Workflow to simulate using a keyboard shortcut on highlighted text

[raygan]

I run a softphone VOIP app for work (the RingCentral app). I'd like to be able to type a phone number into Alfred (or select it from a contact) and have it place a call, but RingCentral doesn't seem to have AppleScript support or much else that would help.

 

What it does have is a global keyboard shortcut. I can highlight a 10 digit number anywhere in the MacOS and use a keyboard shortcut to instantly dial the number.

 

Is there any way for Alfred to simulate highlighting some text and then using a keyboard shortcut? I'd like to pass the workflow some text by typing a number into Alfred, then have it "highlight" that text and do the keyboard shortcut for me.

[vitor]

This should work. Fill the last Key Combo with RingCentral’s shortcut.

Here’s how it works:

1. You call ring with the number.
2. Alfred calls itself with the umber (tell application "Alfred 3" to search "{query}").
3. All text is selected (⇧⌘←).
4. Ring Central’s keyboard shortcut is called.
   

[raygan]

Wow, thanks! Very helpful!

 

In the mean time I ended up also asking about this on the RingCentral development forum, and they let me know that the RingCentral softphone app has an undocumented URL scheme for placing calls as well. That turns out to be a cleaner approach. So in the end I'm using a bash script that looks like this:

 

number=$(echo "{query}" | sed 's/[^0-9+]//g')
open "rcmobile://call?number=${number}"

 

Thanks for the help!

[GuiB]

@raygan, if there's a URL scheme then you can just use the Alfred "Open URL" object with your query ("rcmobile://call?number={query}") if you want a simpler workflow

[davidtesler]

Sorry to bother you folks - I would really like a workflow for ringcentral - but I cant follow the above - does anyone have a workflow I could download or instructions to how to set up?

[GuiB]

@davidtesler I don't have Ring Central and never used it, but I made a workflow based on the above posts. Not sure if this will work, but this can give you a start

 

Workflow: https://d.pr/f/LiaYHQ

[davidtesler]

Thanks so much - just sent you a coffee:)

[GuiB]

1 minute ago, davidtesler said:

Thanks so much - just sent you a coffee:)

 

Great, thanks! Really appreciated! I'm glad this was useful!

[GuiB]

@davidtesler I updated the workflow to strip any non-numeric characters from your query (should better work with different phone number format). I'm not sure if Ring Central does it by itself, but based on @raygan's post above it shouldn't and this should help.

 

New workflow: https://d.pr/f/xmMuSE

 

Best!

[davidtesler]

Thank you!