I use SizeUp command inside of the script to make sure that the application i'm using is in the same place each time. Another way is to use the keyboard as much as possible (lots of tab keys), but with SizeUp or using custom AppleScript Window sizes, you can put that in the script as well: ua-cam.com/video/Blyy6QzV8v0/v-deo.html
Hi and thx for your great videos, you do this very good and you should be easier to find on youtube! I would like to implement these apps and get the licences for them. 1.why did you choose typinator? Why not aText or others or why not directly with Alfred or with the shortcuts under system preferences? 2. Is this selection of apps usable with iPhone or iPad? Or how about using this on multiple devices and multiple users? 3. Do you have experience with those aut. tools and Siri? It would be great to have a video from you to this topic. Thank you again for your great introductions, they are really good!
RE: 1 I started using Typinator because I bought it as part of a package from MacHeist a long time ago (cheap), and then fell in love with it. I use "input" fields a lot, and it's much easier to type a variable input {{?example}} than TextExpander. I recommend aText for people who just need simple text expansion. Typinator is also cool because it can do "calculations." Today I made a text expansion shortcut that will write out the date in MMDD format, minus 7 days (to get last's week's date). Alfred also has a text expansion part - but Typinator is just my favorite (no super duper strong feelings either way). Typinator's libraries are pretty easy to share though ( even though I kind of hate the UI). RE: 2 TextExpander has a mobile app I believe. AppleScripting won't work on an iOS. You would need something like Appium to automate user input on an iOS device. But - if you have access to xCode and the source files of an app - you can build the app locally on your machine and then use this method to automate things. RE: 3 I have a bit - but nothing too in depth. Once I learn more about these topics I'll be sure to share what I know! Thanks so much!! :)
@@TheProductivityShop I am having the same issue. Terminal cliclick c:0,0 works fine. Copying "eval $(/usr/libexec/path_helper -s); cliclick p:. | cut -d ',' -f2 | tr -d \"\ \" | pbcopy" directly into terminal and then pasting that somewhere provides the correct coordinate as well. It pastes as blank into the new script -- script safari. Task List Upload -- delay variables set delayOne to 0.2 set PageDelay to 2 -- start coding below set firstX to set firstY to do shell script "eval $(/usr/libexec/path_helper -s); cliclick c:" & firstX & "," & firstY delay delayOne
Solved it! Roman, are you on an M1 Mac? If yes, changing the file path fixed the issue for me. Change every "$(/usr/libexec/path_helper -s); cliclick" to "/opt/homebrew/bin/cliclick"
It feels that I'm the only one posting comments around here, but I'll post another one (sorry if I'm too active). The line to copy the x position of the mouse pointer to the clipboard is this: do shell script "eval $(/usr/libexec/path_helper -s); cliclick p:. | cut -d ',' -f1 | tr -d \"\ \" | pbcopy" After this line I can store the value of the clipboard to a variable like this: set xPOS to the clipboard My question: Is there a way to store the x coordinate (x position of the mouse pointer) to a variable without messing with the clipboard? Thank you!
Don't worry! I love comments! So the TL;DR (Too long don't read) answer: Not that I know of. Also disclaimer: I'm not an engineer or programmer and 100% of what I know is through lots of googling and trial an error. I kind of describe my knowledge as a path through a forest, I can find my way back and know how I got there, but I don't know much about what's going on around me. Note: Sometimes when I run scripts that use the mouse position and use the clipboard, it takes away something that I need on the clipboard. I do have a workaround for this (but it's not perfect). Here is the code that I use to store the original clipboard and mouse position, and then put it back when the script is done. I saved it as a txt file so it's easier to view. prodshop.co/originalpositions So, the reason that I use the clipboard is it's the only way that I figured out how to get terminal code into an AppleScript that is currently running without having to write a file somewhere. So in Terminal, for the eval $(/usr/libexec/path_helper -s); cliclick p:. | cut -d ',' -f1 | tr -d \"\ \" | pbcopy Instead of doing pbcopy, I could pipe the result of the cliclick to a text file somewhere, like ~/desktop/random.txt. But then that would mean creating files on someones' desktop and it might need permissions, or ask for a user password each time. The pasteboard is kind of a "free" easy space that I can use. Also, if I were to store the variable somewhere (a cookie or script file or text file), then I would have to either leave it there, or delete it. I could use AppleScript to determine the location of the mouse and then just put it into a variable and skip out the Terminal to Clipboard thing all together. But after doing some research it just made my brain hurt lol: macscripter.net/viewtopic.php?id=33468 LMK if that makes sense!
@@TheProductivityShop Thank you for the quick reply! I liked reading what you wrote very much. Especially the forest part. The solution you suggested in the "preserve.txt" file doesn't work for me because what I'm usually copying [and want to preserve in the clipboard] is usually something else than plain text. It would appear that storing a musical note (or a dynamic/tempo indication) from the clipboard to a variable doesn't work. I'll LYK as soon as I find a solution to storing the coordinates in a variable (without messing with the clipboard). Thanks for now!
@@Theodor1st I get that too. When I want to keep an image on the clipboard the preserve.txt doesn’t work. Alfred’s clipboard history does keep images though, maybe that’s a route!
Also, maybe there is something in AppleScript to store the clipboard as something. set theOriginalClipboard to the clipboard as text ... or as something (not sure of all the options).
@@TheProductivityShop I've found a way to store the coordinates to a single variable (without using the clipboard). This is done using a handler. Like this: -- handler on getMCoord()
do shell script "eval $(/usr/libexec/path_helper -s); cliclick p:." --prints x and y coordinates (don't know where :p ) end getMCoord -- stores the output of getMCoord() handler to a variable named "mc" set mc to getMCoord() Hurray!
FYI, terminal needs a restart because the PATH environment variable is updated and restarting the terminal app will force the system to re-read that file (.bashrc or .zshrc if you're using ZSH). You can type "source ~/.bashrc" once the install is done and you don't have to restart it (it'll tell the terminal to refresh that file in memory so all new paths are memorized)
Hello, I can't seem to get alfred to work. every time I launch it and type "mousecode se" , it launches safari instead of what it launched for you. Any ideas???
Hi Luke, VERY excellent video! Perhaps you could help with a cliclick issue I'm running into. I cannot get the drag and drop feature to work correctly when it comes to dragging recently downloaded files into the drag-and-drop import box in Google Drive. Any help? Thanks!
Sometimes I have to add a sleep in between the "dd" and "du" cliclick dd:20,20 && sleep .2 && cliclick du:40,40 If that doesn't work I have another technique!
Try making sure that your "Arrangement" looks like this: www.dropbox.com/s/ce5u8opnjmv9lve/Screen%20Shot%202021-01-13%20at%2008.52.44.png?dl=0 Essentially the second screen needs to be perfectly aligned with the top of the first one, and on the right side. That way cliclick can use the main screen as zero,zero.
@@TheProductivityShop Thanks for the reply. It means a lot to me when people don't let me talking to the walls. In other news, the documentation (cliclick -h) gives the following solution: → (If you need to specify absolute negative values in case you have a setup with a second display arranged to the left of your main display, prefix the number with “=”, for instance “c:100,=-200”.) Thank you so much. I don't know when I would've learned to write the script presented in the video below, had I not came across this very instructional video. Thank you! ua-cam.com/video/LE8OWYXHNz0/v-deo.html
@@Theodor1st For sure! Oh nice -I'll check out and do some tests using the negative values. I always get confused when the alignment of my monitors is not actually how it's set up in reality. The script you sent is awesome. Yeah my method works out for doing things that you need to do over and over, but just don't have a shortcut for! :)
@@Theodor1st Hey there! So I saw your comment over email and the issue has come up before for me. Essentially when I want to use cliclick to click on something, I want the mouse to go back to where it was when I triggered the action. What I do is, I use cliclick to read the coordinates of the "initial" mouse position before my code, and then save that as a variable in my apaplescript. Then I run my code, and put the variable on the clipboard and use cliclick to '" move" the mouse back... -- start original position set theOriginalClipboard to the clipboard do shell script "eval $(/usr/libexec/path_helper -s); cliclick p:. | tr -d \"\ \" | pbcopy" delay delayOne set thePosition to the clipboard delay delayOne '''''''''''''''''' code'''''''''''''' -- end original position do shell script "eval $(/usr/libexec/path_helper -s); cliclick m:" & thePosition set the clipboard to theOriginalClipboard
@@TheProductivityShop @The Productivity Shop Thank you. You are very kind to explain in such great detail! Actually, I studied your script (not the one with which you replied now, but the one that is amongst the "Helper scripts", in the description of your video) and created a "manually restore pointer position" script. I believe it's not as well written like the one you replied with, but it works! ''''''''''''''''' Applescript '''''''''''''''''' -- script for restoring the pointer position set delayOne to 0.1 -- make a variable for the current x position do shell script "eval $(/usr/libexec/path_helper -s); cliclick p:. | cut -d ',' -f1 | tr -d \"\ \" | pbcopy" set curX to the clipboard delay delayOne -- make a variable for the current y position do shell script "eval $(/usr/libexec/path_helper -s); cliclick p:. | cut -d ',' -f2 | tr -d \"\ \" | pbcopy" set curY to the clipboard delay delayOne -- click to new coordinates do shell script "eval $(/usr/libexec/path_helper -s); cliclick c:498,51" delay delayOne -- restore pointer position do shell script "eval $(/usr/libexec/path_helper -s); cliclick c:=" & curX & ",=" & curY delay delayOne
hi , nice work , I would like to know if is it possible to convert a html file to pdf with automator or AppleScript or by quick action? I don't want to use print option and save as pdf ..
I would look into terminal packages, or perhaps another application that does it. Once you figure out the shell script or application, you can then use AppleScript to control that shell script or application. A common search tool for converting one thing to another is to search for aaa2bbb, so HTML2PDF. Maybe something like this: pdfcrowd.com/doc/api/html-to-pdf/command-line/, and then in AppleScript you can put: do shell script "html2pdf -code code ...."
I'm trying to do something similar in Safari but the simplest thing is getting me stuck..... I can't move to the next tab or toggle between tabs... I've tried assigning index numbers and titles... any insight?
The commands for the tabs in Safari are command 1, 2, 3, etc. To go to the next one it's control+tab. Other options are to simply program a mouse click (you can program cliclick to move the mouse a certain number pixels to the right). So cliclick c:. *current position* Then cliclick m:+40,+0 *move the mouse 40 pixels to the right (x cor) and 0 pixels down (y cor) Another option is to click on "Window" in the top menu bar, and you can then press the down key a bunch (in your script). Inside of the loop you could put a counter to keep track and add 1 to it at the end of each loop. Feel free to slack me on the Productivity Shop Slack channel if you have other Q's! Thanks for watching!
Great tutorial on automating your workflow! I faced some problems trying to implement your workflow in my M1 MacBook Air. I was greeted with "sh: cliclick: command not found" when I tried to run the AppleScript for Chrome. Also, the X and Y coordinates don't passthrough from the mousecode se script. Any idea what could be causing this? Appreciate any help you can give!
Hi again! I managed to create a script that clicks in a certain point depending on where the cursor is (using two handlers and one IF statement). → If it's on display 1, it clicks at x coordinates; → If it's on display 2, it clicks at y coordinates. (Just wanted to show off 😎 )
Hello, I stumbled upon your videos a couple of days ago, and love them all. Bravo! Quick question: how did you make the "new applescript sc" command? Is that a workflow you've created in Alfred, and if so, can you offer some help on this? Thanks!
Hey there! Thanks for the compliment! It's a simple applescript - and I use Alfred to launch the Applescript. There is a setting in Features -> File Search -> Advanced that says "run Applescripts instead of opening" So if you push enter, it will run the script. If you need to open, ⌘O. Also I have applescripts to show up with my default search scope. Let me know if you have any other Q's!
@@TheProductivityShop Thanks for your reply. I'm getting to know Applescript: could you share how you use Applescript to open a new Applescript document and write text into it? Many thanks for your help and your videos!
@@TheProductivityShop I'm very much looking forward to that - I'm stuck at the place where you open the Applescript editor with the prewritten text, *and* when you use the mousecode script. So any help with how you created these two scripts would be amazing. Thanks in advance!
Hi, first of all this video is awesome. I learned a lot. Downloading Alfred, I saw the newest paid version has a text completion tool as well as a "workflow" automator module. Do you use these in place of typinator and apple scripting now in your everyday work?
Hey Daniel, thanks for watching!! Yeah, I saw that Alfred had incorporated a text completion feature, but by the time I was already in love with Typinator. To be honest I haven't really explored the features of Alfred yet and their text expansion. Typinator (and TextExpander) are pretty powerful, and my muscle memory kind of goes to that. For Alfred Workflows, I use a ton! I should do a video on my favorite workflow modules. Some are covered in the Alfred video. If you search github, you can find a ton of great ones, and also packal.org. :)
great explaination njoyed the whole video! i automated my outlook email i kinda mixed them inbox from my different a/c now they are stored in my computer, now my question is, is there any way i can restore to how it was, Thanks
Hey there, could you tell me more about the process you did? From the information above I'm hearing that two mail accounts might be mixed together now. To separate them again, you could always search for the address (to:email@accountone.com & to:email@accounttwo.com) that it was sent to, and put them in different folders. Let me know if that answers your question. Thanks!
I am hoping to automate responses to a browser based program that sends me messages from leads. I want to be able to respond to these messages - especially after hours. Could your method of scripting recognize an alert that a new message has arrives by OCR by searching the page for a certain keyword(s), i.e. “You have new notifications.?” Thanks.
Hi Bernard, Thanks for watching the video! My workflow requires a human to trigger the initial response through a keyboard shortcut or starting to run the AppleScript. If the browser based program you are using has an API, perhaps there would be a way to trigger some sort of action within the program. Another idea would be to see if you can get the notification/messages in e-mail form, and perhaps a script could be attached to a message arriving in Mail OSX. (Or maybe, just an auto reply set for certain hours). There might be some script options in IFFFT: ifttt.com/, depending on program. Sorry I couldn't be of more help! Take care! Luke
@@TheProductivityShop Thanks you for the quick reply. The program does send me a new email message when a message has arrived that I need to respond to. Are you saying I could embed a trigger for the script in an autoreply for this specific sender to trigger the start of the script?
Also - do you know anything about the Macro Recorder application? I used a program called Macro Scheduler years ago and this looks fairly similar. www.macrorecorder.com
@@bernarddouthit4647 Macro Recorder looks awesome, I'll check it out! Looks like essentially what I hacked together above. For the question with the email notification, there might be something in Automator you could use. Something like - When email arrives + Author = name@email.com -> Run this Script / or reply with [xx]. There might be some email scripting programs for Mail OSX out there. I do think that some of the Mail Email sorting tools might have this? Not sure. SmallCubed I think is the name. You may even be able to do it Mail OSX itself with Rules.
You can make matrix in Applescript very easy: tell application «Terminal» to activate repeat 100 times tell application «SystemEvents» keystroke «00101» keystroke «10100» keystroke «01010» end tell end repeat Its a cool script right?
Thanks for sharing with us! I'm a noob at AppleScript and have a serious question, is Apple ditching scripting on it's Macs? Support for automation seems to have dwindled over the years and they explicitly stated they won't include scripting languages in future MacOS versions. The reason why I ask because I'm afraid of investing the next few months building an automated workflow around AppleScript only for them to drop it altogether. They referenced Python and Perl but do you have any idea whether AppleScript is being decommissioned or that's unlikely? Thanks!
Hey there, I'm not sure if AppleScript will be sun-setted one day. If that day comes, it won't be too hard to jump over to a shell based programming language. I just use AppleScript because it is the easiest delivery method to do my three main techniques - typing, clicking and scrolling. Clicking and scrolling are actually done through cliclick, a terminal based tool. I just use "do shell script" to import most of it. Actual AppleScript is quite confusing sometimes so I just stick to these three things. Keyboard shortcuts will always be around, and automating that through the terminal shouldn't be too hard to figure out (cliclick does it pretty well from what I know).
@@TheProductivityShop Thanks for allaying my fears. You’re right about keyboard shortcuts, I should have known since MacOS is unix based, basic input methods won’t go away. It’s a big investment for me cos I don’t even have a Mac. Have been using shortcuts and JavaScript on iPad only. Was hopeful that iPad was going to be the future of computing but iPadOS is still limiting 😵💫 Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us! Subscribed! I’m going to look into those downloads you suggested in your video and start shopping for an iMac. White bezels though…. 😳🔳
@@sweealamak628 yeah I think eventually I’ll have to run shell scripts or something, but the basic logic will be the same. I’ll make new text expansion shortcuts to write it easily. We’ll figure it out!!
@@sweealamak628 lol. Also - if you do get a new mac I can walk you through editing the process described in my videos for the new chip - the cliclick code is a bit different, but still works!
Thank you so much for sharing this - I learned a lot. If I may suggest a simplification: The menu items in most (all?) Google Drive apps are accessible via the ⌥ + / shortcut. I think you could send that combo followed by the string 'pdf' to select the "Download as PDF document" menu item. This approach removes the need for sizeUp and cliclick.
Agreed! I made the example a bit more complicated than it needed to be. I wanted to illustrate how SizeUp and cliclick if someone wanted to try creating an automation on a web site or application that doesn't have handy shortcuts like Google Suites. Thanks for watching!
This is great. I'm using this guide to experiment with mouse clicks over Camtasia 2018. Question: When you install cliclick do I have to configure my environment variables? Please advise.
Hey Dulani! Sorry for the delay in my reply. To get it working, I didn't have to change any of my environment variables. From the terminal it works ok. When using AppleScript, the workaround I use is to include the line "eval $(/usr/libexec/path_helper -s);" before calling cliclick. Example: do shell script "eval $(/usr/libexec/path_helper -s); cliclick c:0,0" If there is a better way, let me know! hello@theproductivityshop.co or I'm usually on the slack channel prodshop.co/slack. If I didn't answer your question let me know! Thanks for watching!
Help! I work from home just once a month and use auto hotkey scripts to reply to emails from customers. I use a PC at work and a Mac at home, and my Keyboard Maestro trial has run out. Since I only use it once a month, I'm hoping you can help me find an alternative way to use my hotkey scripts! This would look like: #close This string of characters would generate the following: Please feel free to respond to this email or give me a call if you have any questions and I'll be happy to help! My personal contact details are listed below. Thank you again for choosing XXX and I hope you have a wonderful day! Is there any other free program I could use for this function? If so, could you show me how to use it please?
Hi Megan, Thanks for your question! You can use Typinator to create a text expansion shortcut, the same way I do in the video. There is a cheaper alternative called aText that costs around 5.00. However, if you aren't going to use it that often, you can totally use AppleScript to do the same thing. You can use Alfred (free version) to 'launch' the script. The only two programs that can associate an AppleScript with a keyboard shortcut are Alfred (paid version) and BetterTouchTool (free for 45 days). Watch the Alfred Video on how to get it setup to work with AppleScripts easily. I'll show you the Typinator path first, and then how to do it in AppleScript. Video + Script: prodshop.co/megan090519 Feel free to join the Slack channel and message me there if you need! prodshop.co/slack/ Thanks for watching my channel, you are my first tutorial request!!
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
I can't believe you only have 380 subscribers. I feel like it's 2010 and I just discovered bitcoin. Keep up the great work. It'll pay off!
same
Thanks for sharing this.
What if my windows are resized and/or moved around? Is there different way besides using the mouse's coordinates?
I use SizeUp command inside of the script to make sure that the application i'm using is in the same place each time.
Another way is to use the keyboard as much as possible (lots of tab keys), but with SizeUp or using custom AppleScript Window sizes, you can put that in the script as well: ua-cam.com/video/Blyy6QzV8v0/v-deo.html
Great video. Keep it up Luke ✌
I use command + shift + 4 to show the coordinates.
Also a good way!! I'm blind though so it's hard to see for me.
You are brilliant, intelligent, genius, super, super. I subscribed your channel
Thank you so much 😀
Hi and thx for your great videos, you do this very good and you should be easier to find on youtube! I would like to implement these apps and get the licences for them.
1.why did you choose typinator? Why not aText or others or why not directly with Alfred or with the shortcuts under system preferences?
2. Is this selection of apps usable with iPhone or iPad? Or how about using this on multiple devices and multiple users?
3. Do you have experience with those aut. tools and Siri? It would be great to have a video from you to this topic.
Thank you again for your great introductions, they are really good!
RE: 1
I started using Typinator because I bought it as part of a package from MacHeist a long time ago (cheap), and then fell in love with it. I use "input" fields a lot, and it's much easier to type a variable input {{?example}} than TextExpander. I recommend aText for people who just need simple text expansion.
Typinator is also cool because it can do "calculations." Today I made a text expansion shortcut that will write out the date in MMDD format, minus 7 days (to get last's week's date).
Alfred also has a text expansion part - but Typinator is just my favorite (no super duper strong feelings either way).
Typinator's libraries are pretty easy to share though ( even though I kind of hate the UI).
RE: 2
TextExpander has a mobile app I believe. AppleScripting won't work on an iOS. You would need something like Appium to automate user input on an iOS device. But - if you have access to xCode and the source files of an app - you can build the app locally on your machine and then use this method to automate things.
RE: 3
I have a bit - but nothing too in depth. Once I learn more about these topics I'll be sure to share what I know!
Thanks so much!! :)
Thanks! this really helped with some monotonous homework. :)
Glad it helped!
Any tips for Windows user?
Most of my things are for Mac, but hopefully once the channel gets bigger I'll start researching things for PC specifically!
I always miss the X and Y coordinates in the script. What am I doing wrong?
set testX to ...
I can help you troubleshoot. When you go to terminal, and type in cliclick c:0,0 does it click on the apple logo?
@@TheProductivityShop I am having the same issue.
Terminal cliclick c:0,0 works fine.
Copying "eval $(/usr/libexec/path_helper -s); cliclick p:. | cut -d ',' -f2 | tr -d \"\
\" | pbcopy" directly into terminal and then pasting that somewhere provides the correct coordinate as well.
It pastes as blank into the new script
-- script safari. Task List Upload
-- delay variables
set delayOne to 0.2
set PageDelay to 2
-- start coding below
set firstX to
set firstY to
do shell script "eval $(/usr/libexec/path_helper -s); cliclick c:" & firstX & "," & firstY
delay delayOne
Solved it! Roman, are you on an M1 Mac? If yes, changing the file path fixed the issue for me.
Change every
"$(/usr/libexec/path_helper -s); cliclick"
to
"/opt/homebrew/bin/cliclick"
@@alanguagliardo3778 woot!
It feels that I'm the only one posting comments around here, but I'll post another one (sorry if I'm too active).
The line to copy the x position of the mouse pointer to the clipboard is this:
do shell script "eval $(/usr/libexec/path_helper -s); cliclick p:. | cut -d ',' -f1 | tr -d \"\
\" | pbcopy"
After this line I can store the value of the clipboard to a variable like this:
set xPOS to the clipboard
My question:
Is there a way to store the x coordinate (x position of the mouse pointer) to a variable without messing with the clipboard?
Thank you!
Don't worry! I love comments!
So the TL;DR (Too long don't read) answer: Not that I know of.
Also disclaimer: I'm not an engineer or programmer and 100% of what I know is through lots of googling and trial an error. I kind of describe my knowledge as a path through a forest, I can find my way back and know how I got there, but I don't know much about what's going on around me.
Note:
Sometimes when I run scripts that use the mouse position and use the clipboard, it takes away something that I need on the clipboard. I do have a workaround for this (but it's not perfect). Here is the code that I use to store the original clipboard and mouse position, and then put it back when the script is done. I saved it as a txt file so it's easier to view. prodshop.co/originalpositions
So, the reason that I use the clipboard is it's the only way that I figured out how to get terminal code into an AppleScript that is currently running without having to write a file somewhere.
So in Terminal, for the
eval $(/usr/libexec/path_helper -s); cliclick p:. | cut -d ',' -f1 | tr -d \"\
\" | pbcopy
Instead of doing pbcopy, I could pipe the result of the cliclick to a text file somewhere, like ~/desktop/random.txt. But then that would mean creating files on someones' desktop and it might need permissions, or ask for a user password each time. The pasteboard is kind of a "free" easy space that I can use. Also, if I were to store the variable somewhere (a cookie or script file or text file), then I would have to either leave it there, or delete it.
I could use AppleScript to determine the location of the mouse and then just put it into a variable and skip out the Terminal to Clipboard thing all together. But after doing some research it just made my brain hurt lol: macscripter.net/viewtopic.php?id=33468
LMK if that makes sense!
@@TheProductivityShop Thank you for the quick reply! I liked reading what you wrote very much. Especially the forest part.
The solution you suggested in the "preserve.txt" file doesn't work for me because what I'm usually copying [and want to preserve in the clipboard] is usually something else than plain text.
It would appear that storing a musical note (or a dynamic/tempo indication) from the clipboard to a variable doesn't work.
I'll LYK as soon as I find a solution to storing the coordinates in a variable (without messing with the clipboard).
Thanks for now!
@@Theodor1st I get that too. When I want to keep an image on the clipboard the preserve.txt doesn’t work. Alfred’s clipboard history does keep images though, maybe that’s a route!
Also, maybe there is something in AppleScript to store the clipboard as something. set theOriginalClipboard to the clipboard as text ... or as something (not sure of all the options).
@@TheProductivityShop I've found a way to store the coordinates to a single variable (without using the clipboard). This is done using a handler. Like this:
-- handler
on getMCoord()
do shell script "eval $(/usr/libexec/path_helper -s); cliclick p:." --prints x and y coordinates (don't know where :p )
end getMCoord
-- stores the output of getMCoord() handler to a variable named "mc"
set mc to getMCoord()
Hurray!
FYI, terminal needs a restart because the PATH environment variable is updated and restarting the terminal app will force the system to re-read that file (.bashrc or .zshrc if you're using ZSH). You can type "source ~/.bashrc" once the install is done and you don't have to restart it (it'll tell the terminal to refresh that file in memory so all new paths are memorized)
Hey Robert, thanks for the tip! I'll make sure to incorporate that.
Hello, I can't seem to get alfred to work. every time I launch it and type "mousecode se" , it launches safari instead of what it launched for you. Any ideas???
Make sure that you have AppleScripts active in General > Features (ua-cam.com/video/4YreMtfehE4/v-deo.html)
Hi Luke, VERY excellent video! Perhaps you could help with a cliclick issue I'm running into. I cannot get the drag and drop feature to work correctly when it comes to dragging recently downloaded files into the drag-and-drop import box in Google Drive. Any help? Thanks!
Sometimes I have to add a sleep in between the "dd" and "du"
cliclick dd:20,20 && sleep .2 && cliclick du:40,40
If that doesn't work I have another technique!
On a multiple display setup I couldn't get cliclick to work. The cursor ends up on the left side of the display and that's it.
Try making sure that your "Arrangement" looks like this: www.dropbox.com/s/ce5u8opnjmv9lve/Screen%20Shot%202021-01-13%20at%2008.52.44.png?dl=0
Essentially the second screen needs to be perfectly aligned with the top of the first one, and on the right side. That way cliclick can use the main screen as zero,zero.
@@TheProductivityShop Thanks for the reply. It means a lot to me when people don't let me talking to the walls.
In other news, the documentation (cliclick -h) gives the following solution:
→ (If you need to specify absolute negative values in case you have a setup with a second display arranged to the left of your main display, prefix the number with “=”, for instance “c:100,=-200”.)
Thank you so much. I don't know when I would've learned to write the script presented in the video below, had I not came across this very instructional video. Thank you!
ua-cam.com/video/LE8OWYXHNz0/v-deo.html
@@Theodor1st For sure! Oh nice -I'll check out and do some tests using the negative values. I always get confused when the alignment of my monitors is not actually how it's set up in reality.
The script you sent is awesome. Yeah my method works out for doing things that you need to do over and over, but just don't have a shortcut for! :)
@@Theodor1st Hey there! So I saw your comment over email and the issue has come up before for me. Essentially when I want to use cliclick to click on something, I want the mouse to go back to where it was when I triggered the action. What I do is, I use cliclick to read the coordinates of the "initial" mouse position before my code, and then save that as a variable in my apaplescript. Then I run my code, and put the variable on the clipboard and use cliclick to '" move" the mouse back...
-- start original position
set theOriginalClipboard to the clipboard
do shell script "eval $(/usr/libexec/path_helper -s); cliclick p:. | tr -d \"\
\" | pbcopy"
delay delayOne
set thePosition to the clipboard
delay delayOne
'''''''''''''''''' code''''''''''''''
-- end original position
do shell script "eval $(/usr/libexec/path_helper -s); cliclick m:" & thePosition
set the clipboard to theOriginalClipboard
@@TheProductivityShop @The Productivity Shop Thank you. You are very kind to explain in such great detail! Actually, I studied your script (not the one with which you replied now, but the one that is amongst the "Helper scripts", in the description of your video) and created a "manually restore pointer position" script. I believe it's not as well written like the one you replied with, but it works!
''''''''''''''''' Applescript ''''''''''''''''''
-- script for restoring the pointer position
set delayOne to 0.1
-- make a variable for the current x position
do shell script "eval $(/usr/libexec/path_helper -s); cliclick p:. | cut -d ',' -f1 | tr -d \"\
\" | pbcopy"
set curX to the clipboard
delay delayOne
-- make a variable for the current y position
do shell script "eval $(/usr/libexec/path_helper -s); cliclick p:. | cut -d ',' -f2 | tr -d \"\
\" | pbcopy"
set curY to the clipboard
delay delayOne
-- click to new coordinates
do shell script "eval $(/usr/libexec/path_helper -s); cliclick c:498,51"
delay delayOne
-- restore pointer position
do shell script "eval $(/usr/libexec/path_helper -s); cliclick c:=" & curX & ",=" & curY
delay delayOne
hi , nice work , I would like to know if is it possible to convert a html file to pdf with automator or AppleScript or by quick action? I don't want to use print option and save as pdf ..
I would look into terminal packages, or perhaps another application that does it. Once you figure out the shell script or application, you can then use AppleScript to control that shell script or application. A common search tool for converting one thing to another is to search for aaa2bbb, so HTML2PDF. Maybe something like this:
pdfcrowd.com/doc/api/html-to-pdf/command-line/, and then in AppleScript you can put:
do shell script "html2pdf -code code ...."
You are awesome my friend!
Thank you
Thank you!! :). If you have any requests lmk!
I'm trying to do something similar in Safari but the simplest thing is getting me stuck..... I can't move to the next tab or toggle between tabs... I've tried assigning index numbers and titles... any insight?
The commands for the tabs in Safari are command 1, 2, 3, etc.
To go to the next one it's control+tab.
Other options are to simply program a mouse click (you can program cliclick to move the mouse a certain number pixels to the right).
So cliclick c:. *current position*
Then cliclick m:+40,+0 *move the mouse 40 pixels to the right (x cor) and 0 pixels down (y cor)
Another option is to click on "Window" in the top menu bar, and you can then press the down key a bunch (in your script).
Inside of the loop you could put a counter to keep track and add 1 to it at the end of each loop.
Feel free to slack me on the Productivity Shop Slack channel if you have other Q's!
Thanks for watching!
Great tutorial on automating your workflow! I faced some problems trying to implement your workflow in my M1 MacBook Air. I was greeted with "sh: cliclick: command not found" when I tried to run the AppleScript for Chrome. Also, the X and Y coordinates don't passthrough from the mousecode se script. Any idea what could be causing this? Appreciate any help you can give!
Join the slack channel and I can walk you through troubleshooting. prodshop.co/slack. My username: Luke Carter
Did you guys ever get this figured out? haha@@TheProductivityShop
Hi again! I managed to create a script that clicks in a certain point depending on where the cursor is (using two handlers and one IF statement).
→ If it's on display 1, it clicks at x coordinates;
→ If it's on display 2, it clicks at y coordinates.
(Just wanted to show off 😎 )
Oh wow!! That sounds awesome! Send the script over and I'll check it out! hello@theproductivityshop.co
Hello, I stumbled upon your videos a couple of days ago, and love them all. Bravo!
Quick question: how did you make the "new applescript sc" command? Is that a workflow you've created in Alfred, and if so, can you offer some help on this? Thanks!
Hey there! Thanks for the compliment! It's a simple applescript - and I use Alfred to launch the Applescript. There is a setting in Features -> File Search -> Advanced that says "run Applescripts instead of opening"
So if you push enter, it will run the script. If you need to open, ⌘O.
Also I have applescripts to show up with my default search scope.
Let me know if you have any other Q's!
@@TheProductivityShop Thanks for your reply. I'm getting to know Applescript: could you share how you use Applescript to open a new Applescript document and write text into it?
Many thanks for your help and your videos!
Sure i'll add it to my list! I'll probably start filming again in January!
@@TheProductivityShop I'm very much looking forward to that - I'm stuck at the place where you open the Applescript editor with the prewritten text, *and* when you use the mousecode script. So any help with how you created these two scripts would be amazing. Thanks in advance!
Hi, first of all this video is awesome. I learned a lot. Downloading Alfred, I saw the newest paid version has a text completion tool as well as a "workflow" automator module. Do you use these in place of typinator and apple scripting now in your everyday work?
Hey Daniel, thanks for watching!!
Yeah, I saw that Alfred had incorporated a text completion feature, but by the time I was already in love with Typinator. To be honest I haven't really explored the features of Alfred yet and their text expansion. Typinator (and TextExpander) are pretty powerful, and my muscle memory kind of goes to that.
For Alfred Workflows, I use a ton! I should do a video on my favorite workflow modules. Some are covered in the Alfred video. If you search github, you can find a ton of great ones, and also packal.org.
:)
Thanks! Now I am ready to automate anything using the mouse and without having to rely on shortcuts.
Keep in mind that Cliclick can also simulate computer keystrokes (or combinations)!
great explaination njoyed the whole video! i automated my outlook email i kinda mixed them inbox from my different a/c now they are stored in my computer, now my question is, is there any way i can restore to how it was, Thanks
Hey there, could you tell me more about the process you did? From the information above I'm hearing that two mail accounts might be mixed together now. To separate them again, you could always search for the address (to:email@accountone.com & to:email@accounttwo.com) that it was sent to, and put them in different folders. Let me know if that answers your question. Thanks!
I am hoping to automate responses to a browser based program that sends me messages from leads. I want to be able to respond to these messages - especially after hours. Could your method of scripting recognize an alert that a new message has arrives by OCR by searching the page for a certain keyword(s), i.e. “You have new notifications.?” Thanks.
Hi Bernard, Thanks for watching the video!
My workflow requires a human to trigger the initial response through a keyboard shortcut or starting to run the AppleScript.
If the browser based program you are using has an API, perhaps there would be a way to trigger some sort of action within the program.
Another idea would be to see if you can get the notification/messages in e-mail form, and perhaps a script could be attached to a message arriving in Mail OSX. (Or maybe, just an auto reply set for certain hours).
There might be some script options in IFFFT: ifttt.com/, depending on program.
Sorry I couldn't be of more help! Take care! Luke
@@TheProductivityShop Thanks you for the quick reply. The program does send me a new email message when a message has arrived that I need to respond to. Are you saying I could embed a trigger for the script in an autoreply for this specific sender to trigger the start of the script?
Also - do you know anything about the Macro Recorder application?
I used a program called Macro Scheduler years ago and this looks fairly similar.
www.macrorecorder.com
@@bernarddouthit4647 Macro Recorder looks awesome, I'll check it out! Looks like essentially what I hacked together above.
For the question with the email notification, there might be something in Automator you could use. Something like - When email arrives + Author = name@email.com -> Run this Script / or reply with [xx].
There might be some email scripting programs for Mail OSX out there. I do think that some of the Mail Email sorting tools might have this? Not sure. SmallCubed I think is the name.
You may even be able to do it Mail OSX itself with Rules.
You can make matrix in Applescript very easy:
tell application «Terminal» to activate
repeat 100 times
tell application «SystemEvents»
keystroke «00101»
keystroke «10100»
keystroke «01010»
end tell
end repeat
Its a cool script right?
👍️
How do I use apple script with siri with Mojave OS to announce that my battery is low?
Sorry for never replying!!! I'll check this out!
@@TheProductivityShop Thanks
Thanks for sharing with us!
I'm a noob at AppleScript and have a serious question, is Apple ditching scripting on it's Macs? Support for automation seems to have dwindled over the years and they explicitly stated they won't include scripting languages in future MacOS versions. The reason why I ask because I'm afraid of investing the next few months building an automated workflow around AppleScript only for them to drop it altogether. They referenced Python and Perl but do you have any idea whether AppleScript is being decommissioned or that's unlikely? Thanks!
Hey there,
I'm not sure if AppleScript will be sun-setted one day. If that day comes, it won't be too hard to jump over to a shell based programming language. I just use AppleScript because it is the easiest delivery method to do my three main techniques - typing, clicking and scrolling. Clicking and scrolling are actually done through cliclick, a terminal based tool. I just use "do shell script" to import most of it. Actual AppleScript is quite confusing sometimes so I just stick to these three things. Keyboard shortcuts will always be around, and automating that through the terminal shouldn't be too hard to figure out (cliclick does it pretty well from what I know).
@@TheProductivityShop Thanks for allaying my fears. You’re right about keyboard shortcuts, I should have known since MacOS is unix based, basic input methods won’t go away.
It’s a big investment for me cos I don’t even have a Mac. Have been using shortcuts and JavaScript on iPad only. Was hopeful that iPad was going to be the future of computing but iPadOS is still limiting 😵💫
Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us! Subscribed! I’m going to look into those downloads you suggested in your video and start shopping for an iMac. White bezels though…. 😳🔳
@@sweealamak628 yeah I think eventually I’ll have to run shell scripts or something, but the basic logic will be the same. I’ll make new text expansion shortcuts to write it easily. We’ll figure it out!!
@@sweealamak628 lol. Also - if you do get a new mac I can walk you through editing the process described in my videos for the new chip - the cliclick code is a bit different, but still works!
The Productivity Shop That would be awesome. Thanks for the heads up.
why not using Keyboard Maestro?
Can Keyboard Maestro click or do a trackpad scroll in any program or area?
Amazing job thank you!!!!
Thanks for watching!!
Thank you so much for sharing this - I learned a lot. If I may suggest a simplification: The menu items in most (all?) Google Drive apps are accessible via the ⌥ + / shortcut. I think you could send that combo followed by the string 'pdf' to select the "Download as PDF document" menu item. This approach removes the need for sizeUp and cliclick.
Agreed! I made the example a bit more complicated than it needed to be. I wanted to illustrate how SizeUp and cliclick if someone wanted to try creating an automation on a web site or application that doesn't have handy shortcuts like Google Suites. Thanks for watching!
sir, THANK YOU you just made my job as a lazy student wayyy easier
Glad I can help!
being lazy is why we have technology in the first place lol, good luck in your studies!
awesome！
Woot!!
This is great. I'm using this guide to experiment with mouse clicks over Camtasia 2018. Question: When you install cliclick do I have to configure my environment variables? Please advise.
Hey Dulani! Sorry for the delay in my reply. To get it working, I didn't have to change any of my environment variables.
From the terminal it works ok. When using AppleScript, the workaround I use is to include the line "eval $(/usr/libexec/path_helper -s);" before calling cliclick.
Example:
do shell script "eval $(/usr/libexec/path_helper -s); cliclick c:0,0"
If there is a better way, let me know! hello@theproductivityshop.co or I'm usually on the slack channel prodshop.co/slack. If I didn't answer your question let me know! Thanks for watching!
Help! I work from home just once a month and use auto hotkey scripts to reply to emails from customers. I use a PC at work and a Mac at home, and my Keyboard Maestro trial has run out. Since I only use it once a month, I'm hoping you can help me find an alternative way to use my hotkey scripts! This would look like:
#close
This string of characters would generate the following:
Please feel free to respond to this email or give me a call if you have any questions and I'll be happy to help! My personal contact details are listed below. Thank you again for choosing XXX and I hope you have a wonderful day!
Is there any other free program I could use for this function? If so, could you show me how to use it please?
Hi Megan,
Thanks for your question! You can use Typinator to create a text expansion shortcut, the same way I do in the video. There is a cheaper alternative called aText that costs around 5.00.
However, if you aren't going to use it that often, you can totally use AppleScript to do the same thing. You can use Alfred (free version) to 'launch' the script. The only two programs that can associate an AppleScript with a keyboard shortcut are Alfred (paid version) and BetterTouchTool (free for 45 days). Watch the Alfred Video on how to get it setup to work with AppleScripts easily.
I'll show you the Typinator path first, and then how to do it in AppleScript.
Video + Script: prodshop.co/megan090519
Feel free to join the Slack channel and message me there if you need! prodshop.co/slack/
Thanks for watching my channel, you are my first tutorial request!!
うん、Alfredいいよね。
Great video but Keyboard maestro is way easier
I agree.. for most things.... the video was a simple example but I find the text expansion is better for my brain, but not everyone's!
is granting those security passes a trick to hack me
I would suggest you do your own research. From the attitude of your comments, no answer from myself would ease your concern.