node-selection

Get current selected text by using system accessibility APIs

Installation

npm i node-selection

Usage

Accessibility permissions

macOS requires accessibility permissions to be granted before a program can control the Mac by using accessibility features.

checkAccessibilityPermissions([options])

• options: <Object>
  • prompt: <boolean> Default: false

Returns: <Promise> Fullfills upon success with a boolean indicating whether accessibility permissions have been granted to this program.

If prompt is true, a prompt window will be shown when accessibility permissions have not been granted.

If this method is invoked on non-macOS platform, it always returns true.

import { checkAccessibilityPermissions } from 'node-selection';

if (!(await checkAccessibilityPermissions({ prompt: true }))) {
  console.log('grant accessibility permissions and restart this program');
  process.exit(1);
}

Selection

getSelection()

Returns: <Promise> Fullfills upon success with an object with one property:

• text: <string> | <undefined> Current selected text.
• process: Object | <undefined>
  • pid: <number> | <undefined> The process ID.
  • name: <string> | <undefined> The filename of the process.
  • bundleIdentifier: <string> | <undefined> The bundle identifier of the process (macOS only).

import { getSelection } from 'node-selection';

try {
  const { text, process } = await getSelection();
  console.log('current selection:', { text, process });
} catch (error) {
  // no valid selection
  console.error('error', error);
}

Examples

• Node
• Electron