Inside Macintosh: AppleScript Language Guide / Part 3 - Appendixes

Appendix B - Scriptable Text Editor Dictionary / Scriptable Text Editor Object Class Definitions

Word

Generally speaking, words in English are text objects delimited by spaces, return characters, or the beginning or end of a container. (For a more precise definition, see page 59.) Words in other languages are defined by the script system for each language if the appropriate script system is installed.

PROPERTIES

Font

The name of the font of the word. If the font varies within the word, the Font property specifies the font of the first character.
Class: String
Modifiable? Yes

Length

The number of characters in a text object.
Class: Integer
Modifiable? No

Offset

The offset, in characters, from the beginning of the document to the first character of a text object.
Class: Integer
Modifiable? No

Size

The size, in points, of the word. If the size varies within the word, the Size property specifies the size of the first character.
Class: Integer
Modifiable? Yes

Style

The text styles of a text object. If the text styles vary within the word, the Style property specifies the styles of the first character.
Class: Text Style Info. Objects of this class have two properties: On Styles and Off Styles. The On Styles property specifies the styles that apply to the text object. The Off Styles property specifies the styles that do not apply to the text object. Both properties are lists of constants that specify text styles. See "Elements of Text Objects" on page 314 for information
about how styles are used. The constants that can be used in Style property lists are bold, italic, outline, underline, and shadow.
Modifiable? Yes

Uniform Styles
The text styles that are uniformly "on" or "off" for all characters of a text object.
Class: Text Style Info. Objects of this class have two properties: On Styles and Off Styles. The On Styles property specifies the styles that apply to all the characters of the text object. The Off Styles property specifies the styles that do not apply to any of the characters of the text object. Both properties are lists of constants that specify text styles. If a style does not appear in either list, the style applies to some but not all of the characters in the object. See "Elements of Text Objects" on page 314 for information about how styles are used. The constants that can be used in Uniform Styles property lists are bold, italic, outline, underline, and shadow.
Modifiable? No

ELEMENT CLASSES

See "Elements of Text Objects" on page 314 for a general discussion of these element classes.

Character

Characters contained in the words

Paragraph

Paragraphs contained in the words

text

Series of characters contained in the words

Text Item

Text items contained in the words

Word

Words contained in the words

COMMANDS HANDLED

Copy, Count, Cut, Data Size, Delete, Duplicate, Exists, Get, Make, Move,
Select, Set

DEFAULT VALUE CLASS RETURNED

Styled Text

EXAMPLES

move word 2 to end of document "Huge"set size of word 10 to 18