMe document. If you are wary of any script's abilities then do not use it.

Send me your AppleScripts

If you have written an AppleScript for iTunes and would like to share it with the world, I hope you will consider allowing me to post it here. Your script needn't be extravagant or glamorous, just useful. Many people who are teaching themselves AppleScript are looking for any sort of scripts to learn from. Perhaps your routines may help someone with theirs. I will of course credit you as the author of the script as I have no wish to take credit for other peoples' work.

If you do wish to submit a script to be posted here, please email it as an attachment; StuffIt files are OK, disk images, whatever. I will probably "re-package" your submission anyway. Be sure to include a description of what your script does and any requisite instructions. If I can't figure it out or can't make it work as you describe then I will notify you for assistance (I can only test scripts for results within nominal intuitive limits and I cannot debug scripts for you). Also include any other files—or links to files—your script may require.

While I welcome all submissions, I do not ipso facto weblish every submission, and only do so at my discretion. I will also accept iTunes and SoundJam related AppleScripting articles for this site, such as how-to's and the like. Please send any correspondence to the address below.

Drop me a line

Your comments, queries, and suggestions help make this a better site. Please e-mail me, Doug Adams, at dougscripts at mac dot com. I usually answer within a day or two. You can also occasionally contact me via iChat. I also have a Forum at iLounge where you can post questions and comments, and provoke discussions.

This column is printer-friendly.
home | scripts | tips & info | forum at iLounge |

rss
Site contents © 2001 - 2008 Doug Adams and weblished by Doug Adams, dougscripts AT mac DOT com. All rights reserved. Legal.
AppleScript, iTunes, and iPod are registered trademarks of Apple Inc.
This page was served using PHP. Be that as it may—whatever that means—this page was last modified by human hands on March 21, 2007.
"Art is making something out of nothing and selling it." - F. Zappa