I am looking for a script that will place the cursor in the text field in the Messages App. I have looked for a keyboard shortcut to do this but cannot find one. Can anyone provide a script, or a similar one I can modify.
NB I am not a programmer or very familiar with AppleScript, but have been able to modify scripts that are close to my needs.
I need this as I am trying to make the messages app controllable using the built in dictation feature in Mac OS. I need a script I can assign to a voice command to place the cursor in the text field so that I can then dictate a message.
Many thanks.
If you are using dictation commands, in any application all you need to do is say the command “Show Numbers” and you will see this:
Then you would just say the command “Twenty” which will place your cursor right where you want it… in this case it would be the text field
Also speaking the command “Show Comands” Will open up this window listing tons of dictation commands.
The following was tested and works under OS X 10.8.5 and Messages 7.0.1 and may need to be adjusted for other versions of OS X/macOS/Messages:
tell application "Messages"
activate
tell application "System Events"
set focused of text area 1 of scroll area 4 of splitter group 1 of window 1 of application process "Messages" to true
end tell
end tell
Note: This is coded with the assumption that Messages is already open with an open window. Additional coding will be necessary, in the form of try and or delay and or on error statements as needed and appropriate otherwise.
Here's an example of how I'd code it otherwise, which handles whether or not Messages is open, has its window showing, etc.
on setFocusToTextArea()
tell application "System Events"
if (count of windows of application process "Messages") is equal to 0 then
click UI element "Messages" of list 1 of application process "Dock"
delay 0.25
end if
try
set focused of text area 1 of scroll area 4 of splitter group 1 of window 1 of application process "Messages" to true
end try
end tell
end setFocusToTextArea
tell application "Messages"
if running then
my setFocusToTextArea()
else
activate
delay 2
my setFocusToTextArea()
end if
activate
end tell
Note: If Messages is closed when this script is run, the delay 2 command gives time for Messages to open before the other code runs. The value of the delay command can be adjusted as appropriate for the speed of your system.
Related
I am working with Selenium on macOS to automate sending images using WhatsApp web in Google Chrome. The task involves uploading the image, and for that a system(Finder) prompt comes up to select the file. It's done in Windows using AutoIt.
I tried looking up how to automate this task in macOS, and I believe AppleScript can be used for it. Since I have no experience in GUI scripting, any help would be appreciated.
Thanks.
I was able to find the answer on another post on Stack Overflow. I have added the answer for anyone who comes across the same problem.
tell application "System Events"
keystroke "G" using {command down, shift down}
delay 1
keystroke "/path/to/file"
delay 1
keystroke return
delay 1
keystroke return
delay 1
end tell
I don't advocate GUI scripting any more than the burning down of the Amazon, but it seems to be necessary for this task, and I wanted to provide you with an example of a GUI script that tries its best to minimise the unpleasantness of the user experience, and aim for fewer weak points in the code where GUI scripts are most likely to falter.
If you know the path to your file—which I assume you do in these sorts of situations, as your script keystrokes the filepath—then you might find the following technique saves a few steps, and feels a bit more graceful in how it gets executed:
set filepath to "/path/to/image.jpg"
-- Copy file object to clipboard
set the clipboard to filepath as «class furl»
-- Make sure Chrome is in focus and the
-- active tab is a WhatsApp tab
tell application id "com.google.Chrome"
activate
if the URL of the active tab in the front window ¬
does not contain "web.whatsapp.com" then return
end tell
-- Paste the clipboard contents
-- and hit return (send)
tell application id "com.apple.SystemEvents"
tell (process 1 where it is frontmost) to tell ¬
menu bar 1 to tell menu bar item "Edit" to tell ¬
menu 1 to tell menu item "Paste" to set Paste to it
if (click Paste) = Paste then keystroke return
end tell
The if (click Paste) = Paste check should negate the need for a delay, as it explicitly forces AppleScript to evaluate the click command before going on to issue a keystroke. However, I can't test this under all possible conditions, and if there are other factors, like CPU usage, or process freezes, that are likely to give the script a chance to jump ahead, then just insert a small delay after then and move keystroke return down onto its own line.
If you wish to remove the file object from the clipboard afterwards, then simply add as the final line set the clipboard to (and just leave it blank after the word "to", which will clear the clipboard's contents). Of course, this won't affect any clipboard history data you might have if you use a clipboard managing app, only the system clipboard's current item.
Actually I have 3 questions about the same problem: controlling a window with applescript.
What should I do if I would press on button "Close Window" of application "Google Chrome"?
Is it possible to check if the window changes? For example, to see if appear a pop-up or something like that...
What about clicking on a specific place into a window? I mean, I know I can use
tell application "System Events"
click at {x,y}
end tell
but this command use the entire screen as reference system, and I want it works only on a specific window. For example, if at "{x,y}" i put "{1,1}", applescript will click on the first item on the menu bar. Is there a way I can say to "System Events" to click at "{1,1}", but on the window "Google Chrome"?
Here are three examples of how to close the front window of Google Chrome using AppleScript:
Note: The following assumes Google Chrome is running with at least one window open when you test each example AppleScript code in Script Editor.
Example one is the most straight forward way:
tell application "Google Chrome" to close front window
Example two directly clicks the close button:
tell application "System Events" to tell ¬
application process "Google Chrome" to ¬
click button 1 of front window
Example three calculates the center of the close button and clicks there:
activate application "Google Chrome"
delay 0.5
tell application "System Events" to tell ¬
application process "Google Chrome" to tell ¬
front window
set posB1 to (position of button 1)
set szB1 to (size of button 1)
set x to (item 1 of posB1) + (item 1 of szB1) / 2 as integer
set y to (item 2 of posB1) + (item 2 of szB1) / 2 as integer
end tell
tell application "System Events" to click at {x, y}
Note that in the first two examples, the front window of Google Chrome doesn't even need to be the frontmost window on the Desktop; however, with the third example it does, otherwise the click at {x, y} will not go to the intended target.
That said, example three really shouldn't be used when there it a straight forward way, as in example one, to get the job done. Example three was just a proof of concept to get the coordinates to click at. This method may be useful in some fringe cases, especially in an app that doesn't directly support AppleScript.
Note: The example AppleScript code is just that and does not contain any error handling as may be appropriate. The onus is upon the user to add any error handling as may be appropriate, needed or wanted. Have a look at the try statement and error statement in the AppleScript Language Guide. See also, Working with Errors.
In applescript GUI scripting you can simply refer to an element by name or index and tell it to click or to perform an action. For instance to click the close button on the first open window in Chrome you could use:
tell application "System Events"
tell process "Google Chrome"
tell window 1
tell button 1
click
end tell
end tell
end tell
end tell
You don't actually need to know its physical position to click one it; you just need to know that the first button in the window is the close button.
System Events always returns the position of any element in screen pixels, so if you want the position of an element in terms of its window, get the position of the element, get the position of the window, and do some addition or subtraction (e.g., if you want to click at {5,5} in a window whose position is {100, 125}, click at {105, 130})
AppleScript isn't really designed to monitor GUI changes, though if you want to be tricky and you know what change you're looking for you can do something like this:
tell application "System Events"
tell process "..."
tell window 1's pop up button 3
repeat until (exists menu 1)
delay 0.2
end repeat
-- menu 1 now exists, so the pop up button is open
end tell
end tell
end tell
...but note that this will hang the script until the menu is opened. A more elegant way to handle that is to write a script application with an idle handler, like so:
on run
-- whatever initialization is needed
end run
on idle
tell application "System Events"
try
tell process "..."
tell window 1's pop up button 3
if exists menu 1 then
-- menu 1 now exists
-- the pop up button is open
-- do what must be done
end if
end tell
end tell
on error errstr
display alert "Something went wrong" message "The script sent this error: " & errstr
end try
end tell
return 0.2
end idle
You can leave that running in the background watching for specific changes in the GUI (the 'try' statement is in case the app you're watching quits, the window closes, or something unexpected happens to the GUI).
If you haven't already, open the System Events scripting definition in Script Editor and look at the Processes Suite. That will show you all the things you can do with GUI scripting.
I encountered a problem when I trying to run this applescript.
The purpose of this applescript is when you single click on any file, and run this script, it will automatically transfer this file to a device on the bluetooth named "david". But I encountered a problem in the line of underdashed. The result shows:
"error "System Events got an error: Can’t get scroll area \"Bluetooth Devices\" of window 1 of process \"Bluetooth File Exchange\"." number -1728 from scroll area "Bluetooth Devices" of window 1 of process "Bluetooth File Exchange""
and I don't know why. I am completely a noob to applescript, this is some script wrote by someone else, and I just changed and add a little bit to it.
Can anyone help please?
property device : "david"
tell application "Finder" to set fileAlias to selection as alias
set fileToSend to fileAlias
tell application "Finder" to open fileToSend using application file id "com.apple.BluetoothFileExchange"
activate application "Bluetooth File Exchange"
tell application "System Events"
tell process "Bluetooth File Exchange"
repeat until exists window 1
end repeat
select (1st row of table of scroll area "Bluetooth Devices" of window 1 whose value of text field 1 is device)
click button "Send" of window 1
end tell
end tell
The problem is now solved, thanks "pbell" pointing out the typo in the code.
The code below is a modified version that works for Bluetooth 4.4.4
property device : "vivo X5Pro D"
tell application "Finder" to set fileAlias to selection as alias
set fileToSend to fileAlias
tell application "Finder" to open fileToSend using application file id "com.apple.BluetoothFileExchange"
activate application "Bluetooth File Exchange"
tell application "System Events"
tell process "Bluetooth File Exchange"
repeat until exists window 1
end repeat
select ((row 1 of table 1 of scroll area 1 of window 1) whose value of UI element 2 of UI element 1 is device)
click button "Send" of window 1
end tell
end tell
The problems of this code are
1) it's running too slow.
2) The code involves with GUI so an system update with modified position of several areas will turn this code into crap. (Thanks to pbell)
so is there any alternative way to bypass the GUI and command directly? I guess this will decrease the running time. :)
You have probably 2 issues in your current script :
1) a value "1" is missing in your line ....row of table of scroll area "Bluetooth Devices"...
You probably deleted it by mistake. it should be :
....row of table 1 of scroll area "Bluetooth Devices"....
2) this script uses GUI scripting. It means it simulate the user actions with mouse. these actions are indeed strictly dependent of the application interface (the design of the window, the buttons, ....). all these items are called UI elements (UI=User Interface). So when you are updating your application, if new version displays are not same, it does not work any more.
Bluetooth application is updated with OS updates. I don't know which system version you have, but on El Capitain, the UI elements used in Bluetooth exchange are not the one used in your script.
For instance, to know the device name in the list, it is the static text 1 of UI element 1 of the row. In your current script, you are looking for text field 1 of the row.
Because device name is no longer a property of the row (it is not a property of the UI element 1 of the row), your syntaxe don't work any more.
Which Bluetooth exchange version are you using ?(mine is 4.4.4)
How can I set focus to a specific window of a given application using applescript?
I have several iTerm2 windows running on different displays. I want to set focus to a specified window using applescript.
I need two things, one script that collects the window ID's and prints them to stdout. I've got this:
tell application "iTerm"
set wins to id of every window
end tell
which prints 6 integers: 3034, 2528, -1, -1, -1, -1
Bonus Question: What are the four -1's ?
Then I try:
tell application "System Events"
activate window 3034
end tell
Upon which the only thing happening is that I lose focus of my current terminal (in which I am typing these commands), not matter whether I specify 3034 or 2528 as the ID.
You almost have it. You can filter out the "-1" window IDs as by only looking at visible windows:
tell application "iTerm 2"
set wins to id of every window whose visible is true
end tell
I figured this out by looking at the results of:
tell application "iTerm 2" to properties of every window
I noticed that the "-1" windows have the property visible:false
Then you can tell the window ID directly to the iTerm application instead of system events:
tell application "iTerm 2"
activate window 13195
end tell
10.7.4 OSX Lion
Applescript
I am working with an application (built in house and has no Applescript dictionary) that has a static text element I want to copy to the clipboard and send to another app but I'm having a hard time getting it to work.
The script I was using for targeting the element looked like this:
Tell application "System Events" to set frontmost of process "*application*" to true
Tell application "System Events"
Tell process "*application*"
Tell static text 1 of tab view 1 scroll area 1 of splitter group 1 of splitter group 1 of splitter group 1 of window 1
keystroke "a" using command down
delay 0.1
keystroke "c" using command down
delay 0.1
end tell
end tell
end tell
end tell
What would happen was that the wrong text from the wrong element was copied to the clipboard every time I clicked in a different spot on the application (there are numerous text fields).
I noticed in UI Accessor/Accessibility Accessor that each UI element in the application has a unique AXIdentifier value when you mouse over them.
Is there anyway to accomplishing what I am trying to do, using AXIdentifier values to target that element and copy the text from it?
Thanks for all the help this is my first post and I hope it was worthy! ~TheLarkInn
You can do this by using AppleScript's filtering. For example, to get the From: pop-up menu in a message composition window in Apple Mail, there is no accessibility description you can match on, however there is a unique AXIdentifier which you can match as follows:
tell application "System Events"
tell application process "Mail"
tell window 1
get first pop up button whose value of attribute "AXIdentifier" is "popup_from"
end tell
end tell
end tell
This is more efficient than looping in AppleScript as it only involves sending one Apple Event to System Events.
I don't think there is a way to directly do what you're trying to do. It seems like you can only access attributes once you have a handle on an element via selector. Here is a very ugly solution that does what you're asking by iterating over all UI elements, but it is really slow with bigger UIs and probably not ideal for any production level code.
tell application "System Events"
tell process "Some Process"
set tElements to entire contents of window "Some Window"
repeat with tElement in tElements
if (exists attribute "AXIdentifier" of tElement) then
if value of attribute "AXIdentifier" of tElement = "Some AXIdentifier" then set tText to value of tElement
end if
end repeat
end tell
end tell
tText
I think using UIElementInspector or Accessibility Inspector from Xcode to build a selector string is the way to go!
Tell application "*application*" to activate
Tell application "System Events"
Tell application process "*application*"
set textStaticTextValue to value of static text 1 of tab view 1 scroll area 1 of splitter group 1 of splitter group 1 of splitter group 1 of window 1
end tell
end tell