Interact with an app

[JDG]

Hello everyone,

 

I'm new with the very good app called "Alfred" and I would like try to interact with an application call "Logos" by faithlife.

 

I find how to make a key word for open the app but I don't know how to interact with the menu of the app.

I would like search some passage on it from Alfred.

 

Thanks for your help

 

Edited March 31, 2018 by JDG

[CJK]

I think you will have you use some scripting for that, i.e. AppleScript.  What is it you actually want to achieve ?

[JDG]

Thanks for your answer CJK.

 

I would like make a search on the app when I write something like "lg John 12" open the app and search "John 12".

 

Do you think it's possible ?

I'll look applescript.

[deanishe]

11 hours ago, JDG said:

Do you think it's possible ?

 

It's difficult to say without the app, and there doesn't appear to be a way to easily download a demo…

 

As a rule, you can almost always simulate clicking/tabbing around in the window using AppleScript, but that's kind of a last resort of automation.

[CJK]

Hi @JDG,

 

Having had a look on the Logos website, I can't see any references to AppleScript in their Mac support pages.  My guess is that the app is not scriptable.  You can determine this definitively by opening Script Editor and executing this single line of code:

tell application "Finder" to get has scripting terminology of (path to application "Logos 7")

replacing "Logos 7" if the name of the application is different to this (go by either the application filename, or the name that sits in the menu bar in the top-left of the screen when you use the application).  Script Editor will either return true or false.

 

Working for now on the assumption that it's going to return false, I believe you have two options:

 

①  As @deanishe suggested, UI scripting could possibly (probably) achieve what you need, but it's a real sledgehammer of a technique that isn't always going to work seamlessly (but it's better than nothing).  The barrier I see to this option is that—I assume—you don't have much AppleScripting knowledge, and UI scripting is virtually impossible to do unless one has the application to work with on one's own system (which makes someone else's help dependent on them both knowing AppleScript and having the Logos software).

 

②  Their web app might be a more accessible way of retrieving data that you would otherwise get from the desktop application, especially if you use Safari or Chrome.  As both Safari and Chrome are scriptable, this presents some possibilities for automation, either by way of http queries or by way of JavaScript.  But, again, one needs an account with FaithLife to access the web app.

 

I'll let you contemplate on this.

Edited April 1, 2018 by CJK
Expanded the details for option ②