GUI scripting question -am I sunk? Part 2

Question

Hi all,
I am trying to get two apps that have no Applescript dictionary entries to respond to an Applescript I am writing. I want to first bring up an audio app, then bring up a transcripting app and pass to this second app the new audio filename the first app created.
I've got the script to bring up the audio app, create the new audio file, run a couple of Perl scripts to grab the new audio filename and pass it back to Applescript and start the second app.
I can't get the second app to respond to anything but activate in Applescript. When I try to get a menu item selected, or clicked, either nothing happens, or the transcript app pops up an error window w/ the message "Nil Object Exception" which is bad.
I also tried using PreFab's UI Browser to get the same menu action I want to execute by pressing the "Perform" button in the UI Browser. Nothing happens in that case as well.
Here's the code snippet in question:
If (InqScribeUp is false) then
activate application "InqScribe"
end if
tell process "InqScribe"
click menu item "New Document with Media File..." of menu 1 of menu bar item "File" of menu bar 1
end tell
The boolean variable InqScribeUp is defined earlier in the script.
When the above script is executed nothing happens.
If I change the statement "click menu item ..." to a tell block:
tell menu item "New Document with Media File..." of menu 1 of menu bar item "File" of menu bar 1
click
end tell
I get the "Nil Object Exception" error from the transcript app InqScribe.
When I try using the "Perform" button in the UI Browser on the first audio app, the audio app does respond fine.
Am I now really stuck if the second app doesn't even respond to UI Browser's "Perform"?
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!
Ed

Answer 1

Hi Budgie,
The try block didn't work for me. I tested further and found I needed a sleep command between running the Perl scripts and bringing up InqScribe. The need to wait may be because I'm testing on an old PM G4 dual 867MHz machine, not a newer multi-GHz CPU.
Anyway, after putting in a sleep 20 in the second Perl script (which I "think I can reduce to 7-9), I was able to get the dialog window "Select a Media File" to be displayed upon sending InqScribe the shortcut key for that dialog window. I tried the "click ..." statement but no go, InqScribe didn't respond. Sending InqScribe the sortcut key event did work for some reason.
To complete the loop, I need to select a specific audio file in the dialog window "Select a Media File". By using the UI Browser, I've narrowed the statement I need to:
select static text NewFile of group TrxFileCount of list 1 of scroll area 5 of scroll area 1 of browser 1 of group 1 of window "Select a Media File"
where NewFile is a string variable containing the name of the latest audio file just created, and TrxFileCount is an integer with the value of the no. of files in the folder where the audio files for the app are located.
I now get an error from SystemEvents: NSReceiverEvaluationScriptError: 4, which I take to mean SystemEvents can't find the static text element I'm trying to select.
Should I try to "set" the value of the static text element instead? Or "select" it via it's position on the screen?
Here's my code snippet so far:
set NewFile to RetCode
If (InqScribeUp is false) then
activate application "InqScribe"
end if
keystroke "D" using command down
sleep 5
set TRxFileCount to count of (files in folder TRxRecordings whose name extension is "wav")
select static text NewFile of group TRxFileCount of list 1 of scroll area 5 of scroll area 1 of browser 1 of group 1 of window "Select a Media File"
click button "Open" of window "Select a Media File"
The error now occurs on the "select ..." statement, I don't get to the final "click button "Open"..." statement.
Any ideas at this point would be greatly appreciated!
Ed