About KQ AESend Last updated on August 17, 1998

KQ AESend is an extension for KeyQuencer, a powerful macro utility written by Alessandro Levi Montalcini and published by Binary Software. KQ AESend gives KeyQuencer macros the ability to send Apple events to any process running on your machine. Apple events are the low-level messages Macintosh applications use to talk to each other, and the basis for scripting systems like AppleScript and Frontier. AESend lets advanced scripters and power users access the raw power of Apple events from KeyQuencer, without the overhead involved by a scripting system.

• Download KQ AESend 1.1

AESend is fast and flexible, but also difficult to use for non-programmer types, because it requires a good understanding of the underpinnings of Apple events. Fortunately, you don't need to be a programmer to take advantage of AESend, as the package comes with 48 ready-to-use sample macros based entirely on this extension.

KQ AESend requires version 2.0 of KeyQuencer or KeyQuencer Lite, and of course, applications that can be effectively driven by Apple events. Many of the sample macros require the scriptable Finder or some standard scripting additions, all of which are installed by default on machines running Mac OS 7.5 or later.

Here's a brief description of what some of the included macros do. Let's start with the macros which rely on the scriptable Finder. Open with ResEdit, Open with Script Editor and Open with Style tell the Finder to open the selected items with a specific application, and are equivalent to dragging the selection onto the application icon. Open Apple Menu Items, Open Control Panels, Open Extensions, Open KQ Extensions, Open Preferences, Open Scripting Additions and Open System Folder tell the Finder to open a specific folder. Expand decodes/decompresses the selected items using StuffIt Expander, while Stuff does the reverse operation using DropStuff. Mount Disk Image mounts disk images using ShrinkWrap. Add to Apple Menu puts aliases to the selected items in the Apple Menu Items folder, whereas Make Alias on Desktop creates the aliases on the desktop. Reveal Original reveals the original item the selected alias points to, and Show Original Info opens the Finder's info window for it. View by Buttons and a family of Sort List By macros let you change the view of Finder windows (these macros require version 8.0 of the Finder). Some macros are supposed to work not just with the Finder, but with any scriptable application that supports the Standard Suite of events: they include Zoom In, Zoom Out and Cycle Windows. Set Font/Size to Monaco 9 is a macro to use in conjunction with a scriptable text editor like Style or Tex-Edit Plus. Finally, there are several macros that exploit some standard scripting additions (also known as osaxen) to set the monitor depth or the speaker volume.

Version 1.1 adds some very rudimentary support for filter references (aka whose clauses), a powerful way to specify a set of objects matching a given set of criteria. For instance, KQ AESend 1.1 lets you write the equivalent of the AppleScript fragment:

Also, some macros have been changed for Finder 8.0 compatibility and the source code and the project file have been updated for CodeWarrior Pro 3.

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