Mac Script Check If App Running And Close It

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Automating the User Interface

Unfortunately, not every Mac app has scripting support, and those that do may not always have scripting support for every task you want to automate. You can often work around such limitations, however, by writing a user interface script, commonly called a UI or GUI script. A user interface script simulates user interaction, such as mouse clicks and keystrokes, allowing the script to select menu items, push buttons, enter text into text fields, and more.

Enabling User Interface Scripting

User interface scripting relies upon the OS X accessibility frameworks that provide alternative methods of querying and controlling the interfaces of apps and the system. By default, accessibility control of apps is disabled. For security and privacy reasons, the user must manually enable it on an app-by-app (including script apps) basis.

  1. Launch System Preferences and click Security & Privacy.

  2. Click Accessibility.

  3. Choose an app and click Open.

By default, all apps are selected, but you can uncheck an app if you do not want to close it. Just click OK and you're done! For test purposes, I opened about 10 to 15 programs on a Windows 7 PC and Close All was able to shut them all down. Check your program in the designer and blocks editor. If you need help, file and issue and include the program source (aia file). Other Emulator issues. My app runs on the emulator, but images do not appear. Some people have observed a problem where the app runs on the emulator, but images do not appear. The example script we gave to test this process will simply display text in the Terminal but the script you want to run is going to do something else and may need other apps/utilities installed on your Mac before it can run. If you're skilled at writing shell scripts, you can always modify the script you have and instruct it to use apps.

When running an app that requires accessibility control for the first time, the system prompts you to enable it. See Figure 37-1.

Attempting to run an app that has not been given permission to use accessibility features results in an error. See Figure 37-2.

Note

To run a user interface script in Script Editor, you must enable accessibility for Script Editor.

Admin credentials are required to perform enable user interface scripting.

Targeting an App

User interface scripting terminology is found in the Processes Suite of the System Events scripting dictionary. This suite includes terminology for interacting with most types of user interface elements, including windows, buttons, checkboxes, menus, radio buttons, text fields, and more. In System Events, the process class represents a running app. Listing 37-1 shows how to target an app using this class.

APPLESCRIPT

Listing 37-1AppleScript: Targeting an app for user interface scripting
  1. tell application 'System Events'
  2. tell process 'Safari'
  3. -- Perform user interface scripting tasks
  4. end tell
  5. end tell

To control the user interface of an app, you must first inspect the app and determine its element hierarchy. This can be done by querying the app. For example, Listing 37-2 asks Safari for a list of menus in the menu bar.

APPLESCRIPT

Listing 37-2AppleScript: Querying an app for user interface element information
  1. tell application 'System Events'
  2. tell process 'Safari'
  3. name of every menu of menu bar 1
  4. end tell
  5. end tell
  6. --> Result: {'Apple', 'Safari', 'File', 'Edit', 'View', 'History', 'Bookmarks', 'Develop', 'Window', 'Help'}

Accessibility Inspector (Figure 37-3) makes it even easier to identify user interface element information. This app is included with Xcode. To use it, open Xcode and select Xcode > Open Developer Tool > Accessibility Inspector.

Once you know how an element fits into an interface, you target it within that hierarchy. For example, button X of window Y of process Z.

Clicking a Button

Use the click command to click a button. Listing 37-3 clicks a button in the Safari toolbar to toggle the sidebar between open and closed.

APPLESCRIPT

Listing 37-3AppleScript: Clicking a button
  1. tell application 'System Events'
  2. tell process 'Safari'
  3. tell toolbar of window 1
  4. click (first button where its accessibility description = 'Sidebar')
  5. end tell
  6. end tell
  7. end tell
  8. --> Result: {button 1 of toolbar 1 of window 'AppleScript: Graphic User Interface (GUI) Scripting' of application process 'Safari' of application 'System Events'}

Choosing a Menu Item

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Menu items can have a fairly deep hierarchy within the interface of an app. A menu item generally resides within a menu, which resides within a menu bar. In scripting, they must be addressed as such. Listing 37-4 selects the Pin Tab menu item in the Window menu of Safari.

APPLESCRIPT

Listing 37-4AppleScript: Choosing a menu item
  1. tell application 'System Events'
  2. tell process 'Safari'
  3. set frontmost to true
  4. click menu item 'Pin Tab' of menu 'Window' of menu bar 1
  5. end tell
  6. end tell
  7. --> Result: menu item 'Pin Tab' of menu 'Window' of menu bar item 'Window' of menu bar 1 of application process 'Safari' of application 'System Events'

Note

Scripting the user interface of an app can be tedious and repetitious. To streamline the process, consider creating handlers to perform common functions. For example, Listing 37-5 shows a handler that can be used to choose any menu item of any menu in any running app.

APPLESCRIPT

Listing 37-5AppleScript: A handler that chooses a menu item
  1. on chooseMenuItem(theAppName, theMenuName, theMenuItemName)
  2. try
  3. -- Bring the target app to the front
  4. tell application theAppName
  5. activate
  6. end tell
  7. -- Target the app
  8. tell application 'System Events'
  9. tell process theAppName
  10. -- Target the menu bar
  11. tell menu bar 1
  12. -- Target the menu by name
  13. tell menu bar item theMenuName
  14. tell menu theMenuName
  15. -- Click the menu item
  16. click menu item theMenuItemName
  17. end tell
  18. end tell
  19. end tell
  20. end tell
  21. end tell
  22. return true
  23. on error
  24. return false
  25. end try
  26. end chooseMenuItem

Listing 37-6 calls the handler in Listing 37-5 to select the Pin Tab menu item in the Window menu of Safari.

APPLESCRIPT

Listing 37-6AppleScript: Calling a handler to choose a menu item

Choosing a Submenu Item

Some menus contain other menus. In these cases, it may be necessary to select a menu item in a submenu of a menu. Listing 37-7 demonstrates how this would be done by selecting a submenu item in Safari.

APPLESCRIPT

Listing 37-7AppleScript: Selecting a submenu item
  1. tell application 'System Events'
  2. tell process 'Safari'
  3. set frontmost to true
  4. click menu item 'Email This Page' of menu of menu item 'Share' of menu 'File' of menu bar 1
  5. end tell
  6. end tell
  7. --> Result: {menu item 'Email This Page' of menu 'Share' of menu item 'Share' of menu 'File' of menu bar item 'File' of menu bar 1 of application process 'Safari' of application 'System Events'}

Copyright © 2018 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Updated: 2016-06-13

If your computer is running slow, it is likely that it has too many Apps running in the background. You will find below the steps to Stop Apps From Running in Background in Windows 10.

Mac Script Check If App Running And Close It

Mac Script Check If App Running And Close It Is Open

Apps Running in Background in Windows 10

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Left to itself, your Windows 10 computer may end up allowing way too many Apps to remain active and keep running in the background.

In addition to native Windows Apps and Services like Skype, Calendar and Email, most downloaded Apps also have the default tendency to keep running in the background.

Unfortunately, most older, budget and mid-level PC's do not have the resources to keep all the data hungry Apps active and running in background.

Also, you may not even be using the Apps that are unecessarily using up resources on your computer by running in the background.

Hence, it makes sense to stop all unnecessary Apps from running in background and wasting resources on your Computer.

1. Stop Apps From Running in Background in Windows 10

Mac Script Check If App Running And Close It Is Working

Follow the steps below to stop Apps from running in background in Windows 10.

1. Click on the Start button and click on Settings Icon in the little menu that appears.

2. On the Settings screen, click on the Privacy option.

Close

Mac Script Check If App Running And Close It Is Open

Apps Running in Background in Windows 10

Mac Script Check If App Running And Close It Is Fake

Left to itself, your Windows 10 computer may end up allowing way too many Apps to remain active and keep running in the background.

In addition to native Windows Apps and Services like Skype, Calendar and Email, most downloaded Apps also have the default tendency to keep running in the background.

Unfortunately, most older, budget and mid-level PC's do not have the resources to keep all the data hungry Apps active and running in background.

Also, you may not even be using the Apps that are unecessarily using up resources on your computer by running in the background.

Hence, it makes sense to stop all unnecessary Apps from running in background and wasting resources on your Computer.

1. Stop Apps From Running in Background in Windows 10

Mac Script Check If App Running And Close It Is Working

Follow the steps below to stop Apps from running in background in Windows 10.

1. Click on the Start button and click on Settings Icon in the little menu that appears.

2. On the Settings screen, click on the Privacy option.

3. On the Privacy screen, scroll down and click on Background Apps in the left pane. In the right-pane, toggle OFF the option to Let Apps Run in the background.

This will prevent all the Apps from running in background on your computer.

2. Stop Specific Background Running Apps in Windows 10

Windows 10 also makes it easy to stop specific or selected Apps from running in the background on your computer.

This can be useful, in case you only want certain important Apps to bring you fresh updates by remaining active in the background.

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1. Open Settings on your computer and click on the Privacy tab.

2. On the Privacy screen, scroll down and click on Background Apps in the left pane. In the right-pane, toggle OFF Specific Apps that you do not want to run in background.

Note: You need to toggle ON 'Let Apps Run in Background' option to disable specfic Apps from running in background.

Which Background Running Apps to Stop

Disabling Background Running Apps does not prevent you from using the Apps on your computer.

Stopping Apps from running in background only prevents the Apps from bringing fresh updates and this may slow down the Apps.

However, once you launch the Apps on your computer and start using them, the Apps will have the opportunity to refessh their data and you will be able to use them as usual.

A good approach in this regard is to simply start by disabling All the Apps from running in background and later on allow only the most essentail Apps to run in background.

Mac Script Check If App Running And Close It Is Safe

In case something goes wrong, you can always come back to Background Running Apps screen and Turn ON or Turn OFF Apps as required.





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