How to make this script successfully trigger at a certain time?

Question

I'm not an AppleScript coder or a technical person by any means but I have done some research and came across a solution for my problem statement.

My problem statement

How to make a mouse click happen at a specified time.

To that end, I have found a simple script online that makes the mouse cursor click.

Here it is.

tell application "System Events"
    click
end tell

And now, I am trying to trigger this script at a certain using launchd. I have created a plist file under the "LaunchAgents" folder in Library as you can see in the screenshot below.

I have configured this plist file to trigger the script at 6AM my time. I even open the webpage and position my cursor just above the item that I want clicked in order to reduce complexity.

Coding of the plist file

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.mouseclick.plist</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/usr/bin/osascript</string>
        <string>/Users/mugenvoid/Downloads/mouseclick.scpt</string>
    </array>
    <key>StartCalendarInterval</key>
    <dict>
        <key>Hour</key>
        <integer>6</integer> <!-- Adjust the hour as needed -->
        <key>Minute</key>
        <integer>10</integer> <!-- Adjust the minute as needed -->
    </dict>
</dict>
</plist>

But for the life of me, I just cannot get it to trigger at the concerned time even after I load this plist file into launchd.

This is the guide I've been trying to use --> https://www.maketecheasier.com/use-launchd-run-scripts-on-schedule-macos/

Would appreciate some help here.

Answer 1

Here is an example mouse click (that works for me) using safari.

tell application "Safari"
    activate -- bring safari to front
    tell application "System Events"
        tell application process "Safari"
            set xy to click at {250, 675}
        end tell
    end tell
end tell

Notice the result: The 'element' at the click point is a link to a web site.

static text "example.com" of UI element "example.com" of group 2 of list 6 of ¬
    UI element 1 of scroll area 1 of group 1 of group 1 of tab group 1 of ¬
    splitter group 1 of window "net links" of application process "Safari"

I can also click the link by referring to its element directly. To do this, replace the click at command line with the following commands. This would be more robust than clicking a spot on the screen.

set xy to static text "example.com" of UI element "example.com" of group 2 of list 6 of ¬
    UI element 1 of scroll area 1 of group 1 of group 1 of tab group 1 of ¬
    splitter group 1 of window "net links" of application process "Safari"
click xy

It assigns the reference to the variable xy and then clicks it. You could consolidate the two lines into one but I think it's clearer this way.

It may be possible to get the equivalent for whatever app is in your screen shot.

By the way, that's one of the reasons that chatgpt shouldn't be sourced for code here. It seems to often produce code that looks sensible but does nothing. There are some questions here (and on stackoverflow) which explain in detail how to script the user interface; try searching for a combination of applescript and ui scripting.