Hey, can you do me a favor and make sure if your post contains JXA stuff, that you include the text “JXA” somewhere in it, so it comes up in a search? You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but I personally would appreciate it. Thanks.
I’ll add it to that post, and try to remember it. ‘JXA’ is not, for some reason, how I spontaneously think about it – sounds likes a washing powder
(Is searching for ‘JavaScript for Automation’ any good to you ? I guess I tend to think of it as JS with that Automation object, so JS for A comes sooner to mind)
I might argue that on a forum like this, it’s helpful to use the same terms as Apple. To find a trace of anyone in Apple using the term JXA, I think you might have to track down one or two of the slide packs in the early developer briefings.
Not much sign of it in Apple’s offical release or public-facing documents
No, it never figured in any of the the branding work for markets, and nothing in the first release notes (10.10) or the Scripting Guide for Automation)
(Even in the technical channels to developers, it barely figures outside a couple of early uses by engineers in pre-release WWDC presentations to developers.
https://developer.apple.com/search/?q=jxa
The one appearance in parentheses in the second release notes (10.11) owes more to the influence of the JXA Cookbook site than to any branding work by Apple).
I'm sure it's here to stay, and I have no problem with it – just not a name that I use myself.
Automation in OS X has always been about power and choice. Scriptable applications, including Pages, Keynote, Numbers, and the Finder, can already be automated using a variety of languages, including AppleScript, Objective-C, Perl, Python, and Ruby. With OS X Yosemite, application scripting support has been added to another popular language, JavaScript. JavaScript for Automation (JXA) extends the standard JavaScript environment provided by the JavaScriptCore framework with support for querying and controlling all of the scriptable applications running in OS X. JXA scripts are supported at all layers of the system and can be invoked from the command-line, from the system-wide Script Menu, and can even be distributed as code-signed applications.