QuoEdit Guide: Scripting 04

References

Index references with definite index
   Script class that belongs to Application class
   Script class that belongs to Document class
   File class object of Application, Document and Script classes
   File class and Folder class that belong to Application class
Name reference to object in QuoEdit’s folder
Range reference form
   Range reference by Text class
   Range reference to text and Word Services

Index references with definite index

Script class that belongs to Application class

As the index, only -1 (last) or 1 (first) is available in QuoEdit.
-1 (last) specifies the script on the memory last executed by Execute Script menu command:

	last script of application "QuoEdit"

1 (first) specifies the script on the memory recently recorded by Record Sequence menu command:

	script 1 of application "QuoEdit"

Note that here the usage of the negative value is special case.

Script class that belongs to Document class

As the index, only 1 is available in QuoEdit.

	script 1 of document 1

This means a compiled script object from source text from the document.

File class object of Application, Document and Script classes

In QuoEdit, each file is specified by the index 1.

	file 1 of application "QuoEdit"	-- The file of application itself
	file 1 of document 1 of application "QuoEdit"	-- The file of the document
	file 1 of last script of application "QuoEdit"	-- The file of the last executed script

You can take it as a property named “file 1”.

File class and Folder class that belong to Application class

Except “file 1” described above, only negative numbers (or ‘last’ as -1) are available as the index and they identify reference to the recently opened files or the folders.

	tell application "QuoEdit" to open last file
	tell application "QuoEdit" to get folder -1

Also here the usage of the negative value is special case. (QuoEdit just wishes to avoid new class declaration for recent files and folders.)
Note that the ‘folder’ is not standard term of AppleScript so that it cannot be compiled without the ‘tell’ statement to the application.

Name reference to object in QuoEdit’s folder

QuoEdit provides simple reference to the file or folder in the parent folder of the application. Use the class of ‘file’ or ‘folder’ followed by the name.

	tell application "QuoEdit" to get folder "Scripts"
	tell application "QuoEdit" to get file "My Doc Prefs..." of folder "Scripts"

Those names are relative path starting from the application’s folder.

In version 0.7 and later, it also supports relative path delimited by ":" (colons).

	file "Scripts:My Doc Prefs..." of application "QuoEdit"
	tell application "QuoEdit" to get folder ":"	-- the application’s parent folder

And if the relative path was not found, it tries the absolute path in normal way.

By the way, the folder “Scripts”, “Menus” or similar folder in the QuoEdit’s folder can be alias file of the name respectively. But don’t be nervous about that. For example, if "Scripts" in QuoEdit’s folder is an alias file of any folder, the application resolves the original folder. Also if the relative path delimited by colons contains alias files, it similarly resolves the original folders or the file (but not for the absolute path). Note that this behavior is specific to QuoEdit.
On the other hand, if you need a reference to the alias file itself, you have to write statements telling the Finder.

Range reference form

Range reference by Text class

To refer to continuous text range by Range reference form, the following pattern is available.

	text from word 1 to word 4 of document 1

The first and the last boundaries can be different classes or more complex references.

As for the following pattern of the Range reference form that uses also ‘text’ class, two editions of “AppleScript Language Guide” describe differently.

	text of words 1 thru 4 of document 1

The revised edition (For AppleScript 1.3.7, May 1999 —> download) gives an example that shows value of this reference is the list of words in the specified range, while the first edition (1993) gives two examples (maybe misprint) that show it is the continuous text data*. QuoEdit supports this pattern of Range reference according to the revised edition so that the following two Range references are the same value also in QuoEdit. (The former would be still recommended to avoid confusion.)

	words 1 thru 4 of document 1
	text of words 1 thru 4 of document 1

Also the following pattern is available in QuoEdit to refer to the continuous text range.

	text 3 thru 7 of document 1

It interprets the index for ‘text’ in this case as the character index. But note that the index for ‘text’ class is acceptable for only this form of Range reference. This feature is just for compatibility with AppleScript.

By the way, the following pattern returns the same value as an example above (if AppleScript's text item delimiters is empty).

	characters 3 thru 7 of document 1 as text

But this is not recommended because of the process; QuoEdit first returns a list of every character in the range, then AppleScript coerces the list to a string.

*	The detailed feature of Range reference is described in chapter 5 “Objects and References” in either editions. Note that some applications may be incompatible with AppleScript in handling the Range reference.

Range reference to text and Word Services

Suppose that you are going to change a string in the front document using Range Reference form. For example:

This is a badd word. —> This is a correct word.

In this case, the following script would be a good example of a WRONG way, at least in AppleScript language (or in ‘tell’ statements to QuoEdit).

tell application "QuoEdit"
	set characters 11 thru 14 of document 1 to "correct"
		-- result: This is a correctcorrectcorrectcorrect word.
end tell

Note that the reference part means every character in the specified range. (Try compiling this: every character from character 11 to character 14 of document 1)

Instead, you should write the ‘set’ statement like one of the following.

	set text from character 11 to character 14 of document 1 to "correct"
	set text 11 thru 14 of document 1 to "correct"

The point is, as you know, to use ‘text’ class to specify a string.

Unfortunately, it seems that ‘character’ class is used to specify a text range (like an example above) in a protocol of services called “Word Services”, though it might be up to the server applications. If you wish to use ‘Batch Process My Text’ that is a useful Apple event of the Word Services for spell checking and so on, first examine how the server works with QuoEdit*. (If you are a developer of Word Services server, would you please consider specifying the range with cText? That will never confuse good clients.)

*	To examine the behavior, create a script file with the following one statement and execute it from QuoEdit (not from the Script Editor) via Execute Script menu command.

tell application "ServerNameComesHere" to «event WSrvBtch» {contents of document 1}

The behavior may depend on the server. If you have question about it, please ask the vendor of the server application.

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