I need to select text in a WebKit view of another application (Apple Mail) using accessibility APIs.
For regular text fields, I do something like this:
func selectText(withRange range: CFRange) throws {
var range = range
guard let newValue: AXValue = AXValueCreate(AXValueType.cfRange, &range) else { return }
AXUIElementSetAttributeValue(self, kAXSelectedTextRangeAttribute as CFString, newValue)
}
However, in the composing window of Apple Mail every text seems to be of type Static Text
which doesn't come with the necessary AXSelectedTextRange
It has AXSelectedTextMarkerRange
, though, which requires an AXTextMarker
. I just don't get how to create one of these. I have no trouble reading the text from a user created selection using this here, but I'm unable to select text via the accessibility APIs.
CodePudding user response:
Thanks to the hint from Willeke I was able to figure it out. It is indeed possible to do it using AXTextMarkerForIndex
. Knowing that it's actually pretty straightforward.
Here's my code:
func getTextMarker(forIndex index: CFIndex) throws -> AXTextMarker? {
var textMarker: AnyObject?
guard AXUIElementCopyParameterizedAttributeValue(self,"AXTextMarkerForIndex" as CFString, index as AnyObject, &textMarker) == .success else { return nil }
return textMarker as! AXTextMarker
}
func selectStaticText(withRange range: CFRange) throws {
guard let textMarkerStart = try? getTextMarker(forIndex: range.location) else { return }
guard let textMarkerEnd = try? getTextMarker(forIndex: range.location range.length) else { return }
let textMarkerRange = AXTextMarkerRangeCreate(kCFAllocatorDefault, textMarkerStart, textMarkerEnd)
AXUIElementSetAttributeValue(self, "AXSelectedTextMarkerRange" as CFString, textMarkerRange)
}