Script Menu and NSAlert focus

AppleScript
#1

Hi folks,

When I run the following script from the macOS Script Menu, the resulting NSAlert appears but doesn’t have focus. How can I ensure that it gets focus without me having to click on it?

use AppleScript version "2.4"
use scripting additions
use framework "Foundation"
use framework "AppKit"

property NSAlert : a reference to current application's NSAlert

tell NSAlert's alloc()'s init()
	set theAlert to it
	its setMessageText:"The quick brown fox jumps over the dog"
	its setInformativeText:"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt."
	its runModal()
end tell

Should I be telling a process (ScriptMonitor? osascript?) to activate or become frontmost, or am I just out of luck in this scenario? Any advice would be much appreciated.

—Storm

#2

I fear you’re just out of luck.

#3

Script Menu’s AppleScript runtime environment is “osascript”.

http://piyocast.com/as/archives/9004

Script Menu does not have actual GUI (menu and window).
NSAlert within Script Menu will not be displayed in frontmost.

So, you have to add two lines to your script to bring it to front.
And your script does not run on Script Debugger.

You have to add codes to run it in main thread.

http://piyocast.com/as/archives/14133

use AppleScript
use scripting additions
use framework “Foundation”
use framework “AppKit”

property NSAlert : a reference to current application’s NSAlert

my performSelectorOnMainThread:“dispAlert:” withObject:(missing value) waitUntilDone:true

on dispAlert:paramObj
–Move to frontmost (By edama2)
current application’s NSApplication’s sharedApplication()'s setActivationPolicy:(current application’s NSApplicationActivationPolicyRegular)
current application’s NSApp’s activateIgnoringOtherApps:(true)

tell NSAlert’s alloc()'s init()
set theAlert to it
its setMessageText:“The quick brown fox jumps over the dog”
its setInformativeText:“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt.”
its runModal()
end tell
end dispAlert:

#4

Just for what it’s worth, if you use my FastScripts utility instead of the Apple Script Menu, it strives to streamline situations like this so that things are more usable, without any extra effort in the script. In general when a script causes a new window to appear, FastScripts ensures that the process that is running the script becomes frontmost.

FastScripts also requires the changes Piyomaru suggested, to run the alert on the main thread, but if you run the script in FastScripts you wouldn’t have to do the work of requesting that the current application activates.

Sorry for the shameless plug but I’ll also add that if you are just using Apple’s script menu for its menu selection functionality, that’s completely free in FastScripts, and in my opinion it does a better job by covering situations like this more gracefully.