How to Click Links in a Coherence (Chrome) Browser

I just started playing around with an app call Coherence Pro which basically creates standalone "apps" using the google chrome browser which is really quite awesome. No more hunting for the right tab across 100's of tabs!

The problem I'm running into is there doesn’t seem to be a way, that I can find, to click links or use any of the "Google Chrome Control" actions using KM on one of these apps. I tried using both Google Chrome Controls as well as Front Browser Controls neither of which worked.

Basically all I'm looking to do at this point is hook up some hotkey triggers to activate a link in the browser for which I need Document Title, Document URL, and Click Link actions.

My guess is that even though these apps are just google chrome browsers they aren't being recognized as such and therefore none of these actions are working.

Any ideas on how to get this working?

Thanks

Hey @s.newave,

Right – and no surprise.

These apps are no longer Google Chrome and cannot be addressed as such.

Take one of the apps and drop it on the Apple Script Editor.app – if you get a sdef (scripting dictionary) then you should be able to script the app with AppleScript and JavaScript via AppleScript.

Keyboard Maestro's Chrome actions won't work, but they're basically AppleScript under-the-hood and can be replicated with plain old AppleScript.

Report back and we'll go on (or not) from there.

-Chris

Hi @ccstone, thanks for the response.

Good news is that each of these "apps" show up in the Script Editor Dictionary and seem to have the exact same classes/commands as Google Chrome.

Hey @s.newave,

Great. Then all we need to know is how to talk to them.

Paste this into the Script Editor.app.

tell application "Finder"
   set finderSelectionList to selection as alias list
   if length of finderSelectionList = 0 then error "No files were selected in the Finder!"
   set theItem to item 1 of finderSelectionList
   set itemProperties to properties of theItem
   set itemID to id of itemProperties
   
   set the clipboard to itemID
   return itemID
   
end tell

Select one of these apps in the Finder.

Run the script from the Script Editor.

R or the Run button (which looks like a left-pointing triangle.

The app's bundle id will be copied to the clipboard.

Post that, and we'll go from there.

-Chris

Ok, here's one I tried: "com.BZG.CoherenceKrusader"

After trying a couple of other apps it seems like the pattern is "com.BZG.Coherence{appname}>"

Okay, let's try this:

Working example:

tell application id "com.apple.finder"
   activate
end tell

Try this with your Coherence app:

tell application "com.BZG.Coherence{appname}>"
   activate
end tell

If that works then you're cookin' with gas.

-Chris

Ugh, looks we've hit a road block :frowning_face:.... when I try to activate the app it pops the dictionary asking me where the app is. When I select it it changes the script to:

tell application "Google Chrome"
   activate
end tell

Well, that's pesky

The Coherence demo fails to work on my macOS 10.12.6 system, so I can't test.

I've sent a bug-report to the developer.

-Chris

Oy, that doesn’t sound too encouraging.

Hopefully he updates it for 10.12

Hey @s.newave,

It turns out that all I had to do to fix Coherence was update where it thought Google Chrome was.

It thought it knew the right path, but what it thought was wrong – and it apparently doesn't have sufficient error-checking.

I fooled with Coherence 6 and Coherence Pro, and neither one of them produced an app that worked properly with AppleScript (for me).

I remembered I saw somewhere that Chrome itself could make site-specific-browsers, so I did a little research.

The preferred method described here works:

Make Site-Specific Browsers with Google Chrome

I made a Gmail App with it, and both AppleScript and Keyboard Maestro can see it properly.

If you want to support the author of Coherence then you might do some bug reporting, but now you have at least one viable option.

-Chris

Dude, you rock.....seriously!!!

Thank you for going out of your way to find and test this approach. I remember looking into this a while back and came away with the conclusion that you couldn’t do this on a Mac...so glad to find this bundle.

I got one of these apps up and running however I still haven’t been able to get KM working correctly with these apps. I created some “Front Browser”” but they only seem to work in chrome?

Do I need to use applescript inside of KM to get this working?

The Front Browser actions will only work in Safari and Google Chrome.

Yes, you need to use pure AppleScript.

See the Execute an AppleScript action.

-Chris