Papers is very AppleScriptable, however its object model is a bit arcane and lacking some basic things like the selection.
This will work ONLY if the front document is open and NOT in a library-viewer-window-preview – AND if there is only 1 highlight.
tell application "Papers"
set displayedPub to displayed publications of front library window
if length of displayedPub = 1 then
set displayedPub to item 1 of displayedPub
else
error "Number of documents!"
end if
tell displayedPub
set displayedPubOriginalPath to original path of its primary file item
set docCiteKey to its citekey
end tell
set theHighlightItem to first highlight item where its source file's original path is displayedPubOriginalPath
tell theHighlightItem to set highlightText to its source text
end tell
highlightText & linefeed & linefeed & docCiteKey
As far as I can tell there is NO way to determine if a highlight is selected.
I’m reasonably impressed with their AppleScript Getting Started Page:
-Chris