I’m trying to write a script part of which uses “CharacterPalette”. After many frustrated attempts, I’m stuck on the last line that uses this wholly unscriptable application. What I’m trying to do is select the last row of a list that pops up when you place a character (a big list with some characters, such as ‘a’ and ‘e’) into the search text field at the bottom next to the “Insert” button. I’ve tried a bunch of things:
1) The only method that works is keypress the down arrow a bunch of times then keystroke return, but that's a bit slow and if [i]"CharacterPalette"[/i] does not stay frontmost, it won't work. Not only that but it seems the return isn't sent to the right place as I have it so the list never disappears. A better solution would be Here's the portion that I'm having a problem with:
2) Double-clicking at {x,y} near the text field... seems the clicks don't register.
2a) I've tried playing around with [i]"call method"[/i] to get the click to register, but can't seem to tell "System Events" and "AppleScript Runner" at the same time.
3) The [b]best[/b] solution would be to select the bottom row somehow, but don't know if a static text can be selected. There doesn't seem to be "normal" list elements (like rows) associated with this list.
3a) Since I couldn't figure out how to select the row, I tried enabling it, and setting focused to true to no avail.
Here’s the portion of code that contains the problem:
PasteCopiedCharacter("e")
on PasteCopiedCharacter(copiedchar)
tell application "System Events" to tell application process "CharacterPalette"
tell window "Characters" to tell group 1 to tell (the first text field whose description is "search text field")
set {position:SFPosition, size:SFSize} to properties --> #2) This attempt is to click using the mouse pointer
if copiedchar is not equal to the value then set the value to copiedchar
end tell
set x to ((item 1 of SFPosition) + ((item 1 of SFSize) / 2)) as integer --> #2) x-coordinate of row
set y to ((item 2 of SFPosition) + ((item 2 of SFSize) / 2) - 24) as integer --> #2) y-coordinate of row
set enabled of properties of static text 2 of list 1 of window 1 to true --> #3a) enabled or focused don't seem to ...
set focused of properties of static text 2 of list 1 of window 1 to true --> #3a) ... be the right words
tell application "AppleScript Runner" to call method "NSNegateBooleanTransformerName" of class "NSString" with parameter enabled --> #3a) I know nothing about obj-c methods so just playing around
with timeout of 1.5 seconds
repeat until list 1 of window 1 exists
delay 0.1
end repeat
end timeout
tell application "CharacterPalette" to activate
delay 0.1
if list 1 of window 1 exists then
set LastRow to "last static text whose name is \"row\""
tell application "AppleScript Runner" to tell window 1 to tell list 1 to call method "performClick:" of LastRow --> #2a
tell application "AppleScript Runner" to call method "performClick:" with parameters {x, y} --> #2a
-- tell application "Applescript Runner" to tell window 1 to tell list 1 to tell (last static text whose name is "row") to call method "performClick:" of object (static text "row") --> #2a) Won't even compile
click at {x, y} --> #2) doesn't select the last row even though the {x,y} coorinates are right
keystroke (ASCII character 31) --> #1) Down arrow a bunch of times ...
keystroke (ASCII character 31) --> #1) ... works right up until the ...
keystroke (ASCII character 31) --> #1) ... keystroke return, which ...
keystroke (ASCII character 31) --> #1) ... doesn't show the character ...
keystroke (ASCII character 31) --> #1) ... Also, slow and worst way to ...
keystroke (ASCII character 31) --> #1) ... solve the problem ...
keystroke return --> #1) ... What if list is longer than 6 rows? or 20 rows?
(* Some more testing: *)
tell window 1 to tell list 1 --to tell (the last static text whose name is "row")
set counter to 1
set props to {} as list
repeat with i from 1 to (count of (every static text whose name is "row"))
set {enabled:a, focused:b, selected:c} to (static text i's properties)
set {enabled:a, focused:b, selected:c} to (static text i's properties)
set props to props & {counter, a, b, c} as list
set counter to (counter + 1)
end repeat
return props as list
end tell
set enabled of properties to true --> #3a) nope ...
set focused of properties to true --> #3a) nope ...
set selected of properties to true --> #3a) nope ...
else
keystroke return
end if
end tell
end PasteCopiedCharacter
Any suggestions?
One final thing, I don’t remember this list popping up always… maybe if a character only has one choice, there is no list. Or perhaps the latest upgrade to OSX 10.6.8 or Xcode4 is required if you don’t get the list (but I’m not 100% about this).
Model: iMac 7,1
AppleScript: AppleScript 2.1.2
Browser: Firefox 5.0
Operating System: Mac OS X (10.6)
