iWork '08 and Applescript

[Karl Kuehn]

	I have been playing a bit with the new iWork and have to say that I  
am really happy, especially with numbers. And the fact that Apple has  
great site-licensing for K-12 is something I am really happy about  
(even though it does not directly affect me). But as a system admin  
who likes to use AppleScript I am really annoyed with Apple:

	Numbers is not AppleScript-able at all! Nor is there anything in  
Automator for it! I know that this is a 1.0 product, but AppleScript  
is not that hard to work with!

	Export is still not scriptable in Keynote. What I am looking for is  
to create a droplet that non-skilled users can use to drop a  
PowerPoint document on and it spits out a PDF and flash file that  
they can take and put on our web-sites. And I can create a list of  
instructions, but that does not work well for people who have their  
PHD (they don't follow instructions: they give/create them!). A  
droplet would fix this problem.
	And there is a 'save as <filetype>' entry in the dictionary, but  
that does not seem to actually change anything.

	I also wish that you could work with the objects in Keynote some  
with AppleScript, but it is still limited to basically controlling a  
presentation as you give it. There is a little provision for  
modifying text, but not much. You can get at this by closing a  
presentation and then digging into the XML, but...

	The Pages team seems to have a better handle on things, but I have  
not really dug into their stuff at all.

	And unrelated to AppleScript: why can't Apple support LinkBack? It  
makes life so much easier when you are using multiple programs to  
work on a single presentation. I use it (with the plugin) to make  
nice charts in OmniGraffle, but often need to make minor tweaks. Just  
because it is not OpenDoc does not mean that Apple can ignore it (or,  
conversely, just because it is like OpenDoc...).

http://linkback.nisus.com/

	There is a guy out there who has hacked LinkBack support into every  
Keynote version so far... Why can't Apple just support this easy-to- 
use and useful protocol?

http://commons.ucalgary.ca/~king/projects/keynoteplugins/linkback/

	And yes... I am radaring all of this... And about 6 months ago I  
radared my AppleScript request, and even talked to our Apple SE to  
get this feedback straight to the iWork team.
--
		Karl Kuehn
			larkost at softhome.net