Access "keyword" element of photo within iPhoto - Applescript

Question

I need to access the name property of the keywords for a selection of photos within iPhoto. How can I access the keyword element of those photos? I can get to the properties of the photo but not to the keyword element.

I'm new to Applescript so I apologize if this is very noobish. Thanks for any help you can provide.

Edit: Here's what I've tried.

set keywordsRef to a reference to keyword of p     --p is a photo
set keyName to name of keywordsRef

I get error -1700. Not sure if that helps.

Edit 2:

tell application "iPhoto"
    activate
    try
        set myPhotos to selection

        if myPhotos is false or (the count of myPhotos) is 0 then
            error "Please select an image"
        end if

        repeat with p in myPhotos
            set keyname to the name of keyword 1 of p    --This works.
            set xmldata to xmldata & my addNewPhoto(p)   --Try to get keywords here.
        end repeat
    on error
        --display dialog "Error"
    end try
end tell

on addNewPhoto(p)
    set photodata to "<dict>" & return & my addPhotoName(name of p)  --This works.

    --set keyname to the name of keyword 1 of p            --This gets a syntax error at the "1" after keyword. It expects the end of line.

    set keycount to the count of keywords of p
    repeat with i from 1 to keycount
        --log (the name of keyword i of p as string)        --Syntax error also at "i" after keyword.
    end repeat

    set photodata to photodata & my addPhotoKeywords()
    set photodata to photodata & "</dict>" & return
end addNewPhoto

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 02 '14 at 23:05

Given your photo has keywords, this works for me.

tell application "iPhoto"

    set p to photo id 4.294981127E+9

    set keyname to the name of keyword 1 of p

end tell

To loop thru them:

tell application "iPhoto"

    set p to photo id 4.294981127E+9

    set keycount to the count of keywords of p

    repeat with i from 1 to keycount
        log (the name of keyword i of p as string)
    end repeat

end tell

If these don't work it might be in the way you are initialising the photo (p) variable, if so include that code in your question too.

Yes, those work for me in a new script which gives me hope. I have added code to show how I initialize the photo and pass it to a method where I use it. Thank you! — Patrick Veilleux, Sep 03 '14 at 02:07

Access "keyword" element of photo within iPhoto - Applescript

1 Answers1