Once there was an Desktop-Environment called KDE 3. It has this Interprocess-Communication called dcop. Around that time there were serious attempts made to reach a similar level like AppleScript. There even were plans to recreate the Wokflow(?)-App from MacOS. But then KDE4 came, DBUS replaced dcop and things became a complicated mess. Today DBUS is still used, but the spirit to externally automate your apps seems to mostly gone, and remaining abilitys are just a shadow of past promises.