AppleScript is cool. Can I do the same thing in plain Objective-C?

so I'm working on my little Mac app, and I want control Adium with it. AppleScript is very cool:

tell application "Adium"
    go away with message "Zoned in for Maths."
end tell

(If you're wondering what this is supposed to be. In order to actually start studying I need to create application that will change my IM status, of course ... )

I tried it in Script Editor, it worked, and I'm pretty sure that calling AppleScript from Cocoa application is gonna be trivial.

But.

Is AppleScript the only way? I don't mind using AppleScript, but it looks like programming for noobs.

Is there any way to do the same thing as above code does without AppleScript, in plain Objective-C somehow?

Would someone point me to relevant documentation? I tried Google but it was like I don't even know what I'm looking for.

Thanks!

Solution

Interprocess communication in Mac OS X is done by something called Apple Events. AppleScript is one way to send and receive Apple Events to other applications.

Therefore, you just need to construct Apple Events directly and send it to the other app, from Objective-C or whatever other language.

Honestly, if you just want to change the status of Adium, it's easiest to use NSAppleScript and pass what you just wrote, from inside Objective-C.

If you want to do more complicated stuff, Scripting Bridge is the way to go. This mechanism maps Apple Events' object hierarchy to Objective-C's object hierarchy.

If you think that's still a newbie's way, you should directly create Apple Events via NSAppleEventDescriptor.

Another way would be to directly deal with C structs called AEDesc and such. See Apple Events programming guide and the corresponding reference.

The important thing is whether you can achieve what you want. In fact, AppleScript is a very powerful, dynamical language, whose power is not well appreciated by many people. Read AppleScript language guide and be surprised.