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A workaround for scripts failing with Speakable Items System

With newer versions of Jaguar and all versions of Panther, it always seemed to me that Speakable Items was broken with compiled scripts -- you could never save a compiled script and leave it in your Speakable Items folder and then use it to command your computer via speech. The script would just refuse to execute even though the computer recognized the command via feedback. It would force you to save the script as an app, which was kludgy since an icon would appear in your Dock every time you invoked the script. Ugh.

Well, today I found out why. It dawned on me that Apple had released a new version of Script Editor when Jaguar was still out, and they shipped it with Panther. It turns out that this app is what's causing the incompatibility -- if you save a compiled script using Script Editor 2.0 or later, your compiled scripts will fail to execute when invoked via Speakable Items.

The obvious workaround is to obtain Script Editor 1.9 or lower from installations of Jaguar, and use that to save your compiled scripts. Speakable Items will then work with those saved scripts.

I hope this saves some people some aggravation over some of the scripts in the Mac OS X Hints database (especially the talk to iTunes script), since many of them use Speakable Items, and compiled scripts would seem to randomly work with some people and not with others. I'm almost positive that this is the root of the cause.

And a note to Apple -- get Script Editor 2.0 working with Speakable Items!

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A workaround for scripts failing with Speakable Items
Authored by: GlowingApple on Nov 02, '04 12:01:22AM

Well, you certainly saved me some time. I found that if I open a working script, such as the Sherlock script that's already in Speakable Items, replace all of the code with whatever script I need, then save it, even in 2.0, it seems to work ok. Sometimes that doesn't work though as some scripts seem to die after a certain number of changes. But I can then copy a working script, copy the script text I want, replace the text in the copy of the working script and it works again. Still, it is a major pain since I am playing around with a few scripts right now. So now the question, how can I get a hold of an older version of script editor? I don't have any copy of Jaguar that I can pull the file from. If anyone has Jaguar, could they send me the app by chance? My e-mail address is quantum0726@aol.com.

Thanks much!

---
Jayson

When Microsoft asks you, "Where do you want to go today?" tell them "Apple."



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