Get the current adobe reader window title in applescript - applescript

I wrote the following snippet to get the title of the firefox window,
tell application "Firefox"
set window_name to name of front window
display dialog window_name
end tell
it's working well, but when I change firefox to adobe, I get the following error
"Adobe Reader got an error: Can’t get name of window 1."
Any one knows how to get the window title?

You kind of wrote the answer in the question!
tell application "System Events" to set adobe_windows to (get the title of every window of every process whose name contains "Adobe") as list
set prevTIDs to AppleScript's text item delimiters
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {", "}
set adobe_windows to adobe_windows as string
display dialog adobe_windows
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to prevTIDs
When I get errors referring to window titles, I go to System Events for help. This even applies to the Finder! System Events can do everything the Finder can do, and sometimes more. If you have any questions, just ask. :)

Related

AppleScript: How to extract numbers from a string?

I am writing a script to go to the NYT website on Corona, get the US data, extract numbers (total, death), and to send me a notification. I am close, but when I extract numbers and display them, they are put together (ie 700021 instead of 7000,21). My question is:
How do I extract the numbers so that they are delineated?
Here is the code:
set theURL to "https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/coronavirus-maps.html?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-coronavirus&variant=show&region=TOP_BANNER&context=storyline_menu"
tell application "Safari" to make new document with properties {URL:theURL}
tell application "System Events"
repeat until exists (UI elements of groups of toolbar 1 of window 1 of application process "Safari" whose name = "Reload this page")
delay 0.5
end repeat
end tell
to getInputByClass(theClass, num)
tell application "Safari"
set input to do JavaScript "
document.getElementsByClassName('" & theClass & "')[" & num & "].innerText;" in document 1
end tell
return input
end getInputByClass
set myVar to getInputByClass("g-body ", 5)
on returnNumbersInString(inputString)
set s to quoted form of inputString
do shell script "sed s/[a-zA-Z\\']//g <<< " & s
set dx to the result
set numlist to {}
repeat with i from 1 to count of words in dx
set this_item to word i of dx
try
set this_item to this_item as number
set the end of numlist to this_item
end try
end repeat
return numlist
end returnNumbersInString
set theNums to returnNumbersInString(myVar) as text
display notification "COVID-19 UPDATE" subtitle theNums sound name "glass"
tell application "Safari"
close its front window
end tell
You are getting a list of numbers from the returnNumbersInString handler, but just coercing the list to text doesn't normally provide any kind of formatting. One solution would be to use text item delimiters to specify the text to use when joining the list items. For example, when converting to text for the notification you could do something like:
set tempTID to AppleScript's text item delimiters
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ", "
set theNums to returnNumbersInString(myVar) as text
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to tempTID
Similar to your other question I helped you with, the target data is already in a table and as such I'd use the table data to get the information as its structure layout is not likely to change where target 'g-body ' of 5 may not always be the United States.
I get my data a little different way:
set theURL to "https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/coronavirus-maps.html?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-coronavirus&variant=show&region=TOP_BANNER&context=storyline_menu"
tell application "Safari" to make new document with properties {URL:theURL}
tell application "System Events"
repeat until exists ¬
(UI elements of groups of toolbar 1 of window 1 of ¬
application process "Safari" whose name = "Reload this page")
delay 0.5
end repeat
end tell
tell application "Safari" to tell document 1 to set CountriesTable to ¬
do JavaScript "document.getElementsByClassName('svelte-f9sygj')[0].innerText;"
tell application "Safari" to close its front window
set awkCommand to ¬
"awk '/United States/{print $3,\"Cases &\",$4,\"Deaths\"}'"
set notificationMessage to ¬
do shell script awkCommand & "<<<" & CountriesTable's quoted form
display notification notificationMessage subtitle "US COVID-19 UPDATE" sound name "glass"
NOTE: The code used to determine when the page in Safari has finished loading works in macOS Mojave and later, however, for macOS High Sierra and some earlier versions, add the words buttons of in front of UI elements ... in the repeat until exists ¬ ... code.
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. Additionally, the use of the delay command may be necessary between events where appropriate, e.g. delay 0.5, with the value of the delay set appropriately.

How to search itunes store for app with applescript?

How to search itunes store for app with applescript? I have been stuck on this and recording doesn't work in itunes.
I haven’t seen recording work in years. In this case, though, I’m not sure it could. While iTunes is scriptable, it doesn’t appear to have any direct means to perform a search of the Stores.
However, there is a means to perform a search using a URL and “open location”. It would look something like:
tell application "iTunes"
open location "itms://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZSearch.woa/wa/search?WOURLEncoding=ISO8859_1&lang=1&output=lm&country=US&media=software&term=ia%20Writer"
end tell
Put the text you want to search for after &term=; here, that’s ia%20Writer (with the %20 meaning a space).
This combines info from Ars Technica and Doug’s AppleScripts.
Here's a way you can use an AppleScript display dialog to enter what App to search for in the iTunes Store using the answer provided by Jerry Stratton:
If the search has spaces in it, the script replaces it with %20 for you.
set theAppSearch to ""
set theAppSearch to text returned of (display dialog "App Search iTunes Store for:" default answer "" buttons {"Cancel", "OK"} default button 2)
if theAppSearch is not "" then
set theAppSearch to my replaceSpaces(theAppSearch)
tell application "iTunes"
activate
open location "itms://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZSearch.woa/wa/search?WOURLEncoding=ISO8859_1&lang=1&output=lm&country=US&media=software&term=" & theAppSearch
end tell
end if
on replaceSpaces(theString)
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {" "}
set theString to text items of theString
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {"%20"}
set theString to theString as text
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {""}
return theString
end replaceSpaces

Replacing words in Applescript

I'm back to writing Applescripts. I'm making a script that will Google things for you. Basically, I need to replace all of the spaces with %20. I know a little about text item delimiters, but I don't know how to implement them in this case.
Here's what I got so far:
if userInput contains "Google " then set {TID, text item delimiters} to {text item delimiters, {"Google "}}
if length of userInput is greater than or equal to 2 then set resultString to text item 2 of userInput
if userInput contains "Google " then set text item delimiters to TID
set openPage to (resultString as string)
if userInput contains "Google " then do shell script "open http://www.google.com/search?q=" & openPage
FYI, the userInput variable is the variable I use when dealing with textboxes.
Thanks
I think this script demonstrates the principle of what you’re trying to do:
tell application "Safari"
activate
display dialog "Search Google for:" default answer "" buttons {"Cancel", "OK"} default button "OK" with title (the name as text) with icon note giving up after 60
if the button returned of the result is equal to "OK" then
set theSearch to the text returned of the result
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to space
set theSearchList to every text item of theSearch
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "+"
set theQuery to theSearchList as text
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""
set theLink to "http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=" & theQuery & "&btnG=Google+Search"
open location theLink
end if
end tell
However, it’s a lot easier if you just ask an app like BBEdit (or its free version, TextWrangler, which has the same AppleScript dictionary) to do the find and replace for you, because BBEdit is an expert at finding and replacing text, whereas AppleScript by itself is not. AppleScript is a “little language” — it deliberately lacks 95% of the functionality of most programming languages because the functionality is in the apps that you command with AppleScript. In other words, AppleScript expects you to have a text editor with which to process text, therefore AppleScript deliberately doesn’t have the built-in text processing ability of a language like Perl (which you can also use in your AppleScripts.)
So the above script gets a lot shorter, easier to write, easier to read, and easier to understand if you add BBEdit (or the free TextWrangler) into the mix:
tell application "Safari"
activate
display dialog "Search Google for:" default answer "" buttons {"Cancel", "OK"} default button "OK" with title (the name as text) with icon note giving up after 60
if the button returned of the result is equal to "OK" then
set theSearch to the text returned of the result
tell application "BBEdit"
set theQuery to replace " " using "+" searchingString theSearch
end tell
set theLink to "http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=" & theQuery & "&btnG=Google+Search"
open location theLink
end if
end tell
Also, notice that you don’t have to run a shell script to open a link in a browser. So this line in your script:
if userInput contains "Google " then do shell script "open http://www.google.com/search?q=" & openPage
… can be written like this:
if userInput contains "Google " then open location "http://www.google.com/search?q=" & openPage
… or like this:
if userInput contains "Google " then
open location "http://www.google.com/search?q=" & openPage
end if
… and you can use the “open location” command with any app, not just Safari. If you tell Finder to “open location” the link will open in your default browser, which might be Chrome.

Get message in compose window from Mail.app

I am trying to make a script that will get the contents of an email message that I'm composing in Mail, do something with the data, and then send the message. I know how to make and send a new message from scratch with AppleScript, but I can't find a way to get a message that I'm already writing. I don't care what language is used, and I would be open to trying a different email client. Thanks for your help!
Mail has huge limitations with regards to Applescript and dealing with its content area is a major one. The best bet is to use GUI scripting to tab to the content area, type cmd-C, and then work off the data in the clipboard.
Sadly from what I can see Applescript has not been improved at all in Lion.
It's actually pretty easy to do what you need.
If you want to run some kind of an inline processing (assigned to, say, a hotkey (in Mail, e.g. Cmd+D is not occupied), or "just" listed in the Services menu, accessible after selecting something), you can simply use Automator. A demo Automator script reading the current selection, making some changes (here, converting some ASCII char+number combinations to some accented characters) and, finally, returning the modified text is as follows:
on run {input, parameters}
set myText to replaceText("a1", "á", (input as text))
set myText to replaceText("e1", "é", myText)
set myText to replaceText("i1", "í", myText)
return myText
end run
on replaceText(find, replace, someText)
set prevTIDs to text item delimiters of AppleScript
set text item delimiters of AppleScript to find
set someText to text items of someText
set text item delimiters of AppleScript to replace
set someText to "" & someText
set text item delimiters of AppleScript to prevTIDs
return someText
end replaceText
Make sure you enable the "Replaces selected text", should you want to overwrite the original content with the returned one.
if you want to write an external script not invoked from the local Services menu (or via a hotkey), you'll also need to add clipboard handling. A solution similar to the above with additional clipboard copy/paste:
on replaceText(find, replace, someText)
set prevTIDs to text item delimiters of AppleScript
set text item delimiters of AppleScript to find
set someText to text items of someText
set text item delimiters of AppleScript to replace
set someText to "" & someText
set text item delimiters of AppleScript to prevTIDs
return someText
end replaceText
tell application "Mail"
activate
tell application "System Events"
tell process "Mail"
click menu item "Select All" of menu "Edit" of menu bar 1
click menu item "Copy" of menu "Edit" of menu bar 1
end tell
end tell
end tell
tell application "Mail"
set textclip to (the clipboard)
end tell
set myText to replaceText("a1", "á", textclip)
set myText to replaceText("e1", "é", myText)
set myText to replaceText("i1", "í", myText)
set the clipboard to myText
tell application "Mail"
activate
tell application "System Events"
tell process "Mail"
click menu item "Paste" of menu "Edit" of menu bar 1
end tell
end tell
end tell
Note that the latter script selects (and, then, overwrites) the entire window contents. It should be easy to work on the current selection only.
It's possible, but painful. Painful enough that I'm still trying to work out exactly how to do something similar but in Safari. I've gotten to the point where I can find the textarea, but the documentation I've found for getting the content isn't working. (Unfortunately, that's pretty much par for the course for AppleScript; every program does stuff just a little bit differently from the next program.)
EDIT: ok, have some horrible evil which hopefully can be adapted to work with Mail: http://www.ece.cmu.edu/~allbery/edit_textarea.script
This is striaghtforward if we make two reasonably weak assumptions: that the message you're working on is frontmost, and that the subject of all draft messages is unique. Then, before running the script, save the message you're working on; this will place it in the drafts mailbox. Then, since the subject of the message is the name of the window, we can easily access it; and since we can easily access the drafts mailbox, we can combine the two. This gives us:
tell application "Mail"
set msgs to messages of drafts mailbox ¬
whose subject is (name of window 1 as string)
if (count of msgs) = 1 then
-- Do whatever
else
-- Error, disambiguate, whatever
end if
end tell
It's probably possible to make the script save the frontmost window, and it wouldn't surprise me if a freshly-saved message is always the first item of the drafts mailbox, but these are left as an exercise for the reader :-)
So I came across this in 2020 and with this Apple Script it is (now?) possible (whenever its still a bit hacky since I have to use the clipboard for this):
activate application "Mail"
tell application "System Events"
tell process "Mail"
set initialClipboardContent to (the clipboard as text)
set composeWindow to (first window whose title does not contain "Inbox")
set value of attribute "AXFocused" of UI element 1 of scroll area 1 of composeWindow to true
delay 0.05
# CMD + A
key code 0 using command down
delay 0.1
# CMD + C
key code 8 using command down
delay 0.1
set message to (the clipboard as text) as string
log message
set the clipboard to initialClipboardContent
end tell
end tell
Here a proof of concept:

Applescript studio - how do I get every control in a window

I'm trying to enable or disable all the control in a window as the programme changes from interactive to non-interactive mode. How can I ask a window to give me all its contents?
every control of window "mainWindow"
doesn't work, nor does
contents of window "mainWindow"
Actually, I haven't been able to find any good documentation for interacting with menu items from interface builder at all. Things like how to set the contents of popups, and buttons and so on.
thanks
The way I do it at the moment is:
property onlineControls: {"maxLength", "speed", "accelerationSlider", "accelerationField", "showInfo"} --and so on, listing all the controls by name
on enableControls(theList, enableState)
tell window "mainWindow"
repeat with theControl in theList
set the enabled of control theControl to enableState
end repeat
end tell
enableControls(onlineControls, true)
I've made several lists of controls tht get turned on or off depending on the state the programme is in. But it has to be hard coded, which I don't see as being the best way.
tell application "System Events"
tell process "Adium"
get entire contents of window 1
end tell
end tell
This script will give you as result all contents of front window of Adium: butons of window, tool bars of window, buttons of tool bars, etc. Enjoy =]
I haven't been able to find a way to get all the controls in a window, but here's an example of interacting with the menu of a popup button:
tell menu of popup button "somePopupButton" of window "mainWindow"
delete every menu item
repeat with i in someItems
make new menu item at end of menu items ¬
with properties {title:i, enabled:true}
end repeat
end tell
Is the same script as "BoB1990" with the possibility of getting back the information given by get entire contents of window in a string of whom you can observe or modify all the items listed :
tell application "System Events" to tell process "Adium"
set this_info to {}
try
display alert ((get entire contents of window (x as integer)))
on error errMsg set theText to errMsg
set this_info to do shell script " echo " & theText & " | sed 's#System Events got an error: Can’t make ##g;s# into type string.##g'"
end try
set info to {}
set info to do shell script " echo " & this_info
display alert (info)
end tell

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