Script Debugger

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Script Debugger

Developed by	Late Night Software
Latest release	4.0.7 / 2007-05-29
OS	Mac OS X
Genre	AppleScript debugger
Website	http://www.latenightsw.com/sd4/

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

[edit] History

Script Debugger version 1.0 was released in 1995 by Mark Alldritt. It was a third party alternative to Apple's freeware application, 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 contained several notable features: it was "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 allowed inspection of running applications, to see what events they were emitting. True to its name, Script Debugger also contains a full debugger, with support for breakpoints.

Script Debugger has since won many awards 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.

On February 9, 2006, version 4 of Script Debugger was released. This version was completely rewritten to take full advantage of the new Cocoa and Tiger APIs. The new release also included an improved version of the JavaScript OSA scripting component.