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Hi, everyone! I’ve just started working with iOS Shortcuts (with a very specific project in mind) and I hit some limitations that led me to Scriptable and from there to here. I’m not a python developer but I’ve been wanting to learn for some time, now. (And Pythonista seems like a great way to do it!)

I’ve skimmed through the docs (though, as a python pre-noob, there’s a lot that I don’t understand) but here are the questions I still have...

1. Is Pythonista more powerful/limited than the iOS Shortcuts app?
2. Is Pythonista still being actively developed. No sunset on the horizon?
3. Is there a way to get data from Pythonista to a Shortcut and vice versa? (In Shortcuts, I’ve been using specially titled notes in Evernote to store things like a counter. I wanted to use plain old text files but couldn’t find a way to do that. Does iOS have something akin to the Windows registry that’s accessible to both Pythonista and Shortcuts —where things can be stored/modified/updated/deleted?)
4. Can I use Pythonista to write events to my calendar? The docs talk about Contacts and the Reminders database but I didn’t see anything about calendar/events.
5. Could I use Pythonista to send an email (specifying the recipient, subject, and message body in the code) say, a week from now?
6. As I understand it, there’s a hard limitation that won’t allow automations to be triggered by geolocation. Could I trigger an automation - whenever I unlock my phone - that checks my geolocation to see if there’s an automation that should be run there and asks me for permission to do so?
7. How good is Pythonista at text to speech and speech to text? So far, I’m really pleased with Shortcuts ability to prompt me for input then immediately going into dictation mode. That’s something I plan to use heavily for my project.

I’m sure I’ll think of lots more but I’ll stop there for now.
Thanks for your time and consideration!

@donnybahama

1. more powerful
2. enough actively for me, not enough for some people
3. yes
4. yes
5. yes, via a notification that you will need to tap in one week
6. you can have notifications triggered by geolocation and you will have to tap it to start automation process Python script. Thus, you don't need to check yourself if your location is ok for your process
7. as good as Shortcuts

Thank you, cvp! (Is that a Bearded Collie in your profile pic?) I just went to the AppStore and bought Pythonista. I’m really looking forward to learning Python!

I have a few more questions...
1. Can I have a script tap/click at specific coordinates?
2. Can I send keystrokes to an app?
3. If I don’t use any iOS-specific commands, could my scripts (including GUIs designed in Pythonista) be run on other operating systems (Windows/MacOS/Linux)?
4. Can I use Pythonista (and its GUI to write WatchOS apps?

@donnybahama said:

Is that a Bearded Collie in your profile pic

That's not a technical question, thus I can answer. 😂
The father is a bearded collie and the mother is ...... a ..... French bulldog...
Yes, don't ask me how they did it.

@donnybahama said:

Can I have a script tap/click at specific coordinates?

You can set a notification that you will receive (be notified) when you arrive at a specific location (with some precision) and you can run a script by tapping on this notification. Due to my poor English, I'm not sure it is what you want.

@donnybahama said:

could my scripts (including GUIs designed in Pythonista) be run on other operating systems (Windows/MacOS/Linux)?

Gui is Pythonista only

@donnybahama said:

Can I use Pythonista (and its GUI to write WatchOS apps?

No

@donnybahama said:

Can I send keystrokes to an app?

I don't understand the question, sorry

Due to app sandbox restrictions you really cannot interact with other apps except via
1) shortcuts app, if the app provides shortcut support
2) url schemes define by the app. Some support x-callback-url scheme, allowing for calling back into pythonista when the app is done. But otherwise, things are usually one way -- you ask another app to do something, and have to manually go back to pythonista.
3) share icons -- you can initiate a share from another app, and get a document that the pythonista appex module can
get access to.

So, no simulating taps or keyboard events that get sent to other apps...
to get passed back

Thank you, JonB!

I constantly read the smaller articles as well as clarify their motives, and that also happens with this article!
Friv 2020