Explorers appear, or can be generated, in many parts of the Script Debugger interface. Basically, an explorer is Script Debugger’s way of letting you understand and work with an AppleScript value, so wherever a value needs to be shown, an explorer is used.

For example:

• The explorer that appears in a dictionary window when you choose Dictionary > Show Explorer (or click the Explorer button in the dictionary window’s toolbar) is an explorer. The object being explored is a running scriptable application.

• The result pane in a script window is an explorer. The object being explored is the result returned by executing a script (or, if you’re debugging, the value returned by the most recently executed line of code).

• The event log’s second column (the Log Result column) is an explorer. The object being explored is the result returned by the Apple event selected in the first column (the event list).

• An error dialog may include an explorer. The object being explored is the problematic value.

In other places in the interface, a sort of “partial explorer” appears (the Best view outliner only, with no choice of views and no path widget):

• The tell context inspector in a script window is the outliner of an explorer. The object being explored is the object being targeted by the innermost tell block surrounding the current selection in the script.

• The variables pane in a script window is the outliner of an explorer. The object being explored is the top-level script object.

An explorer can also be generated as a separate window — an explorer window.

NOTE: When the value being explored by an explorer has changed, a red bar appears at the top of the explorer. For example, in a script window, the result pane shows a red bar after each time you run the script, because a newly generated result is being explored. An explorer window is another common case.