Applescript help - how do I autotype?

Question

Hi All!
I'm a new to this and didn't find any examples on this site so I may be looking at a dead end. Please forgive my basic questions.
Basically I am trying to log into a web site automatically. I thought I found the answer with autotype but even with the syntax matching the examples I have found, applescript see auto type as a variable. Is my syntax messed up, or is autotype not supported? If it is not supported can someone give me an example of how to log into the below website?
Thanks!
-Todd-
Applescript:
tell application "Safari"
open location "https://login.yahoo.com/config/login_verify2?.done=http://finance.yahoo.com&.s rc=quote&.intl=us"
delay 5
activate
end tell
autotype "username"
autotype "password"
autotype "'return"

Answer 1

Hi harc0urt and welcome to Apple Discussions!
There's no such AppleScript command as "autotype", but you can type automatically using the invisible System Events application. It's not altogether reliable, but in this case it appears to work reasonably well:
tell application "Safari"
open location "https://login.yahoo.com/config/login_verify2?.done=http://finance.yahoo.com&.s rc=quote&.intl=us"
delay 5
activate
tell application "System Events"
keystroke "username"
delay 2
keystroke tab
keystroke "password"
delay 2
keystroke return
end tell
end tell
You will need to ensure that "Enable access for assistive devices" is checked in System Preferences: Universal Access".
Couple of points: you have to move from field to field in the form. Just typing another word wouldn't have helped. Similarly, typing the string "return" would have typed just that.
(FWIW I'd also point out that it's incredibly insecure practice to hard-code user names and passwords into scripts, but it's entirely up to you...)
Hope this helps,
H