iTunes 10.6.3 broke appscript because Hamish's method of fetching the dictionary, using an ascr/gdte Apple event, no longer works.

STOP READING! iTunes 11.0.1 has fixed that bug. rb-appscript now works just fine with iTunes once again. The fix discussed in this note is no longer needed.

START READING AGAIN! iTunes may be fixed, but now the Finder is broken (in Mountain Lion). So you do need this note, in order to script the Finder with rb-appscript. And who knows what else Apple may break?

Fortunately there are other ways to get the dictionary that do still work. I have written a script, sdefToRBAppscriptModule.rb, that works around the problem by using a different way of fetching the dictionary, namely by calling the sdef command-line tool.

Here's how to use it:

require 'appscript'
require 'sdefToRBAppscriptModule.rb' # I have it installed my Ruby library

# start with path to scriptable application
# f = "/Applications/iTunes.app"

# if what you have isn't a path, use the FindApp module to get it
f = FindApp.by_id('com.apple.finder')

Finder = SDEFParser.makeModule(f)
finder = Appscript.app("Finder", Finder)

# and we're off to the races
p finder.windows[1].name.get # or whatever

Share and enjoy. Please fork and pull-request if you improve on this script.

— Matt Neuburg