How to resize Visual Studio Code window with Automator? - macos

Question

I'm trying to do a screencast and for that, I want to record the VSCode window at the same size every time. For that I've tried to use an Automator script to resize the window. It works with all the applications that I've tested but not with VSCode.
This is the script:
(* This AppleScript will resize the current application window to the height specified below and center it in the screen. Compiled with code from Natanial Wools and Amit Agarwal *)
set the_application to (path to frontmost application as Unicode text)
set appHeight to 720
set appWidth to 1280
tell application "Finder"
set screenResolution to bounds of window of desktop
end tell
set screenWidth to item 3 of screenResolution
set screenHeight to item 4 of screenResolution
tell application the_application
activate
reopen
set yAxis to (screenHeight - appHeight) / 2 as integer
set xAxis to (screenWidth - appWidth) / 2 as integer
set the bounds of the first window to {xAxis, yAxis, appWidth + xAxis, appHeight + yAxis}
end tell
And this is the error that happens when I try to resize the VSCode. Does anyone know what this error could be? Or does anyone know any other way to enforce the window size?

Answer 1

The bounds property and the window element only exist for applications that are scriptable. Most applications, including Microsoft Visual Studio Code, are not scriptable, so your current script will not work for any of these.
To manipulate the window of a non-scriptable application, you need to script the UI using System Events:
tell application "System Events"
set [[screenW, screenH]] to process "Finder"'s scroll areas's size
tell (the first process where it is frontmost)
set [[null, menuH]] to the size of its menu bars
tell the front window
set [appW, appH] to its size
set its position to [¬
(screenW - appW) / 2, ¬
(screenH - appH + menuH) / 2]
end tell
end tell
end tell