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30 Most Recent RSS FeedOS X 10.9: AppleScripts and Accessibility Control
With OS X 10.9 Apple takes security more seriously than it ever has. In this regard, Apple has added an additional level of security for apps that access the Accessibility API via "System Events". Here's how that new level of security may affect the way you use some AppleScripts downloaded from this site.
First of all: Some of my script applets (the ones with user interfaces) cannot run effectively while iTunes is in full screen mode. This is because only one of them, iTunes or the script, can be frontmost. So, when these scripts are launched they will detect and alert you if iTunes is in full screen mode.
To do this the script targets "System Events" to check for an accessibility property of the iTunes user interface indicating whether or not full screen is on. "System Events" is in the purview of Accessibility. If you've ever used GUI Scripting—to script key codes for example—you've had to set "Enable access for assistive devices" in the Accessibility pane of System Preferences. Well, as of OS X 10.9, this is no longer a global setting and must be set on a per-app basis.
UPDATED: Search-Replace Tag Text v3.5
Search-Replace Tag Text v3.5 performs a search-and-replace on the text in your choice of tag (Song Name, Show, Artist, Album Artist, Album, Composer, Comments, Genre, or Grouping) in the selected tracks or all the tracks in the selected Playlist. Features case sensitivity and whole word match options and dry run preview.
This new version stores the dry run setting between launches, has some additional minor tweaks and is ready for Mavericks.
More information and download is here.
AirPlay Scripting Workaround
As previously noted, you can't do this without getting -1728 errors:
tell application "iTunes"
set apDevices to (get AirPlay devices)
end tell
But you can do this:
tell application "iTunes"
set apDevices to (get a reference to AirPlay devices)
-- see?
log (get name of apDevices)
-- or
repeat with aDevice in apDevices
log (get aDevice's name)
end repeat
-- or
repeat with aDevice in AirPlay devices
log (get aDevice's name)
end repeat
end tell
That's if you need to do that.
UPDATED: Track Down Purchases v2.2
Track Down Purchases v2.2 will examine each track in the entire iTunes library—or a selection of tracks—for items purchased from the iTunes Store (audio, video, and books) and then sort them by either the purchaser's name or account ID into discrete playlists, eg: "Purchased by Tom Ryan" or "Purchased by tomryan@email.com".
This latest version changes the name of each playlist created (prefixing it with "Purchased by") so that they'll sort together and also fixes an issue with misreading account ID data that produced garbled text in the playlist names.
More info and download here.
iTunes 11.1.1 Available
Apple has released iTunes 11.1.1 with bug fixes for podcast management and iTunes Extras display and a helping of stability fixes. Looks like you can once again delete old podcast episodes.
The AirPlay bug mentioned below has not been fixed.
iTunes 11.1 Breaks Some Airplay scripting
[UPDATE: iTunes 11.1.2 addresses and fixes this issue.]
The latest version of iTunes breaks some scripts I posted when Airplay scripting was introduced back in the Spring.
Specifically, an error will be generated doing something as simple as this:
tell application "iTunes"
set apDevices to (get AirPlay devices)
end tell
Come on. It's gotta be a bug, right? You can still get properties of AirPlay devices and set the current AirPlay devices property by device name:
tell application "iTunes"
set apDevices to (get name of AirPlay devices)
--> {"Computer", "Doug's AirPort Express"}
set current AirPlay devices to AirPlay device "Computer"
end tell
Waiting to see how this evolves.
NEW: Multi-Media Items Edit
For reasons not yet clear, as of iTunes 11.1, multi-item editing is no longer possible when a track selection contains mixed media kinds, audio and PDF for example. Kirk explains the matter here.
The script Multi-Media Items Edit provides basic tag editing for a selection of tracks of any media kind.
Wondering why your favorite tag or option isn't included? Just keeping it simple, friend-o.
iTunes 11.1 with iTunes Radio Available
Apple has made iTunes 11.1 available to download today just ahead of the iOS 7 release. iTunes 11.1 sports iTunes Radio, which you may or may not think is the greatest thing since MP3s (I'm not exactly thrilled with it, but I think most people will like it).
iTunes Radio is 'scriptable to a degree and I'll have more on that later.
Dupin v2.7.2/Dupin Lite v1.3 Now Available
I was so busy over the weekend fighting bugs in the latest release of Dupin that I neglected to post that there actually are new versions available (here in the US it was Labor Day weekend, the irony of which is not lost on me).
I'm pleased to announce that Dupin and Dupin Lite have been updated with some new features, some minor fixes and enhancements, and are ready for OS X 10.9 Mavericks.
Dupin is your iTunes duplicates manager.
As Macworld recently wrote, both Dupin and Dupin Lite "do a much better job than iTunes' Show Duplicate Items command of finding and zapping duplicate files, letting you easily tame overflowing libraries." Dupin has a few more power features, such as Re-Playlisting and Consolidate History. Dupin Lite has the same Get Dupes-Filter-Purge tools without the power-user features and is available at the Mac App Store.
Both now incorporate QuickLook auditioning (added in Dupin v2.6) and support Notifications. New to both is "dead" track detection, which will enable you to ignore or delete detected "dead" track duplicates.
You can download the latest version of Dupin here, or click "Check for Update" in your current version.
Dupin Lite is on the Mac App Store, or you can update through the App Store.app from the "Updates" panel.
iTunes 11.0.5 Released
Apple has updated iTunes to correct some issues with tracks stored in the cloud. You can get iTunes 11.0.5 from the App Store app's "Updates" tab or directly from Apple's website.
