# Automating OS X with Ruby **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [December 25, 2007, 4:24am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/automating-os-x-with-ruby/124124 "2007-12-25T04:24:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![sdsykes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@sdsykes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sdsykes)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2007, 4:24am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/automating-os-x-with-ruby/124124/1 "2007-12-25T04:24:33Z")
Howdy, I just upgraded to leopard and thought it would be a good opportunity to learn automation in OS X. I started playing around with Ruby OSA ([http://rubyosa.rubyforge.org/](http://rubyosa.rubyforge.org/)). Many of the ‘hello world’ applications look something like: require ‘rbosa’ itunes = OSA.app(‘iTunes’) track = itunes.current\_track puts track.name # “Over The Rainbow” However - I can’t interact with the _itunes_ object unless I manually open the application. After I manually open it - I can call nifty methods like itunes.play() and itunes.stop(). I tried calling itunes.open() but that wouldn’t launch the application. After combing over RDocs and the Ruby OSA mailing list - I didn’t see anything too helpful. Does anyone have experience with the Ruby OSA library? Do you have a different, favorite way to automate OS X? What sites do you find most helpful in learning about OS X automation? -Stephen ---
**Author:** ![sdsykes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@sdsykes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sdsykes)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2007, 6:13am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/automating-os-x-with-ruby/124124/2 "2007-12-25T06:13:50Z")
> itunes.stop(). > I tried calling itunes.open() but that wouldn’t launch the application. > After combing over RDocs and the Ruby OSA mailing list - I didn’t see > anything too helpful. > > Does anyone have experience with the Ruby OSA library? Do you have a > different, favorite way to automate OS X? > What sites do you find most helpful in learning about OS X automation? There’s an open system call on the bash command line in OS X, so what I do in situations like that is system(“open xyz”) or `open xyz` It’s the easy way out, but it works. I haven’t played with OSA scripting yet, but it _may_ work perfectly if you just throw in a sleep() call to let the app load once the open call’s been made. To get iTunes to open you’d want system(“open -a iTunes”) Brian M. is writing a book about scripting OS X with Ruby, you should hop on the mailing list for that. – Giles B. Podcast: [http://hollywoodgrit.blogspot.com](http://hollywoodgrit.blogspot.com) Blog: [http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com](http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com) Portfolio: [http://www.gilesgoatboy.org](http://www.gilesgoatboy.org) Tumblelog: [http://giles.tumblr.com](http://giles.tumblr.com) ---
**Author:** ![sdsykes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@sdsykes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sdsykes)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2007, 12:55pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/automating-os-x-with-ruby/124124/3 "2007-12-25T12:55:56Z")
On Dec 24, 2007, at 19:23 , Stephen S. wrote: > However - I can’t interact with the _itunes_ object unless I > manually open > the application. > After I manually open it - I can call nifty methods like > itunes.play() and > itunes.stop(). > I tried calling itunes.open() but that wouldn’t launch the > application. I dunno about rubyosa, but applescript uses ‘activate’. ---
**Author:** ![sdsykes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@sdsykes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sdsykes)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2007, 11:08pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/automating-os-x-with-ruby/124124/4 "2007-12-25T23:08:54Z")
On Dec 25, 2007, at 3:55 AM, Ryan D. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > application. > > I dunno about rubyosa, but applescript uses ‘activate’. Indeed. itunes.activate will start it if it’s not open. ---
**Author:** ![sdsykes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@sdsykes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sdsykes)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2007, 12:29am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/automating-os-x-with-ruby/124124/5 "2007-12-26T00:29:39Z")
Thanks for all the replies. Calling .activate() isn’t working for me…but opening it though the shell with system(“open -a ‘itunes’”) will work for now. Here’s a snippet from the IRB session: > > require ‘rbosa’ > > =\> true > > i\_chat = OSA.app(‘iTunes’) > > =\> \ > > i\_chat.activate > > RuntimeError: Cannot send Apple Event ‘miscactv’ : procNotFound > > (-600) > > from > > /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rubyosa-0.4.0/lib/rbosa.rb:796:in > > ` __send_event__' from /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rubyosa-0.4.0/lib/rbosa.rb:796:in `activate’ However - after a bit of searching I found what looks to be a related post by \*Laurent S. \*in Rubyosa mailing list. ([http://mail.google.com/mail/?hl=en&tab=wm#inbox/1170f53ede402ae8](http://mail.google.com/mail/?hl=en&tab=wm#inbox/1170f53ede402ae8)) about why calling OSA.app(‘blah’) on certain applications won’t launch them. -Stephen ---
**Author:** ![sdsykes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@sdsykes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sdsykes)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2007, 3:35pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/automating-os-x-with-ruby/124124/6 "2007-12-26T15:35:51Z")
On 25 Dec, 03:23, Stephen S. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Does anyone have experience with the Ruby OSA library? Used it; don’t much like it. It lacks various features found in AppleScript, has poorer application compatibility, and its attempts to dress up Apple event IPC in object-oriented semantics create various hidden gotchas. The best currently available solution is rb-appscript - see my sig for links. The recent 0.5.0 compares very well to AppleScript in terms of power and reliability, and you get additional benefits such as a powerful built-in help system. If you’re coming from an OO background you’ll find Apple events’ EPC+query-based behaviour a bit strange at first, but you soon get used to it. See the appscript manual for some background information and a tutorial to get you started. > What sites do you find most helpful in learning about OS X automation? For now, you largely have to work with existing AppleScript-based resources as there’s not a lot of material out there on using other languages in its place. (Hopefully this will improve as more folks start using Python, Ruby, etc. as AppleScript replacements.) Here’s a recent thread that may be of some help: [http://groups.google.co.uk/group/comp.lang.ruby/browse\_frm/thread/31f2bfa25cfad667/](http://groups.google.co.uk/group/comp.lang.ruby/browse_frm/thread/31f2bfa25cfad667/) HTH has ---
**Author:** ![sdsykes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@sdsykes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sdsykes)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2007, 4:08am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/automating-os-x-with-ruby/124124/7 "2007-12-27T04:08:42Z")
On Dec 26, 2007, at 8:35 AM, has wrote: > ## links. The recent 0.5.0 compares very well to AppleScript in terms of For now, you largely have to work with existing AppleScript-based has > > [http://appscript.sourceforge.net](http://appscript.sourceforge.net) > [http://rb-appscript.rubyforge.org](http://rb-appscript.rubyforge.org) I’m going to second this opinion. I tried the others, but rb-appscript is definitely more robust. ---
**Author:** ![sdsykes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@sdsykes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sdsykes)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 11:18pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/automating-os-x-with-ruby/124124/8 "2008-01-02T23:18:15Z")
Sorry about the copy and paste error. Laurent S.'s post can be found here ([http://rubyforge.org/pipermail/rubyosa-discuss/2006-October.txt](http://rubyforge.org/pipermail/rubyosa-discuss/2006-October.txt)) It’s the message sent " Sat, 28 Oct 2006 23:37:25 +0200"… “After a quick investigation it revealed that QuickTime Player.app doesn’t wake up when we request its scriptable definition, for the reason that it uses the old aete mechanism and that the sdef is generated on the fly, without the need to actually start and ask the application. However from a RubyOSA perspective, we should probably ensure that the given application is active after an OSA.app call” ---
**Author:** ![sdsykes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@sdsykes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sdsykes)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2008, 1:00am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/automating-os-x-with-ruby/124124/9 "2008-01-03T01:00:53Z")
On 2 Jan, 22:17, Stephen S. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > generated on the fly, without the need to actually start and ask the > application. However from a RubyOSA perspective, we should probably > ensure that the given application is active after an OSA.app call" That’s just sloppy design on RubyOSA’s part, relying on a side-effect of the terminology retrieval process that may or may not need to launch an application depending on whether its terminology is dynamically or statically defined. AppleScript and appscript both do the sensible thing, which is to launch a non-running application themselves via the Process Manager/ LaunchServices the first time they need to send it an event. Again, I’d recommend Ruby appscript as the best choice for controlling “AppleScriptable” Mac applications from Ruby (with Leopard’s Scripting Bridge a poor second if you absolutely can’t have external dependencies). Rb-appscript is based on the Python appscript bridge which has been around since 2003, so it’s a much more mature, polished solution than RubyOSA and easily gives AppleScript a run for its money too. HTH has