Here's my take on how much I use these commands.... > The commands I used most were: > > keys pressed Frequently... > set cursor to Sometimes... > play sound Rarely... > No one has replaced these yet. > > Many people loved these screen commands: > > screen list > set screens to Never... > > Some fellow wrote a unix tool called cscreen, but stopped supporting it. > > My file commands avoided the Finder and had no UI: > deleteFile > renameFile > moveFile > copyFile Most valuable in OS7-9, but I still prefer them to the finder and system events. > These are in the system these days but were written before the Finder was > scriptable: > > sound volume > set sound volume to > machine environment Never > the clipboard > set the clipboard to Standard additions works fine for this > > Other miscellaneous weird commands: > > the ticks -- for timers All the time, less overhead than the shell, so it's more accurate. However, if it were built into applescript so there were no overhead at all, it would be even more accurate. > walk folders -- a cool file iterator I used a lot Never (sorry, Jon, I tried, but pure applescript seemed simpler) > AE user interaction level -- a way to avoid dialogs sometimes Never, couldn't make it work where I wanted to We do need a way to suspend all user interaction too. > choose color -- because I could Never > snag object -- a developer's tool to store an AS object specifier Never > fileIsBusy -- Leonard made me add this one ;) Frequently > Plus the coercions that people both loved and hated: > string to file specification -- 'TEXT' to 'fss ' > styled text to file specification -- 'STXT' to 'fss ' > international text to file specification -- 'itxt' to 'fss ' Frequently > script to anything -- 'scpt' to '****' never ES