The only technique I know of for getting an app's Applescript Dictionary to appear is to drop the app's icon onto "Script Editor". This doesn't work with SE since it has no icon.
I need someone to tell me EXACTLY what to do step-by-step to view SE's dictionary.
I am running El Capitan if that matters.
In Script Editor press ⇧⌘O (Open Dictionary)
In the list select System Events
Press Return
Related
I'm trying to use AppleScript to click on context menu items in Logic Pro, preferably by simply providing the name of the menu item. It seems like this should be possible because I'm able to set up keyboard shortcuts for these context menu items using system preferences and providing the name of the command.
For instance, if you right click on the main editing window in Logic, a menu pops up with an option called "Add Audio File..." If I create a system preferences keyboard shortcut for Logic and give it this menu item name, it's able to execute just fine. I'd like to recreate this with a script. I'm familiar with accessing normal menu items using the hierarchy like so:
tell process "Logic Pro"
tell menu bar 1
tell menu bar item "File"
tell menu "File"
click menu item "Save"
but as far as I know, there's no way to access the context menu (right click menu) that I want like this. It seems there should be a way to simply access a non-menu-bar menu item by name since system preferences is obviously able to do so.
Logic pro is not scriptable so my suggestion would be that you set a keyboard shortcut in the system preferences then use system events to use said shortcuts.
for example to enter find mode (assuming there is a find mode since i don't own Logic Pro)
tell application "Logic Pro" to activate
tell application "System Events"
tell application process "Logic Pro"
keystroke "f" using command down
end tell
end tell
I don’t think you need to use the context menus. “Add Audio File…” is available in other parts of the Logic Pro X user interface. If you open the Project Audio window, there is an “Audio File” menu button with an “Add Audio File…” button in it. So this AppleScript will activate the “Add Audio File…” command:
tell application "System Events"
tell application "Logic Pro X" to activate
tell process "Logic Pro X"
tell menu bar 1
click menu item "Open Project Audio" of menu "Window"
end tell
delay 1
tell window 1
click menu button "Audio File" of group 1 of group 1
click menu item "Add Audio File..." of menu 1 of menu button "Audio File" of group 1 of group 1
end tell
end tell
end tell
One thing to keep in mind if distributing a GUI script is that the above script will only work in Logic Pro X running on a Mac set to US English (and maybe other kinds of English) because the names of the menus change if the system is set to another language. What you can do is replace the names in the above script with numbers, which is a totally experimental process, as far as I know. You have to try different numbers and see which continues to work.
So you may be able to replace:
menu button "Audio File" of group 1 of group 1
… in the above script with:
menu button 1 of group 1 of group 1
… and get the same functionality, and the script would work on any Mac. Or you may need to use “menu button 2.” Same goes for the other named items in the above script.
Also keep in mind that the user you distribute this script to has to give System Events permission to control their Mac in the Security pane of System Preferences or this script won’t work. That can be a giant obstacle to distributing GUI scripts. And if you save your script as an Application, you have to digitally sign it or it won’t run on other people’s computers, and that can be complicated.
I have asked another question on AskDifferent about Preveiw scripting dictionaries, and have done a subsequent search here which says Preview is not scriptable.
However when I run:
tell application "Preview"
set save_location to ¬
(choose file with prompt "Choose the png to be modified")
activate
open save_location
end tell
It works. Does that mean that Preview.app is scriptable with Applescript 2.2.1 and Max OS X 10.7.5 which is what I am using?
If so then where can I find a listing of the objects?
All Mac applications respond to the Open and Activate commands even if they do not have dictionaries. Your script works because it exploits the built-in capabilities of any application. The absence of a dictionary means that you cannot query or manipulate open documents and windows (i.e. the application's data model).
However, you can use UI Scripting to select menu items, click buttons within windows, and send keystrokes to the application.
You can find out what Preview's dictionary is by launching /Applications/Utilities/AppleScript Editor and choosing File>Open Dictionary from the menu bar, finding Preview in the list of applications shown there, and clicking Choose.
I have a problem using a simple AppleScript on Mac OSX 10.7.3.
With the following simple AppleScript which I find everywhere OSX raises an error 'The action "Run AppleScript" encountered an error'
I open up the Automator, create a Service, drop in a "Run AppleScript" node and enter the following code which I assume is correct because as I said it is the way a lot of people are doing it without any complaints.
AppleScript:
tell application "Terminal" to activate
tell application "System Events"
tell process "Terminal"
click menu item "New Window" of menu "Shell" of menu bar 1
tell application "Terminal" to close the front window
end tell
end tell
EDIT: When running in Automator I also get an error description:
Run AppleScript failes -1 error
Access for assistive devices is disabled"
Is Enable access for assistive devices enabled? If so, have you tried to reenable it?
Well, I guess I'll answer the question anyways (and thanks for editing your question to give a bit more useful detail).
Go to the "Universal Access" pane in System Preferences and at the bottom of the "Seeing" tab, you'll see a "Enable access for assistive devices" checkbox.
Turn that on and I suspect Automator will work.
I have an mac application that once opened (in awakeFromNib) shows the user an NSAlert with two buttons, one with "Option1", the other with "Option2". I would like to automate the following flow:
Open the application from the Applications folder.
Choose "Option2" by clicking the button in the NSAlert
So far I've managed to do only the first part:
tell application "Finder"
activate
make new Finder window to startup disk
open application file "My Application.app" of folder "Applications" of startup disk
close Finder window 1
end tell
Can anybody help me with the code? I understand that I can use the System Events commands to catch this click event, but can't manage to find any help online for clicking a button in an NSAlert, and not in a regular Window.
You might try this...
tell application "My Application" to activate
delay 5
tell application "System Events"
tell process "My Application"
click button "option 2" of window 1
end
end
How many windows do you have open? It's probably getting confused.
If you need to the program UI Browser can generally find the proper terms for GUI Scripting. I'm not sure it's worth buying just for this but you can run the program in demo mode for a month and use it to find the proper terms.
http://pfiddlesoft.com/uibrowser/
I hope this isn't too obvious, but I'd like to press one of the toolbar buttons within an application by means of AppleScript.
Background: The button doesn't have any menu item or keyboard shortcut. Thus, I can't activate it by any of those methods; I need to find an AppleScript way of actually 'pressing' the button.
I am going to expand a little on what #hced said.
I agree that click button 3 of tool bar 1 of window 1 works in many cases. However from OS to OS thic can be a moving target. My example is iTunes. In iTunes 10.5.8 the airplay button is 17 where in 10.7.5 it is 25. However, in both instances it is called "AirPlay"!
So I suggest using the developer kit, and getting this code from Apple:
http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#samplecode/UIElementInspector/Introduction/Intro.html
Run the application and whatever you mouse over will get you all the info you need to make this work in your AppleScripts:
click (every button whose description is "AirPlay") of window "iTunes" of application process "iTunes"
In this case there should only be one button with this description, but you can use the tool to discover whether this is the case. If so, limit the scope!
Hope this helps!!
Bo
Ah, figured out that one myself, too. Seems I'm on a self-commenting spree here.
This example worked for me, referencing a specific toolbar button by means of its description attribute:
tell application "System Events"
tell process "OmniFocus"
click (every button whose description is "Contexts") of tool bar 1 of window 1
end tell
end tell
I'll leave it up for any commenters with an opinion about referencing every button whose descripton is "Contexts" (as per my example), to express those down below. But I presume there can't be multiple buttons with the same description, right?
Ok, that was simpler than I thought, once I found out how. (Googling it didn't leave much help at all, but an application called Prefab UI Browser did the trick finding out how this is done).
Example:
tell application "System Events"
tell process "OmniFocus"
click button 3 of tool bar 1 of window 1
end tell
end tell
I've got a follow-up question, though:
How do you reference a toolbar button by name/description? I know for a fact that the button has a description attribute with the value: "Contexts". But again, how do I reference it in the click statement?