Hello everyone:
My work situation is such that I use two laptops. One a Mac (yeah!) and one a PC (bleah). Most of the time I have the PC sitting in my lap and I’m typing, while the Mac sits off to the side checking email, et cetera.
I am trying to automate as much as possible with my Mac so that I don’t have to awkwardly reach over the type things into the Mac when I need it to do something.
I have just begun using the Speakable Items feature to help me with this, and it’s going pretty well, but I’m brand new to creating applescripts and so forth, so I have some very newbie questions. It seems like it should be relatively easy to do these things, but I’ve been scanning this board all afternoon and just can’t seem to find the answers to my questions. I’m hoping one (or more) of you kind souls will be able to give me some tips and advice.
First, I have everything set up so that when my Mac purrs to tell me there’s a new email, I get simply speak to the Mac and up pops the new email. However, I want to take it a step further. I’d like the Mac to read the message aloud to me (assuming it’s readable, of course, and not HTML). I just can’t seem to make that happen. I’ve tried all kinds of scripts and tricks and whatnot, but it seems like the only way to make the Mac read the message aloud is to reach over and select the Edit menu, scroll down to Speech, and then click on Start Speaking. What I really want is a script that will allow me to say “Read Message” or some such, and the Mac will start speaking the message out loud for me.
Secondly, I have several URLs already set up in Safari where I can just say the name I’ve assigned and that page pops up. However, many of these pages require a login and then a click on a “go” or “login” button, or something similar. I have Safari enabled to remember my user names and passwords since security is not an issue for me. Is there a way to speak to the Mac and tell it to click on the button for me?
Third (and lastly :), I’d like to be able to “dictate” to my Mac on occasion. For example, if I tell it to open the dictionary, I’d like to be able to spell out the word I would like the Mac to look up for me. Is there a way to tell it to type each letter as I speak it?
Thanks in advance for any and all help. You folks who have mastered applescript are amazing! (I get a migraine just looking at some of the scripts you post in answer to others’ questions!)
dms
Model: Black MacBook (Intel)
AppleScript: 1.10.6
Browser: Safari
Operating System: Mac OS X (10.4)