Automatically controlling the mouse and keyboard for GUI s..

"Michael Ash" wrote in message

> In comp.sys.mac.programmer.misc Peter Olcott wrote:
>> Can this be done in Mac OS, and how is it done?
>
> Did you not see the six responses you got in the other thread where you
> asked the exact same question?
>
> --
> Michael Ash
> Rogue Amoeba Software

Most of the answers were wrong, because I was not specific enough with my
question, and the one answer that was not wrong left out details that I needed.
 >> Stay informed about: Automatically controlling the mouse and keyboard for GUI s.. 

In comp.sys.mac.programmer.misc Peter Olcott wrote:
>
> "Michael Ash" wrote in message
>
>> In comp.sys.mac.programmer.misc Peter Olcott wrote:
>>> Can this be done in Mac OS, and how is it done?
>>
>> Did you not see the six responses you got in the other thread where you
>> asked the exact same question?
>
> Most of the answers were wrong, because I was not specific enough with my
> question, and the one answer that was not wrong left out details that I needed.

Starting a new thread with no acknowledgement of the previous thread is
violating rule #9. This newsgroup isn't a machine, it's just a place for
people to discuss things. Don't treat it like a game where you just have
to get the format correct so you can get your answer. If we were all face
to face you would probably say something like, "sorry, I was unclear, let
me start over", before you actually did start over; do the same even
though we're all just phosphors on the screen.

And on a slightly different topic, don't just put your question in the
subject, put a subject in the subject and put your question in the body,
it makes it easier to read and refer to, and frees you from having to
squeeze the question into a few dozen characters.

--
Michael Ash
Rogue Amoeba Software
 >> Stay informed about: Automatically controlling the mouse and keyboard for GUI s.. 

"Michael Ash" wrote in message

> In comp.sys.mac.programmer.misc Peter Olcott wrote:
>>
>> "Michael Ash" wrote in message
>>
>>> In comp.sys.mac.programmer.misc Peter Olcott wrote:
>>>> Can this be done in Mac OS, and how is it done?
>>>
>>> Did you not see the six responses you got in the other thread where you
>>> asked the exact same question?
>>
>> Most of the answers were wrong, because I was not specific enough with my
>> question, and the one answer that was not wrong left out details that I
>> needed.
>
> Starting a new thread with no acknowledgement of the previous thread is
> violating rule #9. This newsgroup isn't a machine, it's just a place for

Exactly what difference does it make?

> people to discuss things. Don't treat it like a game where you just have
> to get the format correct so you can get your answer. If we were all face
> to face you would probably say something like, "sorry, I was unclear, let
> me start over", before you actually did start over; do the same even
> though we're all just phosphors on the screen.

Except with newsgroups you could very well get an entirely different set of
people that never saw the first message, because the different subject line
screened them out, or for many other reasons. Although newsgroup postings have
some of the aspects of a conversion, they also have some of the aspects of mass
communication, one can not correctly ignore the latter.

>
> And on a slightly different topic, don't just put your question in the
> subject, put a subject in the subject and put your question in the body,
> it makes it easier to read and refer to, and frees you from having to
> squeeze the question into a few dozen characters.

Exactly what difference does it make?
My subject and my question are one and the same thing, If I don't get right to
the point immediately the majority of people that only read the subject before
deciding whether or not to even look at the message will never get around to
seeing my question.

>
> --
> Michael Ash
> Rogue Amoeba Software
 >> Stay informed about: Automatically controlling the mouse and keyboard for GUI s.. 

In comp.sys.mac.programmer.misc Peter Olcott wrote:
>
> "Michael Ash" wrote in message
>
>> In comp.sys.mac.programmer.misc Peter Olcott wrote:
>>>
>>> "Michael Ash" wrote in message
>>>
>>>> In comp.sys.mac.programmer.misc Peter Olcott wrote:
>>>>> Can this be done in Mac OS, and how is it done?
>>>>
>>>> Did you not see the six responses you got in the other thread where you
>>>> asked the exact same question?
>>>
>>> Most of the answers were wrong, because I was not specific enough with my
>>> question, and the one answer that was not wrong left out details that I
>>> needed.
>>
>> Starting a new thread with no acknowledgement of the previous thread is
>> violating rule #9. This newsgroup isn't a machine, it's just a place for
>
> Exactly what difference does it make?

Thin-skinned people such as myself tend to feel it is insulting. People
who are insulted generally don't want te help out.

What difference does politeness make? In theory nothing, in practice
everything.

>> people to discuss things. Don't treat it like a game where you just have
>> to get the format correct so you can get your answer. If we were all face
>> to face you would probably say something like, "sorry, I was unclear, let
>> me start over", before you actually did start over; do the same even
>> though we're all just phosphors on the screen.
>
> Except with newsgroups you could very well get an entirely different set of
> people that never saw the first message, because the different subject line
> screened them out, or for many other reasons. Although newsgroup postings have
> some of the aspects of a conversion, they also have some of the aspects of mass
> communication, one can not correctly ignore the latter.

You *could*, but guess what, you didn't. And you won't in the future,
either. Generally the same bunch of regulars read a large number of the
messages. Obviously I read both. It's *much* better to acknowledge the
previous thread and momentarily confuse the people who didn't read it (as
if they'll be confused at all, they know what's what) than it is to ignore
the previous thread and piss off everybody in the group.

>> And on a slightly different topic, don't just put your question in the
>> subject, put a subject in the subject and put your question in the body,
>> it makes it easier to read and refer to, and frees you from having to
>> squeeze the question into a few dozen characters.
>
> Exactly what difference does it make?
> My subject and my question are one and the same thing, If I don't get right to
> the point immediately the majority of people that only read the subject before
> deciding whether or not to even look at the message will never get around to
> seeing my question.

Your question was too short. This was your problem in the first thread,
and why you got a bunch of answers you didn't want. It's *still* too
short. A good question should describe the context and background of the
question, not just a one-sentence thing that you're trying to accomplish.

If you're still confused as to why I care about any of this, I suggest you
read this:

http://www.mikeash.com/getting_answers.html

Assuming your goal is to get help, following the rules is the best way to
accomplish it.

--
Michael Ash
Rogue Amoeba Software
 >> Stay informed about: Automatically controlling the mouse and keyboard for GUI s.. 

"Michael Ash" wrote in message

> In comp.sys.mac.programmer.misc Peter Olcott wrote:
>>
>> "Michael Ash" wrote in message
>>
>>> In comp.sys.mac.programmer.misc Peter Olcott wrote:
>>>>
>>>> "Michael Ash" wrote in message
>>>>
>>>>> In comp.sys.mac.programmer.misc Peter Olcott wrote:
>>>>>> Can this be done in Mac OS, and how is it done?
>>>>>
>>>>> Did you not see the six responses you got in the other thread where you
>>>>> asked the exact same question?
>>>>
>>>> Most of the answers were wrong, because I was not specific enough with my
>>>> question, and the one answer that was not wrong left out details that I
>>>> needed.
>>>
>>> Starting a new thread with no acknowledgement of the previous thread is
>>> violating rule #9. This newsgroup isn't a machine, it's just a place for
>>
>> Exactly what difference does it make?
>
> Thin-skinned people such as myself tend to feel it is insulting. People
> who are insulted generally don't want te help out.
>
> What difference does politeness make? In theory nothing, in practice
> everything.
>
>>> people to discuss things. Don't treat it like a game where you just have
>>> to get the format correct so you can get your answer. If we were all face
>>> to face you would probably say something like, "sorry, I was unclear, let
>>> me start over", before you actually did start over; do the same even
>>> though we're all just phosphors on the screen.
>>
>> Except with newsgroups you could very well get an entirely different set of
>> people that never saw the first message, because the different subject line
>> screened them out, or for many other reasons. Although newsgroup postings
>> have
>> some of the aspects of a conversion, they also have some of the aspects of
>> mass
>> communication, one can not correctly ignore the latter.
>
> You *could*, but guess what, you didn't. And you won't in the future,
> either. Generally the same bunch of regulars read a large number of the
> messages. Obviously I read both. It's *much* better to acknowledge the
> previous thread and momentarily confuse the people who didn't read it (as
> if they'll be confused at all, they know what's what) than it is to ignore
> the previous thread and piss off everybody in the group.

Why would anyone choose to be offended? With such a thing as this, it is only a
purely arbitrary convention that has no ultimate basis in reasoning. I myself
choose to never be offended, unless the specific intend to offend is make 100%
completely explicit. I often choose not to be offended in these cases either.
Why choose to be offended? Choosing to be offended reduces the quality of one's
life.

>
>>> And on a slightly different topic, don't just put your question in the
>>> subject, put a subject in the subject and put your question in the body,
>>> it makes it easier to read and refer to, and frees you from having to
>>> squeeze the question into a few dozen characters.
>>
>> Exactly what difference does it make?
>> My subject and my question are one and the same thing, If I don't get right
>> to
>> the point immediately the majority of people that only read the subject
>> before
>> deciding whether or not to even look at the message will never get around to
>> seeing my question.
>
> Your question was too short. This was your problem in the first thread,
> and why you got a bunch of answers you didn't want. It's *still* too
> short. A good question should describe the context and background of the
> question, not just a one-sentence thing that you're trying to accomplish.
>
> If you're still confused as to why I care about any of this, I suggest you
> read this:
>
> http://www.mikeash.com/getting_answers.html
>
> Assuming your goal is to get help, following the rules is the best way to
> accomplish it.
>
> --
> Michael Ash
> Rogue Amoeba Software
 >> Stay informed about: Automatically controlling the mouse and keyboard for GUI s.. 

Peter Olcott wrote:
> Michael Ash:
>>
>> Starting a new thread with no acknowledgement of the previous thread is
>> violating rule #9. This newsgroup isn't a machine, it's just a place for
>
> Exactly what difference does it make?

The difference of making you look like an ignorant idiot, thus reducing
people's willingness to provide you with helpful answers.


>> And on a slightly different topic, don't just put your question in the
>> subject, put a subject in the subject and put your question in the body,
>> it makes it easier to read and refer to, and frees you from having to
>> squeeze the question into a few dozen characters.
>
> Exactly what difference does it make?

The difference of making you look like an ignorant idiot, thus reducing
people's willingness to provide you with helpful answers.

Defending your mistakes has the additional affect of making you look
like a petulant, ignorant idiot.


--
Jens Ayton
 >> Stay informed about: Automatically controlling the mouse and keyboard for GUI s.. 

In article ,
"Peter Olcott" wrote:

> >
> > And on a slightly different topic, don't just put your question in the
> > subject, put a subject in the subject and put your question in the body,
> > it makes it easier to read and refer to, and frees you from having to
> > squeeze the question into a few dozen characters.
>
> Exactly what difference does it make?
> My subject and my question are one and the same thing, If I don't get right
> to
> the point immediately the majority of people that only read the subject
> before
> deciding whether or not to even look at the message will never get around to
> seeing my question.


How about the fact that your subject, though stated in the form of a
question, isn't a question, but just a sentence fragment with question
mark on the end, resulting in an extremely ambiguous attempt at posting
a question.

Do you want to know about how to use GUI scripting to provide keyboard
and mouse events to a third party application?

Or do you want to know how to write code that is called by GUI scripting
to allow for mouse and keyboard events in your application?

Or do you want to know if GUI scripting can be used (perhaps in just
your application) to without requiring the user to enable it?

Or do you want to know something else?
 >> Stay informed about: Automatically controlling the mouse and keyboard for GUI s.. 

"glenn andreas" wrote in message

> In article ,
> "Peter Olcott" wrote:
>
>> >
>> > And on a slightly different topic, don't just put your question in the
>> > subject, put a subject in the subject and put your question in the body,
>> > it makes it easier to read and refer to, and frees you from having to
>> > squeeze the question into a few dozen characters.
>>
>> Exactly what difference does it make?
>> My subject and my question are one and the same thing, If I don't get right
>> to
>> the point immediately the majority of people that only read the subject
>> before
>> deciding whether or not to even look at the message will never get around to
>> seeing my question.
>
>
> How about the fact that your subject, though stated in the form of a
> question, isn't a question, but just a sentence fragment with question
> mark on the end, resulting in an extremely ambiguous attempt at posting
> a question.
>
> Do you want to know about how to use GUI scripting to provide keyboard
> and mouse events to a third party application?
>
> Or do you want to know how to write code that is called by GUI scripting
> to allow for mouse and keyboard events in your application?
>
> Or do you want to know if GUI scripting can be used (perhaps in just
> your application) to without requiring the user to enable it?
>
> 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?]
 >> Stay informed about: Automatically controlling the mouse and keyboard for GUI s.. 

In article ,
"Peter Olcott" 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 support 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 document" as opposed to "select menu item 'New Document'
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).
 >> Stay informed about: Automatically controlling the mouse and keyboard for GUI s.. 

Peter Olcott wrote:
> Can this be done in Mac OS, and how is it done?

The answer is that it is the wrong way to do scripting in Mac OS, and
has been the wrong way since the introduction of Apple Events (not to
be confused with Carbon Events!). Apple Events are extensively
documented on the Apple developer website, and they have been the only
proper way to support GUI scripting on Mac OS for well over a decade.
If you want to support scripiting, or control another application,
Apple Events are the only way to go.

The outdated method of fiddling with the system event queue has been
discontinued in Carbon, it was previously available under the name
PostHighLevelEvent. Of course, if you insist on shooting yourself in
the foot, you can still fiddle this way with your own application event
queue, as you can post any events to your application event queue
easily, using CreateEvent.

Thorsten


PS: For documentation, see
<http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Carbon/Conceptual/Carbon_Event_Manager/index.html>
(Cabon Events) and
<http://developer.apple.com/documentation/AppleScript/Conceptual/AppleEvents/index.html>
(Apple Events).
 >> Stay informed about: Automatically controlling the mouse and keyboard for GUI s.. 

In comp.sys.mac.programmer.misc Peter Olcott wrote:
>>
>> You *could*, but guess what, you didn't. And you won't in the future,
>> either. Generally the same bunch of regulars read a large number of the
>> messages. Obviously I read both. It's *much* better to acknowledge the
>> previous thread and momentarily confuse the people who didn't read it (as
>> if they'll be confused at all, they know what's what) than it is to ignore
>> the previous thread and piss off everybody in the group.
>
> Why would anyone choose to be offended? With such a thing as this, it is only a
> purely arbitrary convention that has no ultimate basis in reasoning. I myself
> choose to never be offended, unless the specific intend to offend is make 100%
> completely explicit. I often choose not to be offended in these cases either.
> Why choose to be offended? Choosing to be offended reduces the quality of one's
> life.

Let me see if I can put this in terms you'll understand, then.

By asking an underspecified question, and by repeating your question
without any acknowledgement of the previous try, you waste my time by
forcing me to remember who you are and by forcing me to decypher your
extremely badly worded question. Since I do this for free and for fun,
this means you don't get help.

However, I am trying to be a nice guy and tell you how you can avoid
causing the volunteers who might help you for free to decide that you
aren't worth their time. This doesn't seem to be working. Apparently you
believe that you know more about how to use newsgroups than I do, despite
the fact that I've been using them for a decade and you have apparently
been using them for a week, as far as I can tell from your behavior.

So here's where the offence comes in: if you don't like my advice, then
you can go get bent, join the other jerks in my kill file, and find some
other group to leech off of.

--
Michael Ash
Rogue Amoeba Software
 >> Stay informed about: Automatically controlling the mouse and keyboard for GUI s.. 

In article ,
"Peter Olcott" wrote:

> 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?]

I've written Macintosh software to automatically control the indicator
lights on the keyboard. I've written software to energize motors in a
trackball, so that when playing a game, the trackball resist your
attempts to spin, by varying amounts depending on game conditions. When
the game is in attract mode, the trackball spins on its own. It is
painted with designs so it attracts your attention.

I've written force feedback software for mice, such that when you move
the mouse cursor over the desktop, you can feel the texture of the
surfaces under the mouse cursor through your finger on the mouse. I've
joked that mice should come with motors standard, so when you hit
"undo", the mouse will go back where it was before.

The book, "The TV Typewriter Cookbook", by Don Lancaster, published by
Howard Sams & Co 1976, a copy of which I just happen to have here, has
plans for a frame holding solenoids that can press the keys of a
keyboard under computer control (see pages 218 through 223).

No, in the modern Macintosh, with standard hardware, it is not possible
to automatically controlling the mouse and the keyboard.

It is possible to write software to generate mouse clicks and
keystrokes, but that is not the question you keep asking.
 >> Stay informed about: Automatically controlling the mouse and keyboard for GUI s.. 

"David Phillip Oster" wrote in message

> In article ,
> "Peter Olcott" wrote:
>
>> 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?]
>
> I've written Macintosh software to automatically control the indicator
> lights on the keyboard. I've written software to energize motors in a
> trackball, so that when playing a game, the trackball resist your
> attempts to spin, by varying amounts depending on game conditions. When
> the game is in attract mode, the trackball spins on its own. It is
> painted with designs so it attracts your attention.
>
> I've written force feedback software for mice, such that when you move
> the mouse cursor over the desktop, you can feel the texture of the
> surfaces under the mouse cursor through your finger on the mouse. I've
> joked that mice should come with motors standard, so when you hit
> "undo", the mouse will go back where it was before.
>
> The book, "The TV Typewriter Cookbook", by Don Lancaster, published by
> Howard Sams & Co 1976, a copy of which I just happen to have here, has
> plans for a frame holding solenoids that can press the keys of a
> keyboard under computer control (see pages 218 through 223).
>
> No, in the modern Macintosh, with standard hardware, it is not possible
> to automatically controlling the mouse and the keyboard.
>
> It is possible to write software to generate mouse clicks and
> keystrokes, but that is not the question you keep asking.

Okay, so then how do you accomplish your more correctly stated requirement? How
do you write software that generate mouse clicks and other mouse actions, as
well as keystrokes?
 >> Stay informed about: Automatically controlling the mouse and keyboard for GUI s..