Macintosh Scripting/Macro Utility for OS X?

something like macroexpress for windows

[rover]

I use Windows XP but am seriously considering a Mac.

Pardon my ignorance on this, but does anyone know if there is a relatively easy to use scripting utility for the Mac (something like macro express for Windows)?

With macro express I can process a text list of file names, and have it open a specific program perform some actions on the file, save it, go to the next file, perform the same actions on it, etc. then the files are automatically FTP'd to our site.

If anyone knows if there is a mac utility that would ease the scripting process, I would greatly appreciate it.

[john316]

Check out Applescript

[apple.com...]

[rover]

That makes sense. I don't have any experience with Applescript and am a little concerned that it will take me a long time to get up to speed to create the scripts I need, but I suppose I could also pay someone to get my initial processes up and running, and learn as I go. Thanks.

[whoisgregg]

If you aren't in a rush, the next OS release is going to have a whizbang GUI automator feature called Automator [apple.com] that should have a more comfortable learning curve.

Negative? It's only been announced for "first half 2005" which could mean it's 5 months away.

[rover]

Thanks! That looks quite interesting, and more my speed. I'm not in a big hurry, so I think I'll wait to see how people like their new Mac minis and for the release of Tiger.

[dcrombie]

You also have a variety of 'shells' installed and 'cron' so you use most *ix scripts on your Mac and have them executed when you want. When "Tiger" comes out you might be able to do it all in JavaScript!

[timster]

Hmm...this sounds like a job for Perl. Especially if the changes you're making to the text files are considerable.

Perl comes installed in Mac OS X, and you can get Cron to run your Perl scripts automatically.