Didn't mean to obfuscate that, it's just a one-liner.
Here's how it works. Perl setup:
perl -Mautodie -we '
die "not apple mac" unless ${^O} eq "darwin";
Open a pipe to the applescript compiler and print:
open $f, "|-", "osacompile -o CPAN.app"; print $f qq~
Display applescript dialog to get user input:
set CPAN to text returned of (display dialog "Search CPAN for" with title "Perl CPAN Search" default answer "")\n
Exit on empty form:
if CPAN is equal to "" then return\n
Open website with user input:
do shell script("open \\"https://metacpan.org/search?q=" & CPAN & "\\"")
Back to perl, close the print and pipe, open the app:
~;
close $f;
system("open CPAN.app")'
Flowchart:
perl -> applescript -> perl -> app -> CPAN!
The programmer is fighting against the two most destructive forces
in the universe: entropy and human stupidity.—Damian Conway