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I want to add a shortcut to "About" for every software, just like most of them have CMD+, for entering preferences.

But this could as well be a question used for many other things, since I want to do it through either Automator, Script or just System Preferences, if possible.

Any hints on how to do this? Please, no third part solutions.

Oliver Salzburg
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cregox
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1 Answers1

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tell application "System Events"
    try
        set a to name of process 1 where frontmost is true
        tell process a to click menu bar 1's menu bar item 2's menu 1's menu item 1
    end try
end tell

The same approach also works for Undo* and Redo* in most applications.

How to assign a shortcut for running an Applescript

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Lri
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  • Sounds lovely. I'll see if I can use this! :) – cregox Mar 31 '11 at 19:26
  • Lri, about your edit, by chance I've tried the exact steps you described there with Automator, but for some reason that's not working - I can't find the service listed either in *Keyboard Services* or any *Application > Services*. I'm trying to find out why. – cregox Mar 31 '11 at 20:08
  • All right, I just redid it once again and took care to paste it in the proper place (the first time I've replaced the `on run` part). Now the actual script isn't working. It just does nothing. – cregox Mar 31 '11 at 20:13
  • @Cawas Did you try logging out and back in? – Lri Mar 31 '11 at 20:32
  • @Lri I have issues with logging out as I always have a lot of things open... Plus I wouldn't think it would be required in this case! But I'll try that soon enough. Thanks again! – cregox Mar 31 '11 at 20:39
  • @Lri still not working after a reboot. Starting to investigate now... – cregox Apr 01 '11 at 15:02
  • @Cawas Ok, I just fixed a similar issue yesterday with a relogin. (I was trying out ThisService for [Can I use a bash script as a Service in OS X without having to set it up trough automator? - Super User](http://superuser.com/questions/264954/can-i-use-a-bash-script-as-a-service-in-os-x-without-having-to-set-it-up-trough-a/264969#264969)). Another way to update services is apparently `/System/Library/CoreServices/pbs`, but you shouldn't have to do it manually for services in (~)/Library. – Lri Apr 01 '11 at 15:13
  • @Lri the service is up even before the reboot. if I press the shortcut several times I can even see the little notification icon in the icon area on the top saying it's running - several of them, for a brief period. It's just the script isn't working for some reason. – cregox Apr 01 '11 at 15:19
  • @Lri last thing I could realize is it's not getting inside *tell application "System Events" / try*. I've set automator to display the apple script before running so it's easy to debug - but I just don't know enough apple script to get around this issue easily. Would you know what could be wrong? – cregox Apr 01 '11 at 19:02
  • @Cawas Are you sure you selected *Service recieves: [no input]*? It works just fine for me. There's a ~1 second delay before running it though, which doesn't occur with eg FastScripts. So do you really have to wrap it as an Automator service? It would be a lot easier (and probably faster) to just run it directly. – Lri Apr 02 '11 at 15:55
  • @Lri yes, I sure selected *[no input]* and the challenge here is without 3rd parties. But I just tried it on another machine (mine at home), simply by copying the workflow from ~/Library/Services, and **it worked**! So it's something weird on that other machine at work, which I have *not even sudo permissions* and thus a lot less crap installed. – cregox Apr 02 '11 at 17:17