Script Debugger is an AppleScript authoring tool. It features numerous tools to assist the developer, including single step execution of scripts and provides a powerful scripting environment, which allows drag and drop editing, find and replace, and no script size limit. It also provides a graphical AppleScript dictionary viewer.
AppleScript, in its original incarnation from Apple, was a powerful concept combined with a curiously inadequate developers’ tool kit. This implicit challenge (and market opportunity) has called forth a few more-sophisticated third-party script packages: ScriptWizard from Heizer Software..., Main Event’s Scripter, and now Late Night’s misleadingly named Script Debugger. This is not just a debugger — it’s a complete script-development environment with a thoughtfully designed interface. The other reason the name is misleading is that debugging is not exactly Script Debugger’s strong point.
Script Debugger provides lots of amenities that AppleScript 1.1 doesn’t. You can set break points in scripts, you can single-step through scripts, and you can assemble composite scripts from stock components quickly with drag-and-drop editing. Script Debugger’s Dictionary window is an improvement on Apple’s Dictionary window and is reminiscent of the popular browser for Think-class libraries. It’s PowerPC native (even though AppleScript isn’t yet, so scripts don’t run faster on Power Macs).
Script Debugger also offers nearly 80 new scripting commands, as well as an Extensions menu for storing frequently used extensions to the scripting command language. The documentation is first-rate, the examples are actually useful, and there’s even a card to help you remember the keyboard shortcuts for editing.
In other words. Script Debugger is a vast improvement over AppleScript 1.1. Since Script Debugger is itself scriptable (and attachable), you can use it for all sorts of interesting computer-science experiments in which scripts modify themselves (though quite slowly).
The problem is that Script Debugger isn’t competing against AppleScript, it’s competing against Scripter. Scripter’s debugging facility keeps correct track of variable local values inside loops and handlers, while Script Debugger is generally only reliable for tracking global variables. (Late Night claims this is a built-in limitation imposed by AppleScript itself.)
The Last Word There’s no doubt that Script Debugger is a good product that offers a much more productive scripting environment than stock AppleScript does. Debugger’s lightweight debugging capabilities, however, make Scripter a better choice for complex projects.
Seiter, Charles. (November 1995). Script Debugger 1.0. Macworld. (pg. 85).
Late Night Software Ltd.
Applications
out of 10 (0 vote)
19 / 
2020-09-14 / 
7192bec74026f7c37e5ed5d96153d8b2e0e48a1d / 
/ 
Script_Debugger_1.0.3.sea_.hqx
Emulating this? It could probably run under: 
Basilisk II
