[OS X TeX] Re: scripting BBEdit (was Tabular/array macros)

[Joachim Kock]

Jason wrote:
> BBEdit is probably the most scriptable application available!

Perhaps you mean applescriptable, in which case you may be right.

The problem is that AppleScript is kind of clumsy when it comes
to manipulating text, compared to for example lisp or tcl.  As far 
as I know, BBEdit can execute scripts in any srcipting language,
but this works by calling an external interpreter, which is also
quite clumsy.  This is acceptable if from time to time you have
some complicated operation to perform on your file, but not
practical for all-the-time typing scripts.

The most scriptable applications available are programmes like
emacs or Alpha that embed an interpreter for a decent scripting 
language.  In these two cases, nearly everything is implemented
in the scripting language: there is a huge library of small 
procedures to reuse in your scripts, or to rewrite if you need to 
tweak the standard behaviour.

(I wonder what it would take to embed a Tcl interpreter in TeXShop
for example, and write Tcl bindings for basic cocoa functions like
move the cursor or insert a chunk of text...?)

Cheers,
Joachim.


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