Snip!t from collection of Alan Dix

<h2>User Interface Scripting</h2> <p> <i>by Benjamin S. Waldie</i> </p> <p>As we have seen in the past, AppleScript is a great tool for creating some pretty amazing automated workflows. When implementing an AppleScript-based workflow, you are really only limited by your imagination, and by the AppleScript support that is available in the applications that you want to automate.</p> <p>Many scriptable applications offer enough AppleScript support for the types of tasks that you would want to automate the most. However, at times, you may find yourself needing to script an application with limited AppleScript support, and that one task you really need to automate just is not accessible through scripting. Or, worse yet, the application you want to automate is not scriptable at all! </p> <p>How do you handle these limitations? Do you simply give up? I think not. For starters, you might check around to see if there are other scriptable applications that can be substituted to automate the same task. </p> <p>Another option is to consider trying to automate the application by writing AppleScript code that interacts directly with the application's interface itself. Fortunately, with the release of Mac OS X 10.3, Apple introduced a new AppleScript feature, user interface scripting, or UI Scripting, which can be used to do just that. </p>