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Feature request: Contextual manual triggers

edited February 2019 in SecuritySpy
This was submitted a while ago and declined. But, my need continues, and has actually grown, so I thought I'd try again...

I would like the ability to trigger an AppleScript action arbitrarily, that is, without requiring a motion or audio trigger. This could be added to the existing contextual menu (right-click in camera window). The feature would add a menu item which, when clicked on, would display a list of available scripts. The list might be contextualized to the camera or simply list all scripts in a pre-defined location.

The purpose of this feature would be to execute some code that would support the use of the camera. Such as, turning on a light, sending a signal to a gate/door opener, enabling a microphone, turning on a speaker, etc.

In my personal case, I have a camera in a chicken coop and at night the lights are normally off. However, I can turn on a light remotely. I have created the script for my light, and it works. However, there is no way to trigger it manually. I also have a DoorBird door/gate control. With this feature I could send a signal to turn on a light and/or open the gate. Also, since the DoorBird's microphone is, by default, disabled, I could enable it.

Comments

  • This contextual menu you are referring to has items specific to the camera that you are clicking on, so it would be inappropriate to list the same scripts in the contextual menu for all cameras. Therefore it would need to be customised per-camera, and there is no easy way we can add this. I just don't think this feature would be useful for most users, and therefore we need to concentrate our development efforts elsewhere.

    However I think I have a good alternative solution for you: Script Editor has a neat feature to enable a script menu at the top right of your screen - see: How to enable the AppleScript menu on the Mac OS X menu bar. Using this menu, you can easily invoke any script placed into ~/Library/Scripts/. This makes it just as easy to invoke custom scripts as the SecuritySpy-based solution that you are proposing.
  • Thank you for the reply. I appreciate the idea of the script menu. However, I was really looking for something that would or could be extended through the app and web interfaces. Also, on my desktop & laptop machines, I have other handy options already available.

    However, I have a suggestion: allow sub-menus under ~/SecuritySpy/Scripts Similar to CapturedFiles/* That would allow the contextualization you want.

    On the other hand, if I am really the only person here who is interested in manually undated actions, then I can see this would not be worth the development time. Hopefully someone else out there will comment.
  • It might help you to know that you can trigger scripts via the web interface. Example URL is as follows:

    http://address:port/++scripts

    This gives you a list of scripts installed on the server; clicking on one will run it on the server.
  • Thank you. I did not know about the URL for scripts. That could work, though, I would still prefer to have the control within the context of the camera window.
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