Unable to grab current geo location from Google Earth to clipboard

Scripting Forums AppleScript | Mac OS X
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#1

Hi there. I’m failing horribly at this. All I want is to grab the current location from within Google Earth and dump it into the clipboard. Here’s my code…

tell application "Google Earth"
	set loc to ({latitude, longitude}) of (GetViewInfo)
	set the clipboard to loc
end tell

The script runs with no errors, but nothing makes it into the clipboard. If I remove the "the from the 3rd line, I get an error that displays my current location from Google Earth, so I know that portion of it is working. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

#2

Hi,

The only way I was able to get coordinates from Google Earth was to use the GUI to enter the location into the “Fly to” field, fly to it and then read the coordinates.

Here’s the script that I use to get coordinates for addresses in AddressBook then export the results to a GPX file for loading into my GPS device.


tell application "Address Book"
	set tmp to {}
	set mySelection to selection
	repeat with aPerson in mySelection
		set theName to (first name of aPerson) & space & (last name of aPerson)
		set _addresses to addresses of aPerson
		log _addresses
		repeat with anAddress in _addresses
			tell anAddress
				set theLabel to the label of anAddress
				set theStreet to the street of anAddress
				set theCity to the city of anAddress
				set theState to the state of anAddress
				set theZip to the zip of anAddress
				set theCountry to the country of anAddress
			end tell
		end repeat
	end repeat
end tell

tell application "Google Earth"
	activate
	set cmtLn to theStreet & ", " & theCity & ", " & theState & ", " & theZip & ", " & theCountry
	set the clipboard to cmtLn
	tell application "System Events" to tell (name of application processes whose frontmost is true) to keystroke "a" using command down -- highlight any text in the "Fly to" window
	tell application "System Events" to tell (name of application processes whose frontmost is true) to keystroke "v" using command down
	tell application "System Events" to tell (name of application processes whose frontmost is true) to keystroke return
	delay 1
	set {lat, long} to {latitude, longitude} of (GetViewInfo)
end tell

-- Write GPX file
set gpxFile to theName & ".GPX"
set gpxFileRef to (open for access file gpxFile with write permission)
set boundsLn to "<metadata>" & return & tab & "<bounds minlat=" & quote & lat & quote & " minlon=" & quote & long & quote & " maxlat=" & quote & lat & quote & " maxlon=" & quote & long & quote & "/>" & return & "</metadata>"
set wptLn to "<wpt " & "lat=" & quote & lat & quote & space & "lon=" & quote & long & quote & ">" -- create wpt line
set nameLn to tab & "<name>" & theName & "</name>"
set cmtLn to tab & "<cmt>" & cmtLn & "</cmt>"
set descLn to tab & "<desc>" & cmtLn & "</desc>"
if theLabel contains "home" then
	set symLn to tab & "<sym>" & quote & "Residence" & quote & "</sym>"
else
	set symLn to tab & "<sym>" & quote & "Waypoint" & quote & "</sym>"
end if

try
	set eof gpxFileRef to 0
	write "<gpx version=\"1.1\" creator=\"AB2GPX\"
  xmlns:xsi=\"http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance\"  
  xmlns=\"http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/1\"
  xsi:schemaLocation=\"http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/1 [url=http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/1/gpx.xsd\>]http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/1/gpx.xsd\">[/url]
" & return & boundsLn & return & return & wptLn & return & nameLn & return & cmtLn & return & descLn & return & symLn & return & "</wpt>" & return & return & "</gpx>" to fileRef
on error error_message number error_number
	display dialog error_message & return & error_number & return & "<gpx"
end try

Hope this helps.

Cheers, Tony

#3

apsharman, thanks for your reply.

Try running this code and observe the error the Script Editor displays…

tell application "Google Earth"
   set loc to ({latitude, longitude}) of (GetViewInfo)
   set clipboard to loc
end tell

As you can see, Google Earth is able to send out the loc info, but for whatever reason AppleScript doesn’t want to toss it into the clipboard.

#4

try…

tell application "Google Earth"
	set loc to ({latitude, longitude}) of (GetViewInfo)
	set the clipboard to loc
end tell

display dialog (the clipboard)'s item 1
display dialog (the clipboard)'s item 2
#5

Thank you for the response clemhoff.

I guess my deffinition of “clipboard” is different then what I thought it meant under AppleScripting. I want to grab the loc and have it ready in my clipboard to be pasted into a different application (Lightroom 2 and Jeffry’s Geoencode Plug-In). Is there a different “clipboard” I need to define that’ll be accessible via the paste function of any application?

Thanks!