I’m using EndNote X on Mac OS X v10.3.9. EndNote has a toolbar search box à la Mail or Address Book, but there’s no way to activate it from the keyboard, which is annoying. I’m trying to write a small Applescript to do this task, using UI scripting, because EndNote does not support AppleScript.
Here’s the problem: Whatever I try, my script can’t activate the search text field. I can change the text in the text field (that’s how I know I’m addressing the correct UI element), but I can’t set the keyboard focus to it. I tried various things (the script below shows them), but nothing worked. Any suggestions? TIA!
tell application "System Events"
tell process "EndNote X"
set frontmost to true
tell window 1
set theBox to text field 1 of group 1 of tool bar 1
set value of theBox to "Macintosh" --this works
set focused of theBox to true --(1) generates error*
set properties of theBox to {focused:true} --(2) no result
tell theBox to activate --(3) no result
set theProps to properties of theBox --(4)
set focused of theProps to true --(4)
set properties of theBox to theProps --(4) generates error
end tell
end tell
end tell
- This generates a NSInternalScriptError, although, according to the System Events dictionary, it’s Boolean and it’s not a read-only property.