PlayerRelease Notes 1.5
April 1999
Version 1.5 is a "features" release, with a new price and an upgrade charge. (Version 1.2, shipping at about the same time, is a free maintenance release -- primarily for MacOS versions up thru 8.1.) Pricing details are on the order form.
What's New
- Compatible with OS versions up to and including 8.5.1. (May work as far back as System 7.0; only tested with 7.5.3 and later. Tested on 68K & PPC, including recent G3s.)
- Something we've wanted for a long time: a verb to disable user input so that people can't accidently interfere with the script using the mouse or keyboard!!! (An icon will flash in the upper left so that users know the computer is still working. Command-period will stop the script.) Note: may have no effect on iMac (or other models with USB keyboard & mouse).
- Misc. requested enhancements: a verb to move the mouse & leave it there, a way to change the location from which Player chooses menu items (for compatibility with other software that uses a specific location on the menubar), a new parameter to optionally disable the extra click required for certain pop-up menus.
What's Fixed: the same things as in the free Player 1.2 release
- Pop-up menus no longer stay up for 15 seconds (or whatever it was) on OS 8.0 and later. (There may be a few exceptions for applications with non-standard implementation of pop-ups. If you find one, try a mouse delay of 7 or so.)
- Player can type multiple modifiers keys, e.g. command-shift-option y.
- Fixed a problem making menu selections on certain configurations.
- For Frontier 5.x: the updated PlayerExtras.utils.tickSound fixes Player's "click to log".
Caveats
- First a note: does this look like too many caveats? Player is a proven solution with a long track record; we can afford to be completely up-front. The proof is in the product: use the fully-functional 30-day trial version and decide for yourself whether Player offers outstanding value.
- Due to the extent and nature of the internal changes in MacOS 8.5, there are a few things that Player can do on OS 8.1 and below that it can't on OS 8.5. At the time of this writing, the known issues are: object types in certain Acrobat Exchange dialogs (workaround: use the 'dialog item' verbs), hierarchical menus in Illustrator (see the included script for workarounds), and printing Postscript files to disk via LaserWriter 8 and Navigation Services (workaround: KeyQuencer). In addition, 'set dialog folder' has no effect on Navigation Services dialogs.
- Some example scripts were written for older versions of applications or control panels. They are just examples, not a supported part of the product.
- Player's Balloon Help may be flaky in certain apps (e.g. flashing or not appearing at all). Alas, that's just the way it is. Player's "outline dialog" and "get info" verbs provide name & ID (and more). If you need XY location in these cases, we recommend KeyQuencer's "where is click".
- As noted above, "disable user input" may have no effect with USB keyboard & mouse. (Actually, it might disable USB keyboard input but no guarantees.)
- Player (along with, to the best of our knowledge, the keyboard macro products) cannot "see" dialog items created with the new Appearance Manager; not by name, not by ID. (Location may work but that's not sufficient for checkboxes and is much more work for the script writer.)
- Player's "set dialog folder" verb does not work with Navigation Services. (Contact us for a potential workaround that may be available from another company in the future.)
- Although we have found no problems with Player 1.5 on pre-release versions of MacOS 8.6, we cannot guarantee compatibility with it or any future MacOS release. Player is almost completely dependent on parts of the OS that, if changed by Apple, may not be practical or even possible for us to work around.
- We do not know if Player will work with MacOS X.
What's New -- AppleScript Dictionary
disable user input: disable mouse and/or keyboard input ... may have no effect on iMac (or other models with USB keyboard & mouse)
disable user input
[from mouse/keyboard] -- which input to disable; defaults to both (can explicitly specify both by concatenating with "&")
[flashing icon boolean] -- set to 'false' to disable the image that flashes in the upper left corner ... WARNING: if mouse input is disabled, users may think the computer is frozen
[command period to abort boolean] -- set to 'false' to prevent command-period from enabling user input and aborting the script ... WARNING: if you don't allow command-period, it may be quite difficult to abort a runaway script
enable user input: allow mouse and keyboard input ... may have no effect on iMac (or other models with USB keyboard & mouse)
enable user input
move to: move the mouse to a specified location and leave it there
move to anything -- location, in the form {x, y} or {x, y, screen coordinates}
set menu selection location to: advanced feature: specifies mouse location for 'do menu'
set menu selection location to point -- {x,y} location in screen coordinates ... the default value is {5, 5}
do menu popup item: choose from a pop-up menu -- new in 1.5: optional "extra click" parameter
...
[extra click boolean] -- set to 'false' to disable the extra click (for a slight increase in speed but at the risk of the app not noticing the changed popup value)
What's New -- Frontier summary
Player.disableUserInput()
disable mouse and/or keyboard input ... may have no effect on iMac (or other models with USB keyboard & mouse)
Player.enableUserInput()
allow mouse and keyboard input ... may have no effect on iMac (or other models with USB keyboard & mouse)
Player.moveMouse(location)
move the mouse to a specified location and leave it there
Player.setMenuSelectionLocation(location)
advanced feature: specifies mouse location for chooseMenu
Player.choosePopup(menu, item) « new in 1.5: optional "extraClick" parameter
Chooses a pop-up menu command.
new constants: MouseOnly, KeyboardOnly
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