No AXUIElement

[aurexav]

First, I apologize for opening a question here.

Can I use this crate to get the currently selected text?

I did find fn accessibilityFocusedUIElement(&self, ..) and objc2_app_kit::NSAccessibilityFocusedUIElementAttribute. But I couldn't find AXUIElement. So, how to obtain the &self NSObjectNSAccessibility? Then I can call accessibilityFocusedUIElement on it.

[madsmtm]

First, I apologize for opening a question here.

No problem, please do!

No AXUIElement

AXUIElement comes from the ApplicationServices framework, which is why it is not defined just by importing AppKit.

That framework in particular is "CoreFoundation-like", and is not yet supported, see #556.

Can I use this crate to get the currently selected text?

Hmm, I'm not too familiar with the accessibility frameworks, but if you have e.g. a NSView, I believe you can just import NSObjectNSAccessibility, and then you should be able to call accessibilityFocusedUIElement?

In any case, I can recommend the AccessKit project, they abstract a lot of this for you, and their source code probably contain similar things as what you're trying to do.

[aurexav]

Hmm, I'm not too familiar with the accessibility frameworks, but if you have e.g. a NSView, I believe you can just import NSObjectNSAccessibility, and then you should be able to call accessibilityFocusedUIElement?

unsafe {
	let w = NSWorkspace::sharedWorkspace();
	let a = w.frontmostApplication().unwrap();
	dbg!(&a);
	let e = a.accessibilityFocusedUIElement();
	dbg!(e);
}

I'll get fatal runtime error: Rust cannot catch foreign exceptions if I call accessibilityFocusedUIElement.

In any case, I can recommend the AccessKit project, they abstract a lot of this for you, and their source code probably contain similar things as what you're trying to do.

Thanks, I'll take a look!

[madsmtm]

I'll get fatal runtime error: Rust cannot catch foreign exceptions

Try running with objc2's catch-all feature - then you will see that the exception is:

uncaught exception <NSException: 0x128811df0> 'NSInvalidArgumentException' reason:-[NSRunningApplication accessibilityFocusedUIElement]: unrecognized selector sent to instance 0x128810c00

(If debug assertions are enabled, then objc2 should also have picked it up as invalid message send to -[NSRunningApplication accessibilityFocusedUIElement]: method not found).

I'm not sure, but I'm beginning to suspect that accessibilityFocusedUIElement is perhaps something meant for you to override, not call?

[aurexav]

I finally resolved it using https://github.com/eiz/accessibility. Thanks.