Automating iTunes mouse click in Objective-C

Question

I am trying to automate a left mouse click in iTunes from Objective-C. I am doing the following.

1. first I am listening to iTunes events

   [[NSDistributedNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self
                                                    selector:@selector(allDistributedNotifications:)
                                                    name:nil
                                                    object:nil];
   

2. when the allDistributedNotifications is called I do the following:

   - (void) allDistributedNotifications:(NSNotification *)note {
       NSString *object = [note object];
       NSString *name = [note name];
       NSDictionary *userInfo = [note userInfo];
       NSLog(@"object: %@ name: %@ userInfo: %@",object, name, userInfo);
   
       if([object isEqualToString:@"com.apple.iTunes.dialog"]&& [userInfo objectForKey:@"Showing Dialog"] == 0){
           NSLog(@"*** ended iTunes Dialogue");
       }
   
       if([name isEqualToString:@"com.apple.iTunes.sourceSaved"]){
           NSLog(@"*** iTunes saved to file");
           currentURLIndex +=1;
           [self loadWithData:[itmsURLs objectAtIndex:currentURLIndex] fromBot:YES];
       }
   }
   

3. LoadWithData looks like this

   -(void) loadWithData:(NSURL*) url fromBot:(BOOL)aBot
   {
       BOOL success;
   
       success = [[NSWorkspace sharedWorkspace] openURLs:[NSArray arrayWithObject:url]
                 withAppBundleIdentifier:@"com.apple.itunes"
                 options:NSWorkspaceLaunchDefault
                 additionalEventParamDescriptor:nil
                 launchIdentifiers:nil];
       if(success){
           [numAppsDownloaded setStringValue:[NSString stringWithFormat:   @"%lu",currentURLIndex+1]];
       }
       if(success && aBot){
           [self performSelector:@selector(clickDownload) withObject:nil afterDelay:0.5];
       }
    }
   

4. clickdownload in turn looks like this

   -(void) clickDownload
   {
       NSPoint mouseLoc;
   
       mouseLoc                = [NSEvent mouseLocation]; //get current mouse position
       CGPoint point           = CGPointMake(mouseLoc.x, mouseLoc.y);
   
       CGEventRef theEvent;
       CGEventType type;
   
       CGMouseButton button    = kCGMouseButtonLeft;
   
       type                    = kCGEventLeftMouseDown; // kCGEventLeftMouseDown = NX_LMOUSEDOWN,
       theEvent                = CGEventCreateMouseEvent(NULL,type, point, button);
   
       NSEvent* downEvent      = [NSEvent eventWithCGEvent:theEvent];
       [self forwardEvent:downEvent];
   
       [NSThread sleepForTimeInterval:0.2];
   
       type                    = kCGEventLeftMouseUp;
       theEvent                = CGEventCreateMouseEvent(NULL,type, point, button);
       NSEvent* upEvent        = [NSEvent eventWithCGEvent:theEvent];
       [self forwardEvent:upEvent];
   }
   

   5.Finally, forwardEvent looks like this

   - (void)forwardEvent: (NSEvent *)event
   {
       NSLog(@"event: %@",event);
   
       pid_t PID;
       NSInteger WID;
   
       // get the iTunes Window ID
   
       NSArray* windows    =  (NSArray*)CGWindowListCopyWindowInfo(kCGWindowListOptionOnScreenOnly | kCGWindowListExcludeDesktopElements, kCGNullWindowID);
   
       NSEnumerator* windowEnumerator = [windows objectEnumerator];
   
       while( (window = [windowEnumerator nextObject] ) )
       {
           if([[(NSDictionary*) window objectForKey:@"kCGWindowName"]  isEqualToString:@"iTunes"])
               WID = (NSInteger)[(NSDictionary*) window objectForKey:@"kCGWindowNumber"];
       }
   
       ProcessSerialNumber psn;
       CGEventRef CGEvent;
       NSEvent *customEvent;
   
       NSPoint mouseLoc        = [NSEvent mouseLocation]; //get current mouse position
       NSPoint clickpoint      = CGPointMake(mouseLoc.x, mouseLoc.y);
   
       customEvent = [NSEvent mouseEventWithType: [event type]
                                  location: clickpoint
                             modifierFlags: [event modifierFlags] | NSCommandKeyMask
                                 timestamp: [event timestamp]
                              windowNumber: WID
                                   context: nil
                               eventNumber: 0
                                clickCount: 1
                                  pressure: 0];
   
       CGEvent = [customEvent CGEvent];
   
       // get the iTunes PID
   
       NSRunningApplication* app;
   
       NSArray* runningApps = [[NSWorkspace sharedWorkspace] runningApplications];
   
       NSEnumerator* appEnumerator = [runningApps objectEnumerator];
   
       while ((app = [appEnumerator nextObject]))
       {
           if ([[app bundleIdentifier] isEqualToString:@"com.apple.iTunes"])
   
               PID = [app processIdentifier];
       }
       NSLog(@"found iTunes: %d %@",(int)PID,WID);
   
       NSAssert(GetProcessForPID(PID, &psn) == noErr, @"GetProcessForPID failed!");
   
       CGEventPostToPSN(&psn, CGEvent);
   }
   

The problem is that I cannot see the mouse click being performed.

Answer 1

You are sending left mouse button events with NSCommandKeyMask. For right click equivalent (i.e. control-click) you would want to use NSControlKeyMask. Alternatively you could just use right mouse button events without a modifier mask.