Hey everyone, I briefly used UI Browser 3 for about a week a while back and absolutely loved it. At the moment funds were kind of scarce so I told myself that I’d buy it if and when the need for it arose again. Needless to say, the need arose but I was too late.
I’ve tried using XCode to assemble UI Browser 4 (I’m on Monterey) and succeeded in building it but unfortunately, it just doesn’t want to play ball at the moment. I’ve also tried using the Accessibility Inspector to get a view of the hierarchy for UI Elements but it’s very clunky to work with.
I looked into Script Debugger to see if I might be able to use that to do what I once did with UI Browser but alas, I haven’t been able to.
I was wondering if anyone here might be able to enlighten me as to how you all are getting on without UI Browser or perhaps even (I don’t know if this is even allowed, forgive me if not) if I could buy or obtain a key for UI Browser 3 anywhere?
I looked into why UI Browser was discontinued and it makes sense, I just wish I could’ve had the foresight to buy it then!
Anyhow, any info would be tremendously appreciated.
@plobby Did you ever find an alternative? For me, using UI Browser was great for grabbing the path to an element, though I missed th boat on buying a license. It would be nice if a license could be shared that could activate the product, or a version be published that removes license checks, considering it is no longer for sale.
Alternatively it would be nice to see some of the features added into SD!
Hey @BytesGuy, unfortunately not! That being said, maybe if more and more people chime in to this thread stating that they’re also looking for that functionality we might be able to see it implemented into SD later on?
Have you tried UIElementInspector? It’s an old sample project from Apple but I still find it nicer to use than Accessibility Inspector. You can download the sample code here, which includes a prebuilt app: UIElementInspector
Also, since UI Browser 3 is fully abandoned, I hope it’s not inappropriate to hint at another potential solution to your problem. I’ll just say you might find a hidden, peculiarly-named plist file inside ~/Library/Logs that can be deleted to help “extend” your trial.
There are some UI features in the SD App Explorer. Open the System Events dictionary, switch to explorer mode, look at the application process you want to control.
UI Browser reads a hidden file at ~/Library/Logs/K6J1GI(IkG.plist to determine trial duration. If you delete that file while the app isn’t running then the next time it launches with a new trial. Not the cleanest workaround, but it can be easily automated by triggering on app termination.
