Using Python in Place of AppleScript

To avoid all the out-dated and so-called "crappy" modules including PyObjC, one can simply debug a script in the Script Editor or Script Debugger (my choice) and then execute it using osascript via Popen. I prefer this so I can ensure the idiosyncrasies of the applications implementation are worked around and Script Debugger has great debugging and browsing tools.

For example:

from subprocess import Popen, PIPE

def get_front_win_id():
    """
    Get window id of front Chrome browser window
    """
    script = '''
        on run {}
            set winID to 0
            tell application "Google Chrome"
                set winID to id of front window
                return winID
            end tell
        end run
    '''
    args = []
    p = Popen(['/usr/bin/osascript', '-'] + args,
              stdin=PIPE, stdout=PIPE, stderr=PIPE)
    stdout, stderr = p.communicate(script)
    winID = stdout.strip()
    return int(winID)

Pass args in a list to osascript but they have to be strings so complex data structures can be tedious to marshal and and unmarshal but there is a price for the simplicity. I left off error checking and exception handling/raising for simplicity. TANSTAAFL

While you can produce convoluted python that invokes the same Apple Events as AppleScript, some things are handled more easily in AppleScript.

It's easy enough to execute some AS in python though:

from Foundation import NSAppleScript
textOfMyScript = """
   *(Your AppleScript Here)*
"""
myScript = NSAppleScript.initWithSource_(NSAppleScript.alloc(), textOfMyScript)
results, err = myScript.executeAndReturnError_(None)

The results are an NSAppleEventDescriptor, if you need to get data out.

With Cocoa you can send events directly using AESendMessage. It is a lot more work though. Here is a gist which provides an example:

https://gist.github.com/pudquick/9683c333e73a82379b8e377eb2e6fc41

Can't really replace it but there is a wrapper available for it: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/py-applescript/1.0.0... so you can interact with it from within your python program.