JXA learning resources?

macOS
1

Hi all -

I have recently developed an interest in learning JXA, but there is a relative dearth of information/tutorials out there. I found a post on MacStories and an interesting GitHub repo, but I cannot find a more formal introduction to JXA (not even from Apple). Anyone know any good resources? I am actually not asking how to learn Javascript - I know plenty of (free) resources for that. I am asking how to use Javascript to automate the Mac.

Thanks!

Cheers,
Mike

2

Have you seen the list of resources here?

3

Thanks for the tip - I have seen several of these resources on various websites, and I think that there is a GitHub repo that tried to centralize all of these…

In the meantime, I did find this repo with some useful stuff on it:

Cheers,
Mike

4

It’s just an instance of JSContext with an Automation library object, the keys of which can be listed (and copied to clipboard) for inspection, by evaluating this snippet:

(() => {
    'use strict';

    // Rob Trew 2020

    // Indented outline of macOS Automation library keys
    // (copied to clipboard)

    ObjC.import('AppKit');

    // main :: IO ()
    const main = () =>
        copyText(
            showOutline(
                keyTree([
                    'Automation', 'name', 'prototype',
                    '__private__', '0', 'length'
                ])('Automation')(Automation)
            )
        );


    // ------------------ NEST OF KEYS -------------------

    // keyTree :: [String] -> String -> 
    // Object -> Tree String
    const keyTree = except =>
        name => obj => {
            const go = (seen, o) =>
                Object.getOwnPropertyNames(o)
                .sort()
                .flatMap(
                    k => !seen.includes(k) ? [
                        Node(k)(
                            go(seen.concat(k), o[k])
                        )
                    ] : []
                );
            return Node(name)(
                go(except, obj)
            );
        };


    // showOutline :: Tree String -> String
    const showOutline = tree => {
        const go = indent => x =>
            unlines(
                [indent + x.root]
                .concat(
                    x.nest.flatMap(
                        go('    ' + indent)
                    )
                )
            );
        return go('')(tree);
    };

    // -------------------- CLIPBOARD --------------------

    // copyText :: String -> IO String
    const copyText = s => {
        const pb = $.NSPasteboard.generalPasteboard;
        return (
            pb.clearContents,
            pb.setStringForType(
                $(s),
                $.NSPasteboardTypeString
            ),
            s
        );
    };

    // ---------------- GENERIC FUNCTIONS ----------------

    // Node :: a -> [Tree a] -> Tree a
    const Node = v =>
        // Constructor for a Tree node which connects a
        // value of some kind to a list of zero or
        // more child trees.
        xs => ({
            type: 'Node',
            root: v,
            nest: xs || []
        });


    // unlines :: [String] -> String
    const unlines = xs =>
        xs.join('\n');

    // MAIN ---
    return main();
})();

They are:

Automation
    Application
        currentApplication
    Library
    ObjC
        $
        Ref
            equals
        bindFunction
        block
        castObjectToRef
        castRefToObject
        deepUnwrap
        dict
        import
        interactWithUser
        registerSubclass
        super
        unwrap
        wrap
    ObjectSpecifier
    Path
    Progress
    delay
    getDisplayString
    initializeGlobalObject
    log