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Use AppleScript to generate an enum for SF Symbols
source link: https://diamantidis.github.io/2020/06/28/applescript-to-generate-enum-for-sf-symbols
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SF Symbols is a great way to add symbols in apps. Introduced during WWDC 2019, and with a new updated version this year, the SF Symbols app now provides more than 2300 symbols, supports iOS, Mac Catalyst, tvOS, and watchOS and now macOS, and offers many more features, like multicolor support, RTL, etc.
But despite its greatness, it comes with some shortcomings when we have to use those symbols from an app. The provided APIs expect a hard-coded string literal for the name of the SF Symbol
. This makes their usage susceptible to errors since we will not get notified by the compiler if we accidentally mistype the name.
Wouldn’t it be much better if we were to have a type-safe solution? Maybe an enum?
That’s the problem we will try to solve in this post. We will create a script using AppleScript
which will open the SF Symbols
app, traverse the list of symbols and generate an enum with a case for each symbol.
Script Overview
To start with, we will use the Script Editor
app to write the AppleScript
. Before we start writing the script, let’s try to figure out the steps we will take on the SF Symbols
app. First, we will open the app. Then, we will select the list layout. Choosing the list layout instead of the grid will make it much easier to traverse the list of symbols.
After that, we will select the option All
from the Categories
menu to make sure that the output will contain the full list of options. Then, we will loop through the symbols, and for each one, we will create an enum case of the format case <name> = <sf symbol name>
.
Let’s see the script!
Preparation
We will first define some helper functions to compute the identifier that we will use for the case.
This identifier should be a valid one, so we have to cater for some edge cases. In some cases, the names of some SF Symbols are reserved keywords in Swift, like return
and repeat
. Since we cannot use those words for the case identifier, we will escape them with the backtick
symbol ( `
).
on convertReservedKeywords(theText) set keywords to {"repeat", "return", "case"} set theNewText to theText if keywords contains (theText as string) then set theNewText to "`" & theText & "`" end if return theNewText end convertReservedKeywords
Another such case is the SF Symbols
starting with a number literal, like 0.square
. In that scenario, we will prepend the name with the string literal number
.
on handleNameRestrictions(theText) set theNewText to theText set firstCharacter to text 1 of theText if isNumber(firstCharacter) then set theNewText to "number" & theText end if return convertReservedKeywords(theNewText) end handleNameRestrictions on isNumber(theString) try set theString to theString as number return true on error return false end try end isNumber
Also, as you may have noticed, a lot of the SF Symbols
are using the dot ( .
) on their name, which is another invalid character for the case identifier. To solve this issue, we will convert the name of the symbol to a camelCase string that we will use as the identifier. To do so, we will remove the dot and instead capitalize the first letter after the dot.
on toCamelCase(theText) set theNewText to "" set dotIsFound to false repeat with aCharacter in theText if (aCharacter as string) is equal to "." then set dotIsFound to true else if dotIsFound then set theNewText to (theNewText & toCapitalized(aCharacter)) as string else set theNewText to theNewText & aCharacter end if set dotIsFound to false end if end repeat return theNewText end toCamelCase on toCapitalized(theText) set theNewText to "" set theComparisonCharacters to "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz" set theSourceCharacters to "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ" set firstCharacter to text 1 of theText set stringLength to the length of theText set restOfText to "" if stringLength is greater than 1 then set restOfText to text 2 thru -1 of theText end if set theOffset to offset of firstCharacter in theComparisonCharacters if theOffset is not 0 then set theNewText to (theNewText & character theOffset of theSourceCharacters & restOfText) as string else set theNewText to (theNewText & firstCharacter & restOfText) as string end if return theNewText end toCapitalized
Implementation
With all those functions in place, we can now shift our focus on the part of our program that will interact with the SF Symbols
app.
activate application "SF Symbols" tell application "System Events" tell process "SF Symbols" -- Click the “list” radio button. click radio button 2 of radio group 1 of group 3 of toolbar 1 of window 0 tell outline 1 of scroll area 1 of splitter group 1 of window 0 select (row 1 where value of static text 1 of UI element 1 starts with "All") end tell set enumCases to "" repeat with sfSymbolRow in rows of table 1 of scroll area 1 of group 1 of splitter group 1 of window 0 set sfSymbolName to value of static text 1 of UI element 2 of sfSymbolRow set caseIdentifier to my toCamelCase(my handleNameRestrictions(sfSymbolName)) set enumCases to enumCases & " case " & caseIdentifier & " = \"" & sfSymbolName & "\" " end repeat set startOfEnum to "public enum SFSymbol: String, CaseIterable { " set endOfEnum to "}" set enum to startOfEnum & enumCases & endOfEnum set the clipboard to {text:(enum as string), Unicode text:enum} enum end tell end tell
In this snippet, we initially select the list layout and the option All
from the Categories
as we explained earlier. Then, we create a string variable that will gather all the enum cases. After that, we loop through the SF Symbols
, and for each one of them, we use the functions we defined earlier to compute the identifier of the case. Then, we append a new case to the string we defined outside of the loop.
After the loop, we will define two more variables that will contain the definition and the trailing bracket of the enum respectively. We will then, merge those three variables to construct a variable with the final version of the enum.
Finally, we will add this to the clipboard to make it easier to paste on the project and use it as the output of the script.
And that’s about it when it comes to the script!
But what about SF Symbols 2?
This script is also compatible with the new version of the SF Symbols
app with only a minor change. Just replace the two occurrences of "SF Symbols"
to "SF Symbols beta"
.
A word of caution, though: be extra careful because there are some new SF Symbols
that are only available on the latest OS versions while some others like the bin.xmark
are deprecated in favor of new ones ( xmark.bin
).
You can find the script as well as the enums generated from both the SF Symbols
and SF Symbols 2
app on this GitHub Gist .
Let’s now see how we can run it!
How to run
You can use either the Script Editor
app or the Terminal
app. If you use the Script Editor
app, press the play button or use the shortcut Command ( ⌘
) + R.
If you decide to run the script from the Terminal
, you can use the command osascript <name of the script>.scpt
. The output of this command will be the enum, which you can redirect to a Swift file on your project: osascript <name of the script>.scpt > GeneratedSFSymbols.swift
.
![me2ARb6.png!web](https://img0.tuicool.com/me2ARb6.png!web)
TIP: You can place the script on a specific folder and then use the absolute path of this folder to create an alias on your ~/.bash_profile
or ~/.zshrc
file.
alias sfsymbols='<path to the script>/<name of the script>.scpt'
.
This will allow you to run this script with ease from any project: sfsymbols > GeneratedSFSymbols.swift
INFO : Regardless of how you run the script, you will probably get a prompt to grant Accessibility Access like in the following screenshot. To grant the required access, go to
System Preferences
> Security & Privacy
> Privacy
> Accessibility
and select the program that you are using to run the script.
Now that we have added the enum in our project, it’s time to find out how we can use it!
How to use
You can simply add an extension for the component you are interested in.
For example, if you are using SwiftUI, you can add an extension to the Image
struct:
import SwiftUI @available(iOS 13.0, macOS 10.15, tvOS 13.0, watchOS 6.0, *) public extension Image { /// Creates an image object containing a system symbol image. /// /// - Parameter sfSymbol: The name of the `SFSymbol` /// - Usage /// ``` /// Image(sfSymbol: .checkmarkCircleFill) /// ``` @available(OSX, unavailable) init(sfSymbol: SFSymbol) { self.init(systemName: sfSymbol.rawValue) } }
Similarly, if you are using UIKit’s UIImage, you can use the following extension:
import UIKit @available(iOS 13.0, *) public extension UIImage { /// Creates an image object containing a system symbol image. /// /// - Parameter sfSymbol: The name of the `SFSymbol` /// - Usage /// ``` /// UIImage(sfSymbol: .checkmarkCircleFill) /// ``` convenience init?(sfSymbol: SFSymbol) { self.init(systemName: sfSymbol.rawValue) } }
Conclusion
And that’s about it! In this post, we have seen how we can utilize the ability of AppleScript to interact with other macOS apps to generate an enum for all the symbols on the SF Symbols
app. This will alleviate all the pains that come with the use of an error-prone string literal when we create an Image based on an SF Symbol
. Instead, with this enum we will be able to create those Images in a type-safe manner.
Thanks for reading, I hope you find this post useful.
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Until next time!
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