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Script Debugger

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Lrivers (talk | contribs) at 20:03, 21 December 2005 (History). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Script Debugger is a Macintosh computer source code editor and debugging environment for the AppleScript programming language, and other languages based on Apple computer's Open Scripting Architecture. It is a product of Late Night Software.

History

Script Debugger version 1.0 was released in 1995 by Mark Alldritt. It was a third party alternative to Apple Computer's freeware application, Apple Script Editor. Its competitors at that time included ScriptWizard and Main Event Software's popular Scripter. These two products today are defunct, leaving the only other competitors in the field being Satimage's Smile and integrated development environments such as FaceSpan and AppleScript Studio.

Script Debugger was considered innovative, in that it was both scriptable, (it could be used to create scripts to control itself), recordable, (it could create scripts based on user actions), and attachable, (scripts could be written to respond to events). More importantly, Script Debugger allows you to inspect running applications and view what they are emitting permitting much easier development. The other thing is that Script Debugger is a debugger, with breakpoints, etc.

Script Debugger has since won many awards and review accolades in the Macintosh scripting community. Version 1 received "5 mice" from MacUser and 4 stars from MacWEEK. Version 2 received the 2000 MacWorld Eddy for "Best Development Software", and received "4.5 mice" from both MacUser and MacWorld.

As of June, 2005, users are awaiting the forthcoming version 4.0 of the product. Mark Alldritt has stated that this version has been completely rewritten, to take full advantage of the new Cocoa and Tiger APIs. It has also been reported that the new release will include an improved version of the JavaScript OSA scripting component.