Move Cursor to a Specific Tabbed Field

[JMichaelTX]

@MartinPacker

So the whole point of the original question was whether a key combo could reliably get the cursor to the first tabbable field.

@MartinPacker, I thought I covered that. You don't need to do anything. When you open the "Save" dialog the same first tabbable field is selected:

@JMichaelTX

Fortunately, I have found that the macOS Open and Save dialogs to be very consistent, always starting with the focus on the file name at the top of the dialog.

@MartinPacker

And then tab forwards from there. Likewise the last.

After the Save dialog is opened, a single TAB moves to the next field. a single SHIFT-TAB moves to the "last" tabbable field. It takes only four SHIFT-TABs to move to the "Save as Type" field.

@MartinPacker

The relevance to Keyboard Maestro is that a reliable mechanism to do just this could form a part of lots of automations.

Pretty much every dialog I have used always opens to the "First" tabbable field, and consistently does that until/if there is a change in the dialog. So we really don't need KM to do anything special.

@MartinPacker

I tried using the latest release of UI Browser for some investigation and it came up short. It doesn’t do pop up dialogs at all well. (Either that or I’m using it wrong.)

It depends on the type of popup. If it is a static set of items, then UI Browser works quite well. However, if it is a dynamic set of items, that are not determined until the user clicks on the popup, then UI Browser has a hard time working well with the popup.

@MartinPacker

I tried using the latest release of UI Browser for some investigation and it came up short. It doesn’t do pop up dialogs at all well. (Either that or I’m using it wrong.) Two problems:

1. It couldn’t produce AppleScript to acquire the dialog when on screen.
2. It couldn’t produce AppleScript to interact with the dialog’s controls.

Take a look at Chris @ccstone's script. I'm pretty sure he used UI Browser to get the object references, although in a different format than he presented.

IAC, if you have not seen this video by @DanThomas, you may find it very helpful:

TUTORIAL VIDEO: Using UI Browser and Keyboard Maeastro

@MartinPacker

But for now the “blunderbuss my way with keystrokes” method is what I have “in Production”, dismal though it seems to me.

Two sayings have helped guide me for decades:

1. Better is the enemy of good enough
2. KISS -- Keep It Simple Stupid

Oh, and one more:
3. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.