---
title: "AppleScript and application services in the closet"
date: 2003-01-23T22:40:23-05:00
url: https://blog.lmorchard.com/2003/01/23/ooocig/
author: Les Orchard
---

# AppleScript and application services in the closet

<blockquote cite="http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20030121064254140">Apple's Script Editor 2.0 for OS 10.2.3 has support for Application Services . Basically, you can hilight some valid <a href="http://www.decafbad.com/twiki/bin/view/Main/AppleScript">AppleScript</a> text in any supporting application (like Safari, for instance) and 
<ol>
<li> execute the script [or] 
</li>
<li> get the result of the script [or] 
</li>
<li> put the text into Script Editor. 
</li>
</ol>
</blockquote><div class="credit" align="right"><small>Source:<cite><a href="http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20030121064254140">Mac OS X Hints: Run AppleScripts via system services</a></cite>.</small></div>
<p>Neat!  Now...  can we do something about making access to those services a bit more prominent?  System-wide functions buried in a menu obscurely labeled "Services" under an app-specific menu label doesn't seem very inviting or intuitive.  <a href="http://www.decafbad.com/twiki/bin/view/Main/AppleScript">AppleScript</a> gets insanely better treatment than this.  I'd like to see these services pushed just as far forward, and more easily discoverable.  It's been awhile since I played in Cocoa, but for awhile I was wondering if rearrange things a bit, maybe pull the service items for the currently active app into a menu extra or something.  Or, at least pull the menu up a level, maybe stick it next to the "Script" where appropriate.  And, I'd love to be able to customize the keyboard shortcuts assigned to them - some have shortcuts and I'll rarely use them, while others have no shortcut and I wish I could use them all the time.</p>
<p>It's good stuff, Apple, show it off.</p>
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shortname=ooocig

<div id="comments" class="comments archived-comments">
            <h3>Archived Comments</h3>
            
        <ul class="comments">
            
        <li class="comment" id="comment-221086619">
            <div class="meta">
                <div class="author">
                    <a class="avatar image" rel="nofollow" 
                       href="http://disco.ucsd.edu/blog/"><img src="http://www.gravatar.com/avatar.php?gravatar_id=3c561e62d8fc9a93d5409bea44cf1231&amp;size=32&amp;default=http://mediacdn.disqus.com/1320279820/images/noavatar32.png"/></a>
                    <a class="avatar name" rel="nofollow" 
                       href="http://disco.ucsd.edu/blog/">Michael McCracken</a>
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                <a href="#comment-221086619" class="permalink"><time datetime="2003-01-23T23:53:14">2003-01-23T23:53:14</time></a>
            </div>
            <div class="content">Hey, if you want to do a cocoa project to make services more visible, you might want to take a look at one of my old projects - I called it Self Service. http://disco.ucsd.edu/blog/computers/apps/SelfService 

The idea was to make Services into floating windows that you could drag and drop to. It works fine, but I keep forgetting to use it. (And Safari doesn't have a service)

If you want the code, just ask.</div>
            
        </li>
    
        </ul>
    
        </div>