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Did MacOS ever have any sort of scripting ability?

Back in the day if an app wasn't scriptable, you could generally use QuicKeys to automate the manual controls. I did some crazy stuff between QuicKeys and AppleScript. You can tell it to click on particular x,y coordinates, type characters, like command s, and so on. It can be quite finicky, but you can often get it to do what you need.
 
Chuck(G) said:
It's also complicated by the fact that Persuasion insists on using "untitled 1.pdf" for exported files, unless corrected manually. Not a lot of thought--one would think that it would use the name of the original source file as basis. Thrown-together non-scriptable piece of trash--when it works. (I've had cases where it could get to the postscript file and then bomb out).

I'm using Persuasion 4 because of the export capabilities on 2.1 files. I suspect that the original 68K 2.1 was even more limited.
Click to expand...
Scripting would help, but there is a tradeoff of effort and time vs just doing it manually. You could ask on https://macos9lives.com/smforum/ ...
 
The problem is that Persuasion is an oddball product that few have used and so know.
I'll just get 'er done and be done with it. I'm not going to have to do this again.
 
For future reference you may be able use GraphicConverter™ for Macintosh to convert from Persuasion to PDF which is also Scriptable. You'll have to see if GraphicConverter can open Persuasion files and if so you can easily do a batch convert.

If you wanted to scan a folder or drive for Persuasion files and move them to a single location or an alias, a Finder script can do that. Then use GraphicConverter™ to do the batch from the folder of aliases.

tell application "Finder"
activate
set scan_folder to choose folder -- choose the folder or disk to scan for Persuasion files
set destination_folder to make new folder at desktop with properties {name:"Persuasion file aliases"} -- makes a folder on desktop to store the aliases of Persuasion files it finds as it scans the scan folder
set list_of_persuasion_files to every item of the entire contents of scan_folder whose file type = "PN4" -- for Persuasion 4. For version2 use AT2
repeat with n from 1 to the number of items in list_of_persuasion_files
set get_name to the name of item n of list_of_persuasion_files -- gets the name of the selected file
set selected_persuasion_file to item n of list_of_persuasion_files as alias
make new alias at destination_folder to selected_persuasion_file with properties {name:get_name} -- the property isn't necessary and can be omitted if you want the alias to take the name of the original file.
end repeat
display dialog "Scan Complete"
end tell
 
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This is actually just an AppleScript for the Finder. To gather all the Persuasion files in selected folder/disk.
I suggested once you run a script like this you use a different app that can batch export these files to pdf files. Graphic converter is one. Does Persuasion do batch export? I’ve never used it.
 
Not certain at all. It's a very old application written for 68K. At any rate, the job's long done and out of my immediate interest. Besiides, it's a little difficult doing much on a laptop from a bed in rehab.
 
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