Re: "hooking" into another app
Re: "hooking" into another app
- Subject: Re: "hooking" into another app
- From: Bill Cheeseman <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2008 19:39:01 -0400
- Thread-topic: "hooking" into another app
on 2008-04-15 5:37 PM, Jens Alfke at email@hidden wrote:
> I'm not so enthusiastic about it it's basically the GUI equivalent
> of Application Enhancer, or of HTML screen-scraping.
That really isn't fair. I avoid Application Enhancer like the plague. In
fact, I had to work with Unsanity so that I could modify my own applications
in order to avoid APE's interference.
The Accessibility API is a fully public and supported API from Apple. It is
designed to make all Mac applications accessible to users with disabilities,
so that Mac applications can meet federal legal requirements under the
Americans With Disabilities Act. There is nothing skanky about it. I've been
working with it for several years now, and I find it entirely reliable and
useful.
You may be confusing the Accessibility API with GUI Scripting. Although GUI
Scripting is based on the Accessibility API, GUI Scripting is designed only
to offer AppleScript services that are unrelated to the purpose of the
Accessibility API. It is certainly true that a scripter is well advised to
use an application's built-in AppleScript support, if available, before
resorting to GUI Scripting as a last resort, for exactly the reasons you
state. But that only has to do with AppleScript. If an application supports
AppleScript, it probably does so much better than GUI Scripting does. For
that reason GUI Scripting is a last resort for a scripter, to be used only
if direct AppleScript support is unavailable.
But the original poster wasn't asking how to use AppleScript. He was asking
how to write an application. The operations he wants his application to
perform are perfectly handled by the Accessibility API. In fact, they are
exactly what the Accessibility API was designed to do.
--
Bill Cheeseman - email@hidden
Quechee Software, Quechee, Vermont, USA
www.quecheesoftware.com
PreFab Software - www.prefabsoftware.com
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