UI Actions"Universal Attachability" for AppleScript
   
UI Actions brings "universal attachability" to AppleScript, greatly enhancing your control over applications running on your computer. Attach a UI Action script to any standard native Mac OS X application, and UI Actions automatically runs the script whenever you perform specified user actions in the target application. You write the script, and you select the user action that triggers it, such as choosing a menu item, changing the value of a text field, opening a drawer or window, or activating an application. UI Actions is a scriptable faceless background application. It is placed in your user Scripting Additions folder at installation, enabling you to use AppleScript commands to attach and detach UI Action scripts, to export and import sets of UI actions, to enable and disable them, and to get a reference to the affected UI element for use in your UI Action scripts.
UI Actions is based on Apple's Accessibility API, and it fully supports GUI Scripting with AppleScript. You can write and distribute UI Action scripts that will run on any Macintosh computer where UI Actions is installed! UI Actions 2.0.0 is a Universal Binary with many new features. UI Actions may be purchased for $35.00 US. NOW AVAILABLE: UI Actions 2.0.0, released July 2010.
Read all about UI Actions on our web site:
And in our first review:
And in print:
Developers: License the PFiddlesoft Frameworks. UI Actions incorporates the PFAssistive Framework as an embedded framework. The PFiddlesoft Frameworks are Universal Binaries and support 32-bit and 64-bit architectures using reference counted memory management. Licenses are free for personal use and for distribution or use with a product you distribute without charge. A flat one-time license fee of $250 US is required for distribution or use of each framework with any product for which you request or require payment. Source code is available for a separate fee. Different terms apply to large or established commercial software developers. For more information, and to download the PFiddlesoft Frameworks and their documentation and licenses, go to the PFiddlesoft Frameworks page.
This page was first published by PFiddlesoft on May 25, 2010. Last updated August 3, 2010. |
DownloadsDownload UI Actions 2.0.0, released July 2010. It runs as a fully functional trial version for 30 days after you first use it unless you already have a valid registration key. This version of UI Actions runs on Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard or newer. See the Requirements section below for details. Obtain a registration key from eSellerate to unlock the trial version. Either choose UI Actions > Registration > Obtain Key Online in the trial version of UI Actions Setup while connected to the Internet, or go to our Online Store. UI Actions is $35.00 US. Quantity discounts are available for 5 or more licenses.
Updates for current customers: This version runs as a free update for all registered users of earlier versions of UI Actions. Users of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger: UI Actions 2.0.0 does not run under versions of Mac OS X older than Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. If you need to run UI Actions under Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, download UI Actions 1.2.1, released June 2007. Users of Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar: If you need to run UI Actions under Mac OS X 10.3 Panther, download UI Actions 1.1.1, released May 2005.Download Automator Actions for UI Actions version 1.0, for use with UI Actions 1.1.1 and older. These four Automator actions are free, but they require UI Actions to work. They let you add steps to an Automator workflow to attach and detach your UI Action scripts automatically, in case you prefer not to write AppleScript scripts or use UI Actions Setup to do it. Although UI Actions 1.1.1 runs under Mac OS X 10.3 Panther or newer, Automator requires Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger or newer. (You do not need the separate Automator Actions download if you are using UI Actions 1.2 or newer, because the Automator Actions are now built into UI Actions.) RequirementsUI Actions 2.0.0 requires Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard or newer. At this writing, version 2.0.0 has been tested successfully through Mac OS X 10.6.4 Snow Leopard. We have fixed the issue that caused the 'affected UI element' property in the UI Actions terminology dictionary to fail under Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.6, and as a result all of the example scripts now once again work as designed. An older version, UI Actions 1.2.1, runs under Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, and UI Actions 1.1.1 runs under Mac OS X 10.3 Panther, both with some limitations. UI Action scripts will be triggered by user actions only if the UI Actions faceless background application and the PFAssistive framework are installed on the user's computer. They are included in the download. Apple's GUI Scripting technology was officially introduced in Panther as a standard feature of Mac OS X. Scripts written using the GUI Scripting technology will run on all computers equipped with Panther or newer, but some GUI Scripting features require newer versions of Mac OS X. (Apple successfully concluded the GUI Scripting public beta test on Jaguar, and the beta version of the underlying GUI Scripting software for Jaguar is no longer available.) Also get UI Browser, the "ultimate assistant" for GUI Scripting. To explore what your applications can do with Quartz Event Taps, get the free developer utility Event Taps Testbench. To write your own assistive applications, license the PFiddlesoft Frameworks. |
The included UI Actions Setup application works with UI Actions. It provides a convenient graphical user interface to attach UI Action scripts to applications and to manage all of your UI Action scripts.