'click menu item' returns "<<class menI>>" with name of menu item ?

Hi,

I am creating gui scripts for two non-Applescriptable applications (Adobe Reader7 and Adobe Reader 8). I simply would like to click the menu item Help | Check For Updates. I have the Prefab UI Browser tool which allows me to know the structure of the ui elements. In Reader 8 it works great, but in Reader 7, it returns “<> Check for updates now…”. Is there some trick to get it to work?

My script for Adobe Reader 8:

tell process “Adobe Reader” of application “System Events”
click menu item 12 of menu 1 of menu bar item 9 of menu bar 1
end tell

RESULT: it works!

My script for Adobe Reader 7:

tell process “Adobe Reader” of application “System Events”
click menu item 7 of menu 1 of menu bar item 9 of menu bar 1
end tell

RESULT: <> Check for updates now…

I’m stumped, can anybody help? I’m running the same system for both, OS 10.4.11 on a G5 PPC

I just noticed that, after I run this script, if I activate Reader 7 and click anywhere in the menu bar, it finally starts checking for updates as I told it to. Strange!

Hi ladybug118

try this

activate application "Adobe Reader 7.0"
tell application "System Events"
	tell process "Adobe Reader"
		click menu item "Check for updates now..." of menu 1 of menu bar item "Help" of menu bar 1
	end tell
end tell

Budgie

Thanks Budgie!

It sort of works, but it returns the following:

menu item “Check for updates now…” of menu “Help” of menu bar item “Help” of menu bar 1 of application process “Adobe Reader” of application “System Events”

Why is it returning the name of the menu item instead of proceeding to run the rest of my script?

Thanks so much for all of your help.

did you run the script I posted ?

the way that reads is that it has in fact checked for the update, did acrobat show a dialog saying that it was “checking for updates”, and if none
return another dialog sayin “No update available”?, this is what the script I posted is doing for me.

Acrobat Reader Version 7.0.1

Budgie