... the hiccup I'm running into is that System Events seems to
favor "named references" ... almost pathologically so. So when I've
got 4 processes all named "DashboardClient," I have to be careful
in formulating my references to them that I don't end up with a
reference by name, because *although it provided the reference*,
it's not capable of uniquely resolving it.
The workaround I've come up with is to use a reference to a whose
specifier...
That's an interesting one, Daniel.
I suppose one could also specify the required target individually
(first application process whose...) rather than a single-item list
(application processes whose...). However, the behaviour is similar
in either case, since a reference to the specification is still
essential for accurate, subsequent identification. Without it,
confusion (caused, as you say, by dashboard clients sharing the same
name) reigns:
----------------
tell application "System Events"
set myWidget to (first application process whose title is "Weather")
title of myWidget
end tell
--> "Sudoku.wdgt"
----------------
The cause is confirmed by the event log:
----------------
tell application "System Events"
get application process 1 whose title = "Weather"
application process "DashboardClient"
get title of application process "DashboardClient"
"Sudoku.wdgt"
end tell
----------------
A tell statement, by avoiding the evaluation resulting from the set
command, could also help to keep a reference intact:
----------------
tell application "System Events" to tell UI element 1 of scroll area
1 of ¬
window 1 of (first application process whose title is "Weather")
if not (exists) then return beep (* Dashboard needs to have been
shown once *)
set loc to value of static text 1 of (second group where class of UI
elements contains static text)
set tmp to value of static text 1 of groups of (first group where
class of UI elements contains group)
end tell
set {intl, msg} to {ASCII number loc's character 1, {}}
if intl > 96 and intl < 123 and (count loc) > 1 then set loc to
(ASCII character (intl - 32)) & loc's text 2 thru end
repeat with i from 1 to 6
tell tmp to set msg's end to tab & tab & item i & tab & tab & item
(6 + i) & tab & tab & item (12 + i)
end repeat
set {tid, text item delimiters} to {text item delimiters, return &
return}
set {msg, text item delimiters} to {msg as Unicode text, tid}
display alert "Temperature Forecasts for " & loc & ":" & return &
return & ¬
tab & tab & "Day" & tab & tab & "High" & tab & "Low" message msg
----------------
