Thanks for answering, Jerry.
On Sep 13, 2011, at 3:55 AM, Jerry Krinock wrote:
> On 2011 Sep 12, at 08:50, Nava Carmon wrote:
>
>> I'm trying to run a simple Apple script, that gets the text from the
>> frontmost application.
>
> "Simple" is the way people who have never done this would describe it.
>
>> It doesn't work consistently. Sometimes it works and sometimes - doesn't.
>
> I presume you've tried making those delays longer than 0.1.
Yes, I tried, It didn't make things work more consistent :(
>
>> Same script in the ScriptEditor btw works just fine :(
>
> Well, then, rather than hard-coding it, include that .scpt file in your
> project, and in your Copy Resources Build Phase. Like this… (error checking
> omitted)
>
> NSString* scriptPath = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:exformat
> ofType:@"scpt"
> inDirectory:nilOrWhatever] ;
> NSURL* scriptUrl = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:scriptPath] ;
> NSAppleScript* script = [[NSAppleScript alloc] initWithContentsOfURL:scriptUrl
>
> error:&errorDic] ;
> NSAppleEventDescriptor* descriptor = [script executeAndReturnError:&error] ;
> [script release] ;
I have a scpt file, that does it and tried use it also. The script activates
the frontmost application
>
>> Did somebody bump into such a thing before?
>
> When I wanted to do this, I ended up specifying the menu items by number.
> It's probably more fragile than keyboard shortcuts, but System Events are
> pretty fragile anyhow. The AppleScript workflow is to keep trying different
> things that should work until you find one that does work.
>
> Here is part of the script which I use:
>
> tell application "System Events"
> set oldClipboard to the clipboard
> set the clipboard to ""
> tell process "Whatever"
> set frontmost to true
> set editCopyMenuItem to a reference to menu item 5 of menu of menu bar
> item 4 of menu bar 1
> set isEnabled to enabled of editCopyMenuItem as boolean
> if (isEnabled is true) then
> click editCopyMenuItem
> end if
> end tell
> delay 0.1
> copy (the clipboard) to selectedText
> set the clipboard to oldClipboard
> end tell
> -- Make sure that none of your property keys are AppleScript reserved words,
> nor used in the target app's terminology, or the following will give
> unexpected results…
> return {whatever:whatever textIWant:selectedText, whateverElse:whateverElse}
>
> Comment regarding the delay 0.1:
>
> -- Sometimes, copy (the clipboard) gets previous clipboard data unless we use
> a delay. The more, the better. We chose 0.1 as a good compromise. Even
> without this delay, this script takes 0.2 seconds to execute anyhow.
0.1 makes you wait reasonable amount of time. And as I use it twice or more,
you come to some 0.5 delay which is already something that feels a bit slow.
>
> Regarding your code for processing the script output, it looks different than
> mine. I use -[NSAppleEventDescriptor stringValue]. This works for me:
>
> NSMutableDictionary* infoFromScript = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] init] ;
> NSInteger i ;
> for (i=1; i<=[descriptor numberOfItems]; i++) {
> // This loop should only execute once; [descriptor numberOfItems] = 1
> NSAppleEventDescriptor* subdescriptor = [descriptor descriptorAtIndex:i] ;
> NSInteger nItems = [subdescriptor numberOfItems] ;
> if ((nItems > 0) && (nItems%2 == 0)) {
> NSUInteger j ;
> for(j=1; j<=[subdescriptor numberOfItems]/2; j++) {
> NSString* key = [[subdescriptor descriptorAtIndex:(2*j-1)]
> stringValue] ;
> NSString* value = [[subdescriptor descriptorAtIndex:(2*j)]
> stringValue] ;
> if (key && value) {
> [infoFromScript setObject:value
> forKey:key] ;
> }
> }
> break ;
> }
> }
I found that it brings the unicode characters. I'll try string value.
>
>> More than that, when I run same script from Script editor, it works perfect.
>> Is it a known problem or do I do something wrong?
>
> Well, some would say that AppleScript is kind of a known problem :))
I have another question.
My application intercepts clicks/key down events and brings the text from the
frontmost application to my application on catching a certain key sequence.
Then it evaluates it and pastes fixed text back to the application, that was
frontmost.
I tried using accessibility APIs, but not all applications support it.
AppleScript seems to be the universal solution in this case, since it's mostly
simulates copy & paste key sequences, but may be there are another
technologies, that can be used for this purpose. Are you aware of something
more robust?
Thanks,
Nava
>
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Nava Carmon
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