Is there a way to simulate a mouse click anywhere on a screen in Dictate ?

Question

I'm using Dictate because of hand problems. Unfortunately, it does not seem to have the ability as supplied to simulate mouse clicks anywhere on the screen as Dragon Naturally Speaking does on the Windows side.( I do not mean by this the ability to select an item in the menu, which It does have the built in ability to do.) It can, however, so I read, be scripted to do a lot of things. Is there an Applescript out there that would allow for the simulation of mouse clicks anywhere on the screen (as opposed to just on a UI item)?

Answer 1

Platform: 2.2 gHz iMac using Mac OS X 10.5.5; Dictate v. 1.2.1 Build
Okay, so, here, after a great deal of research, is a procedure for implementing a single mouse click anywhere on the screen. Since it’s a procedure, I’m detailing each step.
!. Download the scripting addition (sometimes known as an OSAX) xTool.sax from: http://lestang.org/osax/XTool/XTool-2.0.dmg.tgz. You will have to decompress the file (StuffIt) and double-click it to get it to unfold into a .dmg (disk image) file. In this file you will find the file Xtool.osax. Drag it into your MacHD (or whatever the name of your topmost volume is)/library/ScriptingAdditions (no spaces in the name) folder. The purpose of this is to place it into a folder where Applescript is expecting to find scripting additions. In other words, it’s hard-coded and you can’t just drop it anywhere because Applescript may not find it. Also, there may be more than one Library folder in other directories. Under 10.5.5. which I’m running, I can tell you it works where I placed it.
The effect all of this has is that when you create your script in Dictate’s New Commands window (Script Editor), Dictate will know what the commands “click mouse’ and “position of the mouse” mean. These are not standard Applsecript commands but are additions, hence the name Scripting Additions.
2. Start Dictate and in the File drop-down select New Command. This will take you to a window with a pane on the left with names such as Applications, Global, and several others. Click on Global (so that the command will be recognized no matter what application your are in). To the right of the pane you will see a number of commands listed by name and, underneath, a (very small) “+” (and a minus sign and a small icon). Ignore everything but the “+”. Click on the “+”.
Below several boxes will appear: Command, Description, Context, Type.
In Command Name type in the name you want Dictate to recognize to do the click. (I call mine Mouse click.) In Description you can type something like Single-clciks the mouse. In the Context drop-down make sure to select Global. In the Type drop-down, select Applescript.
Paste the following into Text Edit (orTexEdit Plus,if you have that):
click mouse {(position of the mouse), [1]}
For reasons unknown to me, you can’t just select that text, copy, and paste it into Dictate’s Script Editor winodw. You will have to select it in Text Edit and drag it into the Source text box.
Click on the Compile button at the left bottom. After it finishes compiling (a matter of seconds if everything is normal), click on the Run button with your mouse. If all has gone well, you will very likely see the Run button get pressed repeatedly. Take your mouse off the button so it stops blinking like mad. (The Mouse click Appplescript is repeatedly looking at the position it find itself and clicking again, and again.)
While your mileage may vary, I have been able to simulate single mouse-click using this workaround.
So far, I have not been able to simulate a double-click reliably. There is, I believe, an issue with the amount of time between the two clicks (a parameter of the click mouse command above which I did not go into here). For anyone out there who wants to work on that, I would be glad to hear your results. I’ve tried values up to 2000 in the DELAY parameter after the TIMES parm. Here is what the dictionary shows for this command.
click mouse?v
click mouse [point] : where to do the mouse click
[times integer] : how many times you want to clik the mouse
[delay integer] : delay between two mouse clicks
[using primary button/secondary button/middle button] : which mouse button
If I get this to work I will let my fellow sufferers know.
Thanks to Hiroto and Andrew99 in particular for their help.