Re: [MacPerl] more quark scripting

[Bill Birkett <wbirkett@pcolor.com>]

>And thus fulfilling a circle I had traveled but forgotten.  My pod 
>glue file for quarkxpress is empty.  It's only 600 bytes long and is 
>a shell of what it should be.  I can make quark 3 glue and it was 
>beautiful...but I want Quark 4 glue.
>
>I remember having this exact same problem with the Frontier glue 
>maker and Quark 4 about a year ago...
>
>Quark 4 has an aete resource and script editor can survive it fine. 
>But MacGlue and Frontier's Gluemaker can't stand it...
>
>Any ideas?

I made a glue for Quark 4.1 without any problem. You might want to 
check if you have all of the latest Glue components installed.

Go to Chris Nandor's software page.

http://pudge.net/macperl/

Download and install the 'cpan-mac 0.40' module first. This is needed 
to properly install the other components. Inside the folder 'CPAN 
Install Scripts', you will find a droplet named 'installme.plx'. Drop 
the .tgz files on this to install modules properly in your 
'site_perl' folder.

I suggest you install the following:

Mac::Glue 0.58
Mac::AppleEvents::Simple 0.81
Mac::Apps::Launch 1.70

After everything is installed, make sure that 'site_perl' is the 
first path searched for library modules. This is done in MacPerl 
preferences. Very important.

Make sure that Quark is not running when you drop it on 'gluemac'.

I've been trying to script Photoshop/PhotoScripter with MacPerl. I 
wasn't able to get very far with the Glue approach. I had more 
success using AppleEvents::Simple, but eventually had to resort to 
MacPerl::DoAppleScript.

I am very appreciative of Chris Nandor's efforts to develop the Apple 
Events Glue. In theory, the Glue approach would greatly simplify 
Apple Events programming, and make my life a lot easier.

In practice, my experience is similar to yours. There are no Glue 
examples for software like Quark, Photoshop, Cumulus, and ColorSync. 
So you start with an AppleScript that does what you want. Then you 
look up the words in the Glue pods, and try to make equivalent code 
in MacPerl. Sometimes you find something similar in the example code 
that Chris has provided. You can use the CaptureAE control panel to 
see where you're at, and to try out different ideas. You will 
probably get some of your code to work, but in the end there are 
things you just can't figure out.

At this point, you can ask for help, and maybe you'll get an answer 
to a specific problem. But that doesn't make you self-sufficient. In 
the end, Chris is the only one who really knows the Glue code, and it 
would not be right to impose on him with an ongoing stream of 
questions.

Example code would help a lot. But I also think that Glue needs some 
further development to work with these applications. For instance, 
both Quark and Photoshop use floating point parameters for dimensions 
which are type 'doub'. In Photoshop, you must specify dimensions such 
as pixels, inches, and cm's, which are special types. I don't think 
this is possible with Glue - it only handles integer and text values.

It would be great if Chris had the time and inclination to tackle 
this. I'm sure we have some real-world projects that would further 
the development of Glue, and serve as example code for others in the 
future. I really do appreciate Chris' efforts, and would be glad to 
help in any way possible.

-Bill

----------

William B. Birkett
Precision Color, Inc.
9200 General Drive
Plymouth, MI 48170 (USA)

Phone:  (734) 459-5640     Direct: (734) 414-3608
Cell:   (734) 516-4790     FAX:    (734) 459-4210


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