AppleScript Not Recognizing Application Index Addresses - applescript

Question

I am creating an AppleScript to control some basic standard actions in SAP and everything as written works fine from the main menu page of available transactions. The current script fills out the Command Text Field and opens a new existing transaction code. However, once SAP has gone to the new transaction code page, when I run the AppleScript a second time it no longer recognizes the index of the Command Text Field. Instead it pastes the transaction code into whatever text field happens to be the current focus. When I run the script, it should always go to the same text field because the overall index address hasn't changed, but it's not.
I've attempted to open the Script Dictionary for SAP, but it appears that my company's flavor of SAP has had the scripting dictionary disabled, so I am forced to use indexing addresses to fill text fields and click buttons
on chooseSAPTransaction()
global sapTransaction, transactionCode
set transactionCode to "" -- intialize the variable
set transactionList to choose from list {"Find Document", "Change Document", "Look up Product", "Correct Product"} with prompt "SAP Action:" default items {""}
if transactionList is false then
error number -128
else
set choosenTransaction to item 1 of transactionList
end if
if choosenTransaction is "Find Document" then
set transactionCode to "code1"
chooseCode1()
end if
if choosenTransaction is "Change Document" then
set transactionCode to "code2"
chooseCode2()
end if
if choosenTransaction is "Look up Product" then
set transactionCode to "code3"
chooseCode3()
end if
if choosenTransaction is "Correct Product" then
set transactionCode to "code4"
chooseCode4()
end if
set sapTransaction to "/n" & transactionCode
activate application "SAP"
delay 0.1
tell application "System Events"
tell process "SAP"
tell front window to tell toolbar 1 to tell text field 1
keystroke sapTransaction
end tell
tell front window to tell toolbar 1 to tell button 1 to perform action "AXPress"
end tell
end tell
end chooseSAPTransaction
It's skipping tell front window to tell toolbar 1 to tell text field 1 and going right to keystroke sapTransaction on subsequent script executions
("/n" & transactionCode creates the string that tells SAP the new transaction to go to. When typing it manually, it always takes you to the new transaction, regardless of how many layers deep you might be in the current transaction)
I expect the indexing tell to go to the same element on every new instance of running the script, but once it's run once, AppleScript isn't finding the element address anymore.
edit:
I just tried moving the pasting action into its own unique handler so that it can be called before attempting to go to the next step, but that didn't work either.
--snip--
if choosenTransaction is "Find Document" then
set transactionCode to "code1"
set sapTransaction to "/n" & transactionCode
pasteTransaction()
chooseCode1()
end if
--snip--
on pasteTransaction()
global serialNumber, sapTransaction, transactionCode
activate application "SAPGUI"
delay 0.1
tell application "System Events"
tell process "SAPGUI"
tell front window to tell toolbar 1 to tell text field 1
keystroke sapTransaction
end tell
tell front window to tell toolbar 1 to tell button 1 to perform action "AXPress"
end tell
end tell
end pasteTransaction
edit 2:
I got it working by forcing SAP to go through the menu. Woo!
on pasteTransaction()
global serialNumber, sapTransaction, transactionCode
activate application "SAPGUI"
delay 0.1
tell application "System Events"
click menu item ¬
"Target Command Field" of menu 1 of menu bar item ¬
"Edit" of menu bar 1 of application process "SAPGUI"
keystroke sapTransaction
tell process "SAPGUI"
tell front window to tell toolbar 1 to tell button 1 to perform action "AXPress"
end tell
end tell
end pasteTransaction
unfortunately, that doesn't fix the bigger issue of AppleScript not finding the correct index address for text fields, because getting this part working is only step one. Now I have to get text strings into various text fields within each transaction.
So if anyone knows how to address that original Index Address issue, that would be great.
I wish I knew how to actually write AppleScript instead of cobbling code together one action at a time from various sources. It's not elegant, and functionality is hit-or-miss.

Answer 1

GUI scripting is always a hack, and without seeing the application in action it's hard to diagnose problems. Obviously something is changing in the interface that is throwing off the view hierarchy you're trying to leverage, but... I will point out that menus and toolbars tend to be dynamic, which makes things dicier. But here's a couple of diagnostics and alternate approaches you can try.
First, let me rewrite the GUI code like this, which I find clearer:
tell application "System Events"
tell process "SAP"
tell front window
tell toolbar 1
tell text field 1
keystroke sapTransaction
end tell
tell button 1
perform action "AXPress"
end tell
end tell
end tell
end tell
end tell
So first — assuming you are targeting the correct textfield — you might try this instead:
tell toolbar 1
tell text field 1
set value to sapTransaction
end tell
tell button 1
perform action "AXPress"
end tell
end tell
keystroke can be intercepted by whatever UI element has the focus, but setting the text field's value ought to go directly into the correct element. If that doesn't work, you can try this diagnostic in Script Editor:
tell toolbar 1
properties of every text field
end tell
This should give you a list in the Script Editor's log of all of the text fields in toolbar 1. With that, you can see if the text field has a name property (which would make addressing easier: i.e. tell text field "someName"), or if some other text field has been added to the toolbar higher in the hierarchy, changing the index of the text field you're after. If worse comes to worst, you can try this:
tell toolbar 1
entire contents
end tell
Which will list out all the UI elements of the toolbar. You can do a before/after comparison to see what (if anything) changed.
Hope that helps.