Notes

Applescript

2 min read

AppleScript is a Programming Language developed by Apple and used on MacOS to perform automation.

Discovering available UI elements:

tell application "System Events"
        tell process "Application Name Here"
            set visible to true
            return every UI element of front window
    
            -- Swap to this return to get element names
            -- return name of every UI element of front window
        end tell
    end tell

This may need to be used iteratively, e.g. look at the output and then change to return every UI element of group 1 of front window, etc.

You can also use the Accessibility Inspector, which is in /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Applications/Accessibility Inspector.app.

If you’re willing to shell out $55, you can use UI Browser. This is an application that allows you to navigate the UI hierarchy of an application and copy the AppleScript reference for specific UI elements. It’s much more functional for writing automation in AppleScript than Accessibility Inspector.

Discovering properties of UI elements:

    tell application "System Events"
        tell process "Application Name Here"
            set visible to true
            repeat with theElem in (UI elements in window 1)
                set theProps to properties of theElem
                log theElem
            end repeat
        end tell
    end tell

Cycle between Application windows

    tell application "Safari"
        set index of window 2 to 1
    end tell

You can also look at just a specific property like description with set theProps to description of theElem.

References: AppleScript – Max Masnick

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