FaceSpan is a development environment for AppleScript and other OSA languages, like Frontier. It is able to extend AppleScript's capabilities in many ways, chief among them is by providing a method to create complex UIs, thus making a script application behave like any other application.
No scripter's workshop should be without FaceSpan. Originally designed to create quick mock-ups of application interfaces that could be written in another programming language, FaceSpan lets you quickly build AppleScript interfaces. Once you’ve mastered its idiosyncrasies — such as separate design, play, and run modes that require different initial conditions to run scripts properly — FaceSpan allow's you to integrate complex scripts into stand-alone applications with the look and feel of commercial applications.
To create an application with FaceSpan, you first build the application’s interface using FaceSpan’s many objects, including windows, menus, buttons, text, lists, pop-up menus, boxes, lines, and artwork. FaceSpan handles the basic behaviors of objects automatically: buttons highlight, scroll bars scroll, and menus pull down when you click on them. Other actions arc controlled by the scripts you wite.
Scripts are the heart of a FaceSpan project; any object can have one. Scripts can control interactions with other applications or can change an object’s properties — parameters of objects that relate to their appearance or behavior.
FaceSpan’s Message window, useful for debugging, lets you send commands to or get information from any object in your project — even while the project is running. The window also displays interactions between scripts and other applications.
New Capabilities
FaceSpan 2.0 has a long list of new features. Tables — simple spreadsheets with adjustable column and row widths and scroll bars — aid interactions with databases. Gauges can function as sliders, progress bars, or increment arrows like those in the Date & Time control panel of the Macintosh Operating System. QuickTime movies have simple commands that control playback.
Storage items provide space for lists, table data, or any kind of text. You can create storage items while designing your project or during run-time, and their contents are automatically saved when the program quits. Because scripts cannot be longer than 32,767 characters, storage items are particularly handy for storing script libraries.
If you like tool bars or have a task for which a tool palette makes sense, you can turn imported or pasted artwork into a matrix of buttons using a grid...
In addition, FaceSpan lets you add some of the Mac OS’s lower-level capabilities, such as drag and drop, to your application. For example, users might type a client’s name in cell A1 of a table and then drag a copy of the name to another cell, or drag a graphic from your application’s desktop and drop it into a picture frame.
Other low-level additions include commands that retrieve system information, methods of determining whether key modifiers (such as ⌘) are pressed, and mouse-tracking and -clicking events. Using the low-level commands that FaceSpan offers, you can add sophisticated interface functions such as constraining drag movement, option-clicking on tool palettes to reach tool settings, or changing the look of the cursor when it passes over certain objects.
Finally, version 2.0 improves FaceSpan’s scripting environment, adding find and replace, direct access to AppleScript formatting, enhancements to the text editor, and direct access to scriptable applications’ Apple events dictionaries.
Clever Treasures
FaceSpan is extensible and full of interesting but nearly invisible features. For example, with a little help from a resource editor, you can make menus hierarchical. The menus automatically work the same as standard menus, so no special scripting techniques are required. Another almost unnoticeable feature lets you log your application’s events and messages by setting a string resource to the path of the log file.
Forms and Key filters — plug-ins that change how FaceSpan’s objects look and behave — are useful additions to projects. For instance, FaceSpan provides several forms that turn gauges — which normally look like scroll bars — into progress bars, sliders, and increment arrows. (One example is a slider whose tab is a tiny starship Enterprise that slides back and forth on a background of stars.) You can also import scripting additions as forms, thus eliminating the need to bundle or install them separately. And not surprisingly, you can write custom forms that extend the capability of your application.
Few Drawbacks
Besides the difficulty of using some of FaceSpan’s advanced features, there are only three problems worth mentioning. Applications created with FaceSpan have no native printing capability — you have to script printing functions into your application if you want it to print. Also, FaceSpan provides no built-in function for printing out all of a project’s scripts at one time — making it difficult to document a complex project. And in Design mode, you cannot drag and drop items between windows; drag imported pictures into frames; or drag text between text boxes, lists, and tables.
Future versions of FaceSpan should focus on better interfaces and clearer documentation of its subtler features, such as forms and formats. Online or balloon help would also be useful.
The Last Word
Once you’re accustomed to its quirks, though, FaceSpan is an excellent interface builder. In fact, according to the company, FaceSpan’s interface is generated using many of the same services available to the applications you create — strong testimony to its capability. The new storage items, tables, and drag-and-drop functions make stand-alone applications easier for you to create and for people to use. No longer must your AppleScripts run with a plain interface or no interface at all; FaceSpan lets you create sophisticated applications.
Warner, Tim. (November 1995). FaceSpan 2.0. Macworld. (pg. 64).
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facespan-21.sit
Emulating this? It could probably run under: 
Basilisk II
