( I have been pushed to an obvious answer to my "Mystery" from a friendly member here.
I feel a little ashamed not to have found this solution myself, but will leave this posting online if there aren't too many irritated folks around. Maybe someone else can learn from this … apologies to every "know-it-alls"!)
I have recorded these actions with Automator:
– Cmd-tab to bring TextEdit to front (must have some lines typed)
– Pressed left arrow 7 times using shift down
– Stopped the recording
Next I selected and copied (Cmd-c) all action icons in Automator's "Record my actions" window.
I switched to Script-Editor and pasted (Cmd-v) them into a new window.
Then, I repeated above recording with 3 times UP arrow and copied icons into another new window.
I took only the two "set uiScript to …" lines and appended them in the first script.
THEY READ IDENTICAL:
set uiScript to "keystroke \"\t\" using command down"
my doWithTimeout(uiScript)
set uiScript to "keystroke \"\" using shift down" -- 7 times left-arrow
my doWithTimeout(uiScript)
set uiScript to "keystroke \"\" using shift down" -- 3 times up-arrow
my doWithTimeout(uiScript)
on doWithTimeout(uiScript)
set endDate to (current date)
repeat
try
run script "tell application \"System Events\"\n" & uiScript & "\nend tell"
exit repeat
end try
end repeat
end doWithTimeout
(To make resulting code more readable I omitted error code and "delays".)
Now, if I disable one of the "keystroke" lines (=> --my doWith…) the script somehow knows that it either has to do Shift-leftArrow 7 times OR Shift-upArrow 3 times.
I tried this after computer restart, even copied the code from this web page and pasted it into a new Script Editor window – it still knew what to do!
HOW CAN THAT BE ???
My only idea is: there must be some internal Applescript database that recognises content even if copied/pasted.
Does anybody know ?
Only if I re-write the code identically will there happen NOTHING – until I copy the first line of either recording ("set uiScript to …"). So the information must be linked to this first line somehow.
(BTW: first two lines that bring TextEdit –or, e.g. a Finder window– to the front work only from opened Script Editor; you have to bring TextEdit to the front yourself, if you start the saved-as-program script from Script-Editor's menu icon subfolder. Nevertheless the script won't work without them…)
It "knows" because the keystrokes are in the string - keystrokes using control type keys (such as arrow keys) just don’t have a text representation, so they wind up being invisible. Some text editors such as BBEdit can show these invisible characters, but they don’t show up in the Script Editor.
Apple has obviously made Automator's Watch Me Do action able to capture some of these control keys in a string, but for the rest of us it is more difficult, since the control keys will actually perform their function when pressed. If you need to use these kinds of keys, the key code command can be used, since it refers to the actual keyboard key, for example:
tell application "System Events"
repeat 3 times
key code 126 using shift down -- up arrow
end repeat
end tell