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Any recommendations on a good MacOS GUI automation tool that isnt Automator? Seems like the windows automation ecosystem has several options, but I’m struggling

Any recommendations on a good MacOS GUI automation tool that isnt Automator? Seems like the windows automation ecosystem has several options, but I’m struggling to find a good Mac solution that’s capable of automating desktop apps with fine-grained workflows

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
cryoshon 7y ago
what's wrong with automator exactly? i've been wanting to get into it on my new mac but i'm not entirely sure what i will use it for yet.
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  Personally I find it very weird to work with. I don’t see the point of learning a different and less powerful coding paradigm. It would be fine if it had it a current UI but you also should be able to write plain text code.
  - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
    You _can_ write plain text code, add an Applescript or Javascript block. Or just use Script Editor directly instead of going through Automator. Apple Events are quite powerful and let you add a lot of functionality.
    - Ididntdothis 7y ago
      I hope you would agree that this unnecessarily cumbersome. A plain text script file is hard to beat.
      - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
        As I said, you can use Script Editor.app, in the Utilities folder, instead of Automator. Personally, I like to write and test Applescripts in the Script Editor, and then throw them into Automator when I'm finished so I can save them as "Services", which means they'll appear in the right click menu of whatever app(s) I choose. But that's entirely optional.
      - sosborn 7y ago
        You can call arbitrary scripts from Automator and pass in arguments.
WaltPurvis 7y ago
Keyboard Maestro is my go-to tool. It's incredibly powerful and I've automated so many things in so many applications that I really don't even know if I could use a computer without it anymore. https://www.keyboardmaestro.com/main/ https://www.keyboardmaestro.com/main/
- aj7 7y ago
  Thanks for this tip.
- bobbylarrybobby 7y ago
  Another vote for KBM
andai 7y ago
I used Hammerspoon a few times to automate some mining and building in Terraria (keystrokes, mouse movement and clicks).
scarface74 7y ago
Semi off topic: Workflow (Shortcuts) for iOS is great and it is semi ported to the Mac via Catalyst libraries (https://twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/1181021346224058369 https://twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/11810213462240583...). Hopefully, Apple actually goes whole hog and ports WorkFlow to the Mac next year.
- pletnes 7y ago
  It seems so promising, but I have yet to identify a real use case. Do you have any genuinely useful examples for everyday life?
  - scarface74 7y ago
    The Shortcuts for the Mac example is a hack that the author did just as a proof of concept. I’ve only done one simple shortcut that lets me say “Get Directions” to Siri and it asks for an address and it launches Google Maps instead of Apple Maps. Federico Viticci is considered the king of shortcuts in the Mac community. https://www.macstories.net/shortcuts/ https://www.macstories.net/shortcuts/
  - criddell 7y ago
    I made it for fun, but it ended up being kind of useful. I say to Siri "record my weigh" and it response "how much do you weight?" I say the number and it records that number, along with the data and time, in a Google spreadsheet. Khoi Vinh wrote about shortcuts on his blog[1]. He uses one to automatically archive screenshots to a particular Evernote notebook. [1]:https://www.subtraction.com/2019/12/04/shortcuts-and-screenshots-on-ios/ https://www.subtraction.com/2019/12/04/shortcuts-and-screens...
    - IggleSniggle 7y ago
      If there's a way to share it, I'd actually love this one.
      - criddell 7y ago
DonHopkins 7y ago
There used to be Userland Frontier, which was actually earlier and better than AppleScript! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UserLand_Software#Frontier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UserLand_Software#Frontier >UserLand's first product release of April 1989 was UserLand IPC, a developer tool for interprocess communication that was intended to evolve into a cross-platform RPC tool. In January 1992 UserLand released version 1.0 of Frontier, a scripting environment for the Macintosh which included an object database and a scripting language named UserTalk. At the time of its original release, Frontier was the only system-level scripting environment for the Macintosh, but Apple was working on its own scripting language, AppleScript, and started bundling it with the MacOS 7 system software. As a consequence, most Macintosh scripting work came to be done in the less powerful, but free, scripting language provided by Apple. Both AppleScript and Frontier supported Apple's "Open Scripting Architecture" (kind of like OLE Automation via Apple Events). https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/LanguagesUtilities/Conceptual/MacAutomationScriptingGuide/HowMacScriptingWorks.html https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/La... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AppleScript#Open_Scripting_Architecture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AppleScript#Open_Scripting_Arc... Now Automator lets you use "JavaScript for Automation" instead of AppleScript. >Under OS X Yosemite and later versions of macOS, the JavaScript for Automation (JXA) component remains the only serious OSA language alternative to AppleScript, though the Macintosh versions of Perl, Python, Ruby, and Tcl all support native means of working with Apple events without being OSA components. https://hackernoon.com/javascript-for-automation-in-macos-3b499da40da1 https://hackernoon.com/javascript-for-automation-in-macos-3b... https://apple-dev.groups.io/g/jxa/wiki/JXA-Resources https://apple-dev.groups.io/g/jxa/wiki/JXA-Resources https://github.com/JXA-Cookbook/JXA-Cookbook/wiki https://github.com/JXA-Cookbook/JXA-Cookbook/wiki As an example task similar to what the article discusses, whose source code is actually readable, here's a script to change the font of all text in all master slides in Keynote. (Probably the world's first JXA script written in Literate CoffeeScript). https://github.com/JXA-Cookbook/JXA-Cookbook/wiki/Examples#keynote https://github.com/JXA-Cookbook/JXA-Cookbook/wiki/Examples#k... I wrote more about Frontier and other automation tools: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20425970 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20425970 >The thing that's missing from "Google Docs" is a decent collaborative outliner called "Google Trees", that does to "NLS" and "Frontier" what "Google Sheets" did to "VisiCalc" and "Excel".
darkkindness 7y ago
I'm a big fan of Alfred (https://www.alfredapp.com/ https://www.alfredapp.com/) however the GUI automation feature called Workflows is paid. The killer feature for me is being able to create global keybinds or custom Spotlight commands that can be linked control flow blocks to different drag-n-drop blocks of editable shell script / Applescript / Python / whatever. The keybinds themselves and everything else are drag-and-drop blocks, too. The edge over other keybinding software IMO is that you can define variables and do otherwise complex control flow within a workflow without being limited to "define a list of things to run". For example I could have a 'compile this' keybind that detects language, compiles, and displays stdout of whatever code I'm highlighting. For Android I'm currently using Tasker, which is a "list of things to run" so it suffers from sometimes having to define multiple tasks for one command. But it's better than the drag-n-drop alternative (Automate), which doesn't allow arbitrary shell commands last I checked.
hhas01 7y ago
Fine-grained automation means Apple event IPC, which is very powerful and elegant, which for practical purposes means AppleScript, which is… not. I wrote production-quality Apple event bridges for half-a-dozen major languages (Apple even considered bundling a couple of them in Leopard). It’s an amazing ecosystem once unlocked with languages that aren’t a bad joke. Thousands of productivity apps with not one but two very high-level User Interfaces: one graphical, one programmatic. Alas, even the best software in the world won’t fix PEBKAC, and the Mac Automation Product Manager was one of these: https://daedtech.com/how-software-groups-rot-legacy-of-the-expert-beginner https://daedtech.com/how-software-groups-rot-legacy-of-the-e... A few thousand hours of solving their problems only for them to promptly un-solve them again, I finally gave up in disgust. http://appscript.sourceforge.net/status.html http://appscript.sourceforge.net/status.html As say upthread, there are better ways to spend your life than trying to fix stuff that others are determined to keep broken. At least I had a laugh when Apple finally sacked that jackass, even if he did take Mac Automation down with him. For better or worse, the future of macOS Automation now lies in the hands of the Siri squad and their conversational shortcuts. Let’s hope they do better. https://twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/1135956331360346113 https://twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/11359563313603461... #InterestingTimes

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

cryoshon 7y ago

what's wrong with automator exactly? i've been wanting to get into it on my new mac but i'm not entirely sure what i will use it for yet.

Ididntdothis 7y ago
Personally I find it very weird to work with. I don’t see the point of learning a different and less powerful coding paradigm. It would be fine if it had it a current UI but you also should be able to write plain text code.
- Wowfunhappy 7y ago
  You _can_ write plain text code, add an Applescript or Javascript block. Or just use Script Editor directly instead of going through Automator. Apple Events are quite powerful and let you add a lot of functionality.
  - Ididntdothis 7y ago
    I hope you would agree that this unnecessarily cumbersome. A plain text script file is hard to beat.
    - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
      As I said, you can use Script Editor.app, in the Utilities folder, instead of Automator. Personally, I like to write and test Applescripts in the Script Editor, and then throw them into Automator when I'm finished so I can save them as "Services", which means they'll appear in the right click menu of whatever app(s) I choose. But that's entirely optional.
    - sosborn 7y ago
      You can call arbitrary scripts from Automator and pass in arguments.

WaltPurvis 7y ago

Keyboard Maestro is my go-to tool. It's incredibly powerful and I've automated so many things in so many applications that I really don't even know if I could use a computer without it anymore. https://www.keyboardmaestro.com/main/ https://www.keyboardmaestro.com/main/

aj7 7y ago
Thanks for this tip.
bobbylarrybobby 7y ago
Another vote for KBM

andai 7y ago

I used Hammerspoon a few times to automate some mining and building in Terraria (keystrokes, mouse movement and clicks).

scarface74 7y ago

Semi off topic: Workflow (Shortcuts) for iOS is great and it is semi ported to the Mac via Catalyst libraries (https://twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/1181021346224058369 https://twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/11810213462240583...). Hopefully, Apple actually goes whole hog and ports WorkFlow to the Mac next year.

pletnes 7y ago
It seems so promising, but I have yet to identify a real use case. Do you have any genuinely useful examples for everyday life?
- scarface74 7y ago
  The Shortcuts for the Mac example is a hack that the author did just as a proof of concept. I’ve only done one simple shortcut that lets me say “Get Directions” to Siri and it asks for an address and it launches Google Maps instead of Apple Maps. Federico Viticci is considered the king of shortcuts in the Mac community. https://www.macstories.net/shortcuts/ https://www.macstories.net/shortcuts/
- criddell 7y ago
  I made it for fun, but it ended up being kind of useful. I say to Siri "record my weigh" and it response "how much do you weight?" I say the number and it records that number, along with the data and time, in a Google spreadsheet. Khoi Vinh wrote about shortcuts on his blog[1]. He uses one to automatically archive screenshots to a particular Evernote notebook. [1]:https://www.subtraction.com/2019/12/04/shortcuts-and-screenshots-on-ios/ https://www.subtraction.com/2019/12/04/shortcuts-and-screens...
  - IggleSniggle 7y ago
    If there's a way to share it, I'd actually love this one.
    - criddell 7y ago

DonHopkins 7y ago

There used to be Userland Frontier, which was actually earlier and better than AppleScript! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UserLand_Software#Frontier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UserLand_Software#Frontier >UserLand's first product release of April 1989 was UserLand IPC, a developer tool for interprocess communication that was intended to evolve into a cross-platform RPC tool. In January 1992 UserLand released version 1.0 of Frontier, a scripting environment for the Macintosh which included an object database and a scripting language named UserTalk. At the time of its original release, Frontier was the only system-level scripting environment for the Macintosh, but Apple was working on its own scripting language, AppleScript, and started bundling it with the MacOS 7 system software. As a consequence, most Macintosh scripting work came to be done in the less powerful, but free, scripting language provided by Apple. Both AppleScript and Frontier supported Apple's "Open Scripting Architecture" (kind of like OLE Automation via Apple Events). https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/LanguagesUtilities/Conceptual/MacAutomationScriptingGuide/HowMacScriptingWorks.html https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/La... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AppleScript#Open_Scripting_Architecture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AppleScript#Open_Scripting_Arc... Now Automator lets you use "JavaScript for Automation" instead of AppleScript. >Under OS X Yosemite and later versions of macOS, the JavaScript for Automation (JXA) component remains the only serious OSA language alternative to AppleScript, though the Macintosh versions of Perl, Python, Ruby, and Tcl all support native means of working with Apple events without being OSA components. https://hackernoon.com/javascript-for-automation-in-macos-3b499da40da1 https://hackernoon.com/javascript-for-automation-in-macos-3b... https://apple-dev.groups.io/g/jxa/wiki/JXA-Resources https://apple-dev.groups.io/g/jxa/wiki/JXA-Resources https://github.com/JXA-Cookbook/JXA-Cookbook/wiki https://github.com/JXA-Cookbook/JXA-Cookbook/wiki As an example task similar to what the article discusses, whose source code is actually readable, here's a script to change the font of all text in all master slides in Keynote. (Probably the world's first JXA script written in Literate CoffeeScript). https://github.com/JXA-Cookbook/JXA-Cookbook/wiki/Examples#keynote https://github.com/JXA-Cookbook/JXA-Cookbook/wiki/Examples#k... I wrote more about Frontier and other automation tools: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20425970 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20425970 >The thing that's missing from "Google Docs" is a decent collaborative outliner called "Google Trees", that does to "NLS" and "Frontier" what "Google Sheets" did to "VisiCalc" and "Excel".

darkkindness 7y ago

I'm a big fan of Alfred (https://www.alfredapp.com/ https://www.alfredapp.com/) however the GUI automation feature called Workflows is paid. The killer feature for me is being able to create global keybinds or custom Spotlight commands that can be linked control flow blocks to different drag-n-drop blocks of editable shell script / Applescript / Python / whatever. The keybinds themselves and everything else are drag-and-drop blocks, too. The edge over other keybinding software IMO is that you can define variables and do otherwise complex control flow within a workflow without being limited to "define a list of things to run". For example I could have a 'compile this' keybind that detects language, compiles, and displays stdout of whatever code I'm highlighting. For Android I'm currently using Tasker, which is a "list of things to run" so it suffers from sometimes having to define multiple tasks for one command. But it's better than the drag-n-drop alternative (Automate), which doesn't allow arbitrary shell commands last I checked.

hhas01 7y ago

Fine-grained automation means Apple event IPC, which is very powerful and elegant, which for practical purposes means AppleScript, which is… not. I wrote production-quality Apple event bridges for half-a-dozen major languages (Apple even considered bundling a couple of them in Leopard). It’s an amazing ecosystem once unlocked with languages that aren’t a bad joke. Thousands of productivity apps with not one but two very high-level User Interfaces: one graphical, one programmatic. Alas, even the best software in the world won’t fix PEBKAC, and the Mac Automation Product Manager was one of these: https://daedtech.com/how-software-groups-rot-legacy-of-the-expert-beginner https://daedtech.com/how-software-groups-rot-legacy-of-the-e... A few thousand hours of solving their problems only for them to promptly un-solve them again, I finally gave up in disgust. http://appscript.sourceforge.net/status.html http://appscript.sourceforge.net/status.html As say upthread, there are better ways to spend your life than trying to fix stuff that others are determined to keep broken. At least I had a laugh when Apple finally sacked that jackass, even if he did take Mac Automation down with him. For better or worse, the future of macOS Automation now lies in the hands of the Siri squad and their conversational shortcuts. Let’s hope they do better. https://twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/1135956331360346113 https://twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/11359563313603461... #InterestingTimes