timsu / node-applescript

A Node.js module to easily execute arbitrary AppleScript code on Mac OS X.

node-applescript

A high-level way to execute AppleScript code through Node.js, and retrieve the result as a native JavaScript object. Underneath the hood, this module is just a simple wrapper around the macOS osascript command.

Why?

AppleScripts are the only way to communicate and interact with certain external macOS processes, for example iTunes.

Easy Install

$ npm install applescript

Requirements

• Mac (or Hackintosh) running macOS (tested with High Sierra)
• Node.js (v0.2.0 or newer)

Usage

The node-applescript module provides execString and execFile functions to easily execute AppleScript commands and buffer the output into a calback.

const applescript = require('applescript');

// Very basic AppleScript command. Returns the song name of each
// currently selected track in iTunes as an 'Array' of 'String's.
const script = 'tell application "iTunes" to get name of selection';

applescript.execString(script, (err, rtn) => {
  if (err) {
    // Something went wrong!
  }
  if (Array.isArray(rtn)) {
    for (const songName of rtn) {
      console.log(songName);
    }
  }
});

execFile works the exact same way, except you pass the path of the AppleScript (*.applescript) file as the first argument instead of the command itself, and you may pass an optional Array of String arguments to send to the applescript file.

Each function takes an optional last parameter timeout (in milliseconds) to kill the applescript process if it stops responding.

Licence

The node-applescript module is licensed under the MIT license, of course!