Applescript: system events keystroke to background?

Is there a way to make system events send a keystroke to an application that is in the background (already running no need for activation) without bringing it to the foreground?
i've looked in several places and can't find a way to do this.

Sending keystrokes is just imitating what a user can do/does on the keyboard. You can no more send a keystroke to an app via System Events that isn't the front and active application than you can type text into a window that is in the background.
The only way to deal with apps that aren't active is to script them directly. If they're not applescript-able, consider whether you can do it with a bash or python script instead.

Similar Messages

System Events keystroke command going crazy with international text?

Hi
I have a python script return some text which I need to use with my AppleScript:
set txtpy to do shell script "python ~/convertlanguage.py"
display dialog txtpy
tell application "System Events" to keystroke txtpy
When the text returned is in English, both the dialog and the keystroke (the typing) are perfect.
However, if the text returned is in non-ascii chars, only the dialog displays it correctly but the keystroke is merely the text "aaa" or "ששש" (if Hebrew is the current input language).
Any ideas??
Thanks!

Got it figured out. It had to do with Splitting the table into 3 columns (I should have known better than to split such a large table like that). I merged the cells in the header and inserted a new table and that fixed all alignment issues and formatting issues. I figured this out by the highly scientific "Guess and check" method! Thanks for your time guys!

AppleScript System Events Choose File Name Statement Broken?

Re: OS X 10.9.2, AppleScript Editor 2.6.1:
Why does the following AppleScript statement hang the Script Editor?
tell application "System Events" to ¬
choose file name with prompt "Output File" default name "Output File" default location (path to desktop)

see Applescript Release Notes, Scripting Addition Security.
Applescript, unlike other scripting languages, relies heavily on functionality being provided by client applications. This makes it much harder to keep consistent behavior across different contexts, because it's up to individual providers to implement applescript commands. A fact of Applescript life.
However, it seems your real problem is not with System Events, but with the fact that your dialog is getting lost off-screen. This works:
tell application "System Events"
activate
choose file name
end tell

AppleScript: System Events - delete

I've been trying to get System Events delete command to accept multiple files and no matter how I try to preset the files to the delete command I get an error.
According to the dictionary entry for System Events - delete it would appear it should take multiple files:
delete v : Delete disk item(s).
delete disk item : The disk item(s) to be deleted.
This is what I have
tell application "System Events"
set ss to every disk item in desktop folder whose name contains "Screen Shot" and name extension is "png"
delete ss
end tell
And this is the log window
tell application "System Events"
get every disk item of desktop folder whose name contains "Screen Shot" and name extension = "png"
--> {file "Mac OS Lion:Users:frank:Desktop:Screen Shot 2013-03-22 at 14.31.02 .png", file "Mac OS Lion:Users:frank:Desktop:Screen Shot 2013-03-22 at 14.31.17 .png"}
delete {file "Mac OS Lion:Users:frank:Desktop:Screen Shot 2013-03-22 at 14.31.02 .png", file "Mac OS Lion:Users:frank:Desktop:Screen Shot 2013-03-22 at 14.31.17 .png"}
--> error number -1700 from {file "Mac OS Lion:Users:frank:Desktop:Screen Shot 2013-03-22 at 14.31.02 .png", file "Mac OS Lion:Users:frank:Desktop:Screen Shot 2013-03-22 at 14.31.17 .png"} to reference
Result:
error "System Events got an error: Can’t make {file \"Mac OS Lion:Users:frank:Desktop:Screen Shot 2013-03-22 at 14.31.02 .png\", file \"Mac OS Lion:Users:frank:Desktop:Screen Shot 2013-03-22 at 14.31.17 .png\"} into type reference." number -1700 from {file "Mac OS Lion:Users:frank:Desktop:Screen Shot 2013-03-22 at 14.31.02 .png", file "Mac OS Lion:Users:frank:Desktop:Screen Shot 2013-03-22 at 14.31.17 .png"} to reference
Now if I do
delete item 1 of ss
the file is deleted. Also if I do a repeat through the list I can delete each file.
I've tried every which way I can thing of to play with the list to get multiple files to delete with no success. But I have to admit that file references still send me to the book to get it right.
So what basic bit of AppleScript vodoo am I missing or is this one of those cases where the dictionary does not match the code?
thanks

The only way I've ever been able to get that to work is to do the delete immediately:
tell application "System Events"
delete (disk items of desktop folder whose name contains "Screen Shot" and name extension = "png")
end tell
it seems that when you store it into a variable, system events no longer accepts it. The only reason I can think for this is that the scripting dictionary asks for a disk item rather than a list of disk items. It's possible that editing the scriptSuite files to tell it to accept a list would solve the issue, but I've never experimented.

How to avoid system events "ignoring" lines in applescript?

Hello!
I am trying to write a very simple script that will trigger macros on another application, however when the script is executed, it skips a couple of lines which makes the whole process go erratically.
This is the code i'm using:
tell application "Adam"
activate front window
end tell
tell application "System Events"
keystroke "4"
          repeat 10 times
          end repeat
keystroke return
keystroke (ASCII character 47)
          keystroke "tell test"
delay 1
keystroke return
keystroke (ASCII character 36)
keystroke "t"
keystroke (ASCII character 36)
delay 2
keystroke return
end tell
The red lines are the ones that seem to be neglected somehow (keystroke "4" doesnt carry the expected action in application "Adam"). I'm a newbie at applescripting but i fail to see why this might be happening
Any help is of course greatly appreciated

Hi Arthur!
Tried your solution without much success, after some playing around i found out changing the command to use any other keystroke (e.g. - ) actually made the script work as intended, although it also implied changing the macro trigger (4 to - ) in application Adam.
repeat 10 times
keystroke "-"
end repeat
Lately I've been testing with other applications and found out this "ignore" behaviour happens mostly when you use numbers for keystrokes, perhaps there is al alternate way of inputting these?
Thanks for your and everyone's help

Applescript's System Events forces Mac OS Roman encoding?

I have written an Applescript which reads the first line of a UTF-8 text file. That string is used to "set value" a particular text area of an IRC client (Textual).
Unfortunately, any characters not native to Mac OS Roman encoding (unicode-only characters, asian-only glyphs) are substituted for Mac OS Roman characters.
For example:
旦 welcome
is written into the text area as:
Êó¶ welcome
How can I force the text back into UTF-8 encoding, or fix this issue?
my script:
set source to "/Users/admin/Documents/file.txt" --UTF-8 file
set N to paragraphs of (read POSIX file source)
set phrase to first item of N
tell application "Textual" --IRC client
activate
tell application "System Events"
    delay 0.3
    set value of text area 1 of scroll area 1 of window 1 of process "Textual" to phrase
    --the main text entry field of this application
    keystroke return
end tell
end tell

Nothing is "forced"; how a file is read is determined by your system's language settings - for English, this is usuallly MacRoman. To read in a different encoding, use the read command's as parameter to specify, for example:
    read POSIX file source as «class utf8»

AppleScript 10.9.0 System Events -10006 Update property list file item

Have AppleScript that runs without error on Mountain Lion 10.8.5, but errors out on Mavericks 10.9.0.
At end of script, property list items need to be updated and this is when error occurs.
Put together a subset of the script, see below) that get the error
Statement reads "set value of property list item "ArrayList001" to ArrayList001"
Text of error:
     error "System Events got an error: 'xxx.plist' is not a property list file."
     number -10006 from contents of property list file "xxx05.plist"
=============================================================================
property myPListFile : "cbmck05.plist"
property myPListFilePath : ""
property constPreviousRunDay : "PreviousRunDay"
on run
   set today to "Date01" as string
          set List001 to {}
          set List002 to {}
          set myPListFilePath to ""
          repeat with i from 1 to 8
                    set end of List001 to (i * 2) as string
          end repeat
          set myPListFilePath to path to desktop folder from user domain as string
          set fileMyPList to (myPListFilePath & myPListFile) as string
clear_file(fileMyPList)
-- First time! need to initalize
          tell application "System Events"
-- create an empty property list dictionary item
                    set the parent_dictionary to make new property list item with properties {kind:record}
-- create new property list file using the empty dictionary list item as contents
                    set new_plistfile to ¬
make new property list file with properties {contents:parent_dictionary, name:fileMyPList}
make new property list item at end of property list items of contents of new_plistfile ¬
with properties {kind:string, name:constPreviousRunDay, value:today}
make new property list item at end of property list items of contents of new_plistfile ¬
                              with properties {kind:list, name:"ArrayList001"}
make new property list item at end of property list items of contents of new_plistfile ¬
                              with properties {kind:list, name:"ArrayList002"}
          end tell
          set previousRunDate to today
          set xxList to (repopulate_lists())
          set ArrayList001 to List001
          set ArrayList002 to List002
-- save info in the plist file
          tell application "System Events"
                    tell property list file fileMyPList
                              tell contents
                                        set value of property list item constPreviousRunDay to previousRunDate
                                        set value of property list item "ArrayList001" to ArrayList001     --   <<< ------- error caused by the statement
                                        set value of property list item "ArrayList002" to ArrayList002
                              end tell
                    end tell
          end tell
end run
-- ==========================================
on repopulate_lists()
          set newList to {}
          set List002 to {}
          repeat with i from 1 to 8
                    set end of newList to i as string
          end repeat
          set List001 to newList
          return List001
end repopulate_lists
-- ==========================================
-- Does the file exist?
on fileExists(f)
          try
f as string as alias
                    return true
          on error errMsg number errNum
                    return false
          end try
end fileExists
-- Delete the files if exist
on clear_file(aFile)
          if fileExists(aFile) then
                    tell application "Finder"
                              set resultObject to delete aFile
                    end tell
          end if
end clear_file

Here's an AppleScript handler that partially works around this bug (warning: it turns each list item into a string).
on plistWrite(plistPath, plistItemName, plistItemValue)
-- version 1.1, Daniel A. Shockley
-- 1.1 - rough work-around for Mavericks bug where using a list for property list item value wipes out data
          if class of plistItemValue is class of {"a", "b"} and AppleScript version of (system info) as number ≥ 2.3 then
-- Convert each list item into a string and escape it for the shell command:
-- This will fail for any data types that AppleScript cannot coerce directly into a string.
                    set plistItemValue_forShell to ""
                    repeat with oneItem in plistItemValue
                              set plistItemValue_forShell to plistItemValue_forShell & space & quoted form of (oneItem as string)
                    end repeat
                    set shellCommand to "defaults write " & quoted form of POSIX path of plistPath & space & plistItemName & space & "-array" & space & plistItemValue_forShell
do shell script shellCommand
                    return true
          else -- handle normally, since we aren't dealing with Mavericks list bug:
                    tell application "System Events"
-- create an empty property list dictionary item
                              set the parent_dictionary to make new property list item with properties {kind:record}
                              try
                                        set plistFile to property list file plistPath
                              on error errMsg number errNum
                                        if errNum is -1728 then
                                                  set plistFile to make new property list file with properties {contents:parent_dictionary, name:plistPath}
                                        else
                                                  error errMsg number errNum
                                        end if
                              end try
                              tell plistFile
                                        try
                                                  tell property list item plistItemName
                                                            set value to plistItemValue
                                                  end tell
                                        on error errMsg number errNum
                                                  if errNum is -10006 then
make new property list item at ¬
                                                                      end of property list items of contents of plistFile ¬
with properties ¬
                                                                      {kind:class of plistItemValue, name:plistItemName, value:plistItemValue}
                                                  else
                                                            error errMsg number errNum
                                                  end if
                                        end try
                              end tell
                              return true
                    end tell
          end if
end plistWrite

I am trying to use automator to open a safari popup window that will automatically log me into whatever account and I attempted to type up an applescript that utilized the "System Events" function with no avail, any ideas?

I am trying to use automator to open a safari popup window that will automatically log me into whatever account and I attempted to type up an applescript that utilized the "System Events" function with no avail, any ideas?

Hi
In iMovie'11 (version 9.0.x)
on top menu row - Apple/iMovie/File/Edit/Cut (Can vary dep. on language - in Swedish Apple/iMovie/Arkiv/Redigera/Klipp . . . )
down Cut menu - Slow playback/Raspid Playback/Re-play in Slow Motion and onvards
Here one can select the Pre-Set speeds
Are you familiar with getting 'inspector' to run?
No - but I guess that Double Click on clip/sequense or ctrl-Click on it might open it.
Yours Bengt W

AppleScript Performance Difference from Finder to System Events

I've just made an interesting discovery. I have a folder that contains about 7000 other folders. When I use the code "tell application "Finder" to set folder_list to folders in folder base_folder" it takes a very long time to respond, about 40 seconds. When I use the code "tell application "System Events" to set folder_list to every folder of folder base_folder" to seems to produce the same result in only about 2 seconds. If I add the filtering criteria, like "whose name begins with search_name", the performance difference is even greater. Clearly I'll be using System Events from now on, but can anyone explain why there is such a large difference in performance? Is there anywhere I can find other performance tweaks like this?
Note, I'm using system 10.6.5, but there is no automator section in that forum.

It seems you're going in panic!
First of all run mainteinance , look for system updates if any, and take care of any block key pressed
on your keyboard.
Do not abuse of Force Quit it 'd destroy preference applications, if your itunes take 3h to import your library you can setup in Energy Saver panel some tunings to protect lcd.
I think 3h to import a music library is not normal, can you post some other info about?
What can of device you are copying from?
Did you import ,when you set up your new iMac , an user from your old mac?
Take a look also at spotlight corner, if there's a little point inside the glass icon , spotlight is indexing your drive/s , this is normal on the first system's run and this 'd slow mac performance.

System Events not working correctly with Acrobat Professional

Hey Guys, I have a script that I have written that automatically enables security settings on a PDF through Acrobat Professional. Because of Acrobats poor scriptability I am forced into doing much though System Events.
This is not a major problem... however when activating some settings in the security settings, often warning Alert dialog boxes appear when you tell System Events to enable particular settings. These Alerts do not have a title... The only way I have been able to get the script to deal with them is with the following code:
if title of front window is "" then
    tell front window
        click button "OK"
    end tell
end if
I guess this is an ok solution... bit hard to identify windows when they don't have titles...
BUT this is not my main problem. The main problem is that the script gets to one of these alert dialog boxes and just sits there... It sits there for like 10 seconds and then it performs the "click button "OK"" command.
This is a problem as there are like 3 of these instances and it really adds up. Can anybody help me... I am using Acrobat Professional 8.2.0 and the entire code is:
tell application "System Events"
    try
        tell process "Acrobat"
            -- Enable security settings
            click menu item "Properties..." of menu "File" of menu bar item "File" of menu bar 1
            tell window "Document Properties"
                tell tab group 1
                    click radio button "Security"
                    tell group "Document Security"
                        click pop up button 1
                        click menu item 2 of menu 1 of pop up button 1
                    end tell
                end tell
            end tell
            tell window "Password Security - Settings"
                click pop up button 1
                click menu item 4 of menu 1 of pop up button 1
                tell group "Permissions"
                    click checkbox "Restrict editing and printing of the document. A password will be required in order to change these permission settings."
                    click text field 1
                    keystroke pdfPassword
                    click pop up button 1
                    click menu item 2 of menu 1 of pop up button 1
                    click pop up button 2
                    click menu item 4 of menu 1 of pop up button 2
                end tell
                click button "OK"
            end tell
            if title of front window is "" then
                tell front window
                    click checkbox 1
                    click button "OK"
                end tell
            end if
            tell window "Adobe Acrobat - Confirm Permissions Password"
                click text field 1
                keystroke pdfPassword
                click button "OK"
            end tell
            if title of front window is "" then
                tell front window
                    click checkbox 1
                    click button "OK"
                end tell
            end if
            tell window "Document Properties"
                click button "OK"
            end tell
end tell
    on error
        display alert "System Events was unable to Enable Commenting. This may be because Acrobat has modified its menu system. Please contact your system administrator."
    end try
end tell
A delay does not work... its like as soon as I click the "OK" button it stalls for 10 seconds or does not know that is meant to continue... because I did this:
tell window "Password Security - Settings"
    click button "OK"
end tell
beep
In this situation it still takes like 10 seconds for the beep to occur after the click button "OK" command.

Hey Guys, I have a script that I have written that automatically enables security settings on a PDF through Acrobat Professional. Because of Acrobats poor scriptability I am forced into doing much though System Events.
This is not a major problem... however when activating some settings in the security settings, often warning Alert dialog boxes appear when you tell System Events to enable particular settings. These Alerts do not have a title... The only way I have been able to get the script to deal with them is with the following code:
if title of front window is "" then
    tell front window
        click button "OK"
    end tell
end if
I guess this is an ok solution... bit hard to identify windows when they don't have titles...
BUT this is not my main problem. The main problem is that the script gets to one of these alert dialog boxes and just sits there... It sits there for like 10 seconds and then it performs the "click button "OK"" command.
This is a problem as there are like 3 of these instances and it really adds up. Can anybody help me... I am using Acrobat Professional 8.2.0 and the entire code is:
tell application "System Events"
    try
        tell process "Acrobat"
            -- Enable security settings
            click menu item "Properties..." of menu "File" of menu bar item "File" of menu bar 1
            tell window "Document Properties"
                tell tab group 1
                    click radio button "Security"
                    tell group "Document Security"
                        click pop up button 1
                        click menu item 2 of menu 1 of pop up button 1
                    end tell
                end tell
            end tell
            tell window "Password Security - Settings"
                click pop up button 1
                click menu item 4 of menu 1 of pop up button 1
                tell group "Permissions"
                    click checkbox "Restrict editing and printing of the document. A password will be required in order to change these permission settings."
                    click text field 1
                    keystroke pdfPassword
                    click pop up button 1
                    click menu item 2 of menu 1 of pop up button 1
                    click pop up button 2
                    click menu item 4 of menu 1 of pop up button 2
                end tell
                click button "OK"
            end tell
            if title of front window is "" then
                tell front window
                    click checkbox 1
                    click button "OK"
                end tell
            end if
            tell window "Adobe Acrobat - Confirm Permissions Password"
                click text field 1
                keystroke pdfPassword
                click button "OK"
            end tell
            if title of front window is "" then
                tell front window
                    click checkbox 1
                    click button "OK"
                end tell
            end if
            tell window "Document Properties"
                click button "OK"
            end tell
end tell
    on error
        display alert "System Events was unable to Enable Commenting. This may be because Acrobat has modified its menu system. Please contact your system administrator."
    end try
end tell
A delay does not work... its like as soon as I click the "OK" button it stalls for 10 seconds or does not know that is meant to continue... because I did this:
tell window "Password Security - Settings"
    click button "OK"
end tell
beep
In this situation it still takes like 10 seconds for the beep to occur after the click button "OK" command.

Javascript to set slider value with System Events

If I open System Preferences and run this in Script Editor, it fails. It sets the volume to zero, not 50%.
var se = Application("System Events");
var spp = se.processes["System Preferences"];
var curr = spp.windows[0].sliders[0].value();
console.log("Current value: " + curr + " - " + typeof(curr));
spp.windows[0].sliders[0].value = 0.5
var curr = spp.windows[0].sliders[0].value();
console.log("Current value: " + curr + " - " + typeof(curr));
But the same thing in AppleScript seems to work fine.
tell application "System Events"
   tell process "System Preferences"
   set v to value of slider 0 of window 0
   log v
   set value of slider 0 of window 0 to 0.5
   end tell
end tell
Anyone know what the problem is?
thanks,
Rob

Jon Handy wrote:
Hello,
You should use something like this within the link attribute for that report column.
onClick="javascript:setItem('P48_RECEIPT_ID',#RECEIPT_ID#);"As noted above, it is not considered good practice in this forum to post unnecessary follow-ups to long expired threads and users. It's worse to do so with information that is inaccurate or incomplete.
What is the purpose of <tt>javascript:</tt> in this code?
What is <tt>setItem</tt>? It is not a standard APEX JavaScript API method.
You're welcome to get involved in the forum, but why make your first post an inaccurate response to a random 6 month old post that is only one of hundreds/thousands of questions on setting an item value using JavaScript?

Acrobat pro and system events

Hi,
I want to make some changes in the properties of a row of pdf's. I want to change the magnification and page layout. I only know a bit of applescript. Yes I know it isn't Javascript but I didn't find a place for applescript, I am sorry..
this is what I've got:
tell application "System Events"
   tell process "Acrobat"
       activate
       tell menu bar 1
           tell menu bar item "File"
               tell menu "File"
                   click menu item "Properties..."
                   tell window "Properties…" of process "Acrobat"
                   end tell
               end tell
           end tell
       end tell
   end tell
end tell
I can't set the magnification to "fit page" and page layout to (two up cover page)
Who can help me please?

Acrobat forms only run Acrobat JavaScirpt within the form. You can use Apple Script and the Acrobat API to access the JavaScripts within a PDF or run some JavaScript within a PDF.

How to get name or unix id of last switched System Events process?

Hello
I am writing a script to be used as an idle function to send a command to a process as soon as it's not frontmost anymore. So far, I can figure how to get the unix id or name of the frontmost process, but not of the previous process . Here is what I have:
on idle {}
my handleProcesses()
return 5 --- '5' tells idle () to run every 5 seconds.
end idle
on handleProcesses()
tell application "System Events"
set FrontApp to (get name of every process whose frontmost is true)
set PrevApp to (get name of previous process)
end tell
--- my command here, like tell PrevApp to hide...
end handleProcesses
My problem is that "previous process" is not in the System Events dictionary. I cannot use "frontmost if false" either, because this would return all other opened applications, not just the previous one.
I know one partial solution would be to use Command-Tab, get the name of frontmost, and use Command-tab again. But, it's not really pratical nor elegant.
What I need is a function which can get my frontmost process name (which is easy), and return it when the process is inactive (no more frontmost).
Thanks.
Vic

You can do what you want if you maintain a record yourself of what used to be frontmost:
tell application "System Events"
set FrontApp to (get name of every process whose frontmost is true)
set lastFrontApp to FrontApp
repeat while FrontApp = lastFrontApp
set FrontApp to (get name of every process whose frontmost is true)
end repeat
set BackApps to (get name of every process whose frontmost is not true)
if lastFrontApp is in BackApps then
--the app is open in the background
else
--the app was closed
end if
end tell

Startup error message:System Events got an error: NSInternalScriptError (8)

I just upgraded from Panther to Tiger on my mac Mini and I can't seem to get rid of this message everytime I boot up:
System Events got an error: NSInternalScriptError (8)
Any idea how I can "fix" this?
Much thanks.

Do you have any login items listed in the Accounts pane of your System Preferences? If so, disable them and restart to see if that clears the message. If so, then re-enable them one by one and restart to see which one it is.
In doing a Google search, that message appears to come from an AppleScript. So perhaps you have an AppleScript running at login that needs to be modified to be compatible with Tiger...
charlie

Retrieve duration of sound files via Apple Script - System Events

I need to get more details of my sound files into a FileMaker 10 Database as it is possible by using the FileMaker import function. There ist a complicated way by going first through iTunes and than to FileMaker. Now I found out, that part of the information displayed when pushing cmd+i can be retrieved with this:
tell application "System Events"
properties of file "/Volumes/MacHD/singsong.mp3"
end tell.
But duration, channels, bitrate are not accessible. Is this a general problem with metadata? May be if I got a hint how to retrieve meta-data from .jpg files I might be able to apply this also on .mp3

Try the AppleScript forum under OS X Technologies.

Applescript: system events keystroke to background?

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