Re: Automatically controlling the mouse and keyboard for GUI scripting?

In article <ht41h.10491$v81.9297@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
 "Peter Olcott" <NoSpam@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> > Or do you want to know something else?
> 
> I want to know if GUI scripting by automatically controlling the mouse
and 
> the 
> keyboard is feasible, or infeasible. If it is feasible,  then how is
this 
> accomplished? I already said this in the original posting in fewer
words:
> [Can this be done in Mac OS, and how is it done?] 

There seems to be a slight terminology mismatch here.

"GUI scripting" is an AppleScript technology (build on AppleEvents and 
framework sup****t within in the target application) that allows you to 
write AppleScript scripts that control an application by directly 
manipulating the UI of that application.  This is different than using a 
richer AppleScript interface that scriptable application usually provide 
(which offer semantically rich interface build on the underlying data 
model, as opposed to a series of buttons/menus/etc... - so you'd say 
"create new do***ent" as opposed to "select menu item 'New Do***ent' 
from menu 'File'").

See <http://www.apple.com/applescript/GUI/>


Still not sure what you mean by "automatically controlling the mouse and 
keyboard" though - do you mean "Is it possible to programatically 
control the mouse and keyboard"? In which case the answer is "yes" - see 
CGRemote.h for details.  Or is GUI scripting built on top of that? In 
which case the answer is "not really" (since the apple events actually 
say the "click this button" as opposed to "click at 50,23").  Or are you 
asking if you could create a way to manipulate the UI of another 
application by using those APIs?  In which case the answer is yes, but 
it would be extremely fragile (since it would depend on know exact 
screen locations for various items).