China
Africa
Explore chapters and articles related to this topic
Automation with AppleScript
Published in Cliff Wootton, Developing Quality Metadata, 2009
If you are building a workflow on the Mac OS X operating system, you can exploit the capabilities of AppleScript. It is designed around a model that depends on the application developers providing support while Apple engineers the framework. Some applications are better supported than others. There is a great deal of help online, with many sample scripts to mine for ideas that you can recycle in your own designs.
Screenomics: A Framework to Capture and Analyze Personal Life Experiences and the Ways that Technology Shapes Them
Published in Human–Computer Interaction, 2021
Byron Reeves, Nilam Ram, Thomas N. Robinson, James J. Cummings, C. Lee Giles, Jennifer Pan, Agnese Chiatti, Mj Cho, Katie Roehrick, Xiao Yang, Anupriya Gagneja, Miriam Brinberg, Daniel Muise, Yingdan Lu, Mufan Luo, Andrew Fitzgerald, Leo Yeykelis
The data collection module includes software that captures screenshots at researcher-chosen intervals, stores them on local devices, and encrypts and transmits bundles of screenshots to research servers at intervals that accommodate constraints in bandwidth and device memory. In-house applications take screenshots at periodic intervals (e.g., every 5 s that the device is in use), and store those images in a local folder. Once or twice per day the folder is encrypted, transmitted and then deleted from the laptop or smartphone. Data collection on Android devices (Lollipop OS) is done with a two-component application that uses functions in the Media Projection Library to capture a short three-frame video of the screen action at a regular interval set by the researcher. One frame from each video is retained and stored in a local folder. AlarmManager functions are used to invoke periodic transfer of bundled and encrypted screenshots to the research server when the device has a wireless connection, is plugged in or has reached a pre-determined memory limit. Helper functions ensure that the application starts automatically on device reboot, and allow for remote updating. The application enables capture of a continuous stream of screenshots without any participant intervention, without excessive battery drain, and (based on participant debriefing) without undue influence on individuals’ normal device use (also see notes in Section 6.0). Applications for Mac and PC work similarly, but retain screenshots directly (rather than retain a video image). The Mac application, coded in AppleScript and shell script, takes screenshots at researcher-specified intervals, and saves to a local folder that is then periodically encrypted and sent to the research server. Application startup is managed through placement in the operating system’s launch daemon. For Windows computers, we used a commercial application, TimeSnapper (version 3.9.0.3), to take the screenshots. The software was set to launch automatically at computer startup and take screenshots every 5 s. A separate application periodically encrypts the data and sends it to the research server. New versions of the applications for each platform are further optimizing functionality, including a subject enrollment interface and researcher data collection management tools.