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Apple pours a cup of JavaScript for its Automator robot

A quiet revolution in Automation

Apple has quietly started toying with the idea of using JavaScript as a task automator in the Yosemite version of OS X.

In this pre-release API document, Cupertino outlines JavaScript for Automation.

It's an OSA component that the document says “can be used from Script Editor, the global Script Menu, in the Run JavaScript Automator Action, applets/droplets, the osascript command-line tool, the NSUserScriptTask API, and everywhere else other OSA components, such as AppleScript, can be used”.

The JavaScript host environment adds properties for automation, application, Library, Path, Progress, ObjectSpecifier, delay, console.log, and others.

Apple hasn't made much noise – or any statements, for that matter – about the API. However, as the Telerik Developer Network notes, it's a big deal because it treats JavaScript as a “first class citizen” in the world of Apple.

In particular, Telerik is impressed by the inclusion of an Objective-C bridge that lets JavaScript for Automation work with native OS X libraries like Cocoa. ®

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