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Is it possible, via an AppleScript, a background service or daemon, or any other programmatic way, to catch the following events:

  • a specific app (eg Aperture, Excel ...) being launched,
  • an app being closed or quitting,
  • an app going to the foreground or background ?

Purpose would to be change some system state/pref (eg keyboard layout, screen profile etc) in an app-dependent manner.

Of course, suggestions of existing solutions are welcome.

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You can obtain notifications of applications being launched and quit. Apple's TN2050: Observing Process Lifetimes Without Polling provides the detail.

The best method for general purpose tracking is with NSWorkspace and its NSWorkspaceDidLaunchApplicationNotification and NSWorkspaceDidTerminateApplicationNotification notifications.

I do not believe there is a trivial means to implement these TN2050's methods in AppleScript. You will likely need to write a small Objective-C/Cocoa application or use a third party tool.

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  • Thanks. My Cocoa is a bit old but I should have thought of notifications. Seems to be the right tool indeed. – Alexandre Halm Mar 15 '15 at 13:47

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