Safari Pop up buttons / javascript

Question

I want to be able to select a specific item in a list of a pop up button in safari, i can do it by using a repeat statement and get value of button, with key codes simulating down arrow. This is tediously slow to the say the least. When i go view source of the page there is an identifier for the option i want, option value="f724". Is there a way to set the value of the pop up button to this number, i cant seem to do it. I was reading around the forum and found some mentions of the term do javascript but i have no idea how to implement it in this case, or if it at least possible.

Answer 1

My search_replace(x, y, z) subroutine was a very basic attempt at encoding the URL properly. As it happens omitting the handler entirely and just setting keyword to text returned of result works the same in this case. The spaces get replaced with %20 by default, and the Discussions search app doesn't seem to mind.
This style of search & replace is known as a "text item delimiters" or TIDs for short. You may have heard of a tab-delimited file. These contain cells of information separated by tabs. In the case of AppleScript's text item delimiter, we can set it to tab or any other character, and then ask for a string's "text items" provided in list form. So the steps taken by the handler in pseudo code are:
1. Pass the text returned of the display dialog command to the search_replace handler, along with the search string "space" and the replace string "+"
result: {"yellow fever", space, "+"}
2. save whatever the current value of text item delimiters is
This is to avoid potential conflicts with other code that may be using the delimiters property.
result: {"[… anything]", ""}
3. change the value of text item delimiters to space
By defining " " (space) as a delimiter, we are effectively stripping every occurrence of the space character out of our string. This is because it can now be seen as a special delimiter character, as opposed to a literal one.
4. get the text items of our string as a list
result: {"yellow", "fever"}
5. change the value of text item delimiters to the + symbol
While our text string is a list, we are going to be sneaky and change the delimiter property from space to plus sign, like the one found in our original URL at Apple Discussions.
6. coerce the list of text items back to a string
When AppleScript coerces a list into a string, it automatically inserts the delimiter character you have defined in between each item.
result: "yellow+fever"
7. set the delimiter back to the way we found it in step 2
The way I've written all this in actual code is highly abbreviated. To help read it easier remember that I'm addressing a reference to the delimiters, so every time you see the word "contents," that is referring to the text item delimiters. Also note that
set {a, b} to {"a", "b"}
is the same thing as
set a to "a"
set b to "b"
The only difference is that the former is written in one line, and the latter is written on two lines.