Is there any other way to get foreground window title in macOS other than AppleScript

Question

I want to get the foreground window title in macOS.

I have tried using AppleScript for this, it works but is very slow.

Here is the AppleScript code:

tell application "System Events"
    set frontApp to name of first application process whose frontmost is true
end tell
tell application frontApp
    if the (count of windows) is not 0 then
        set window_name to name of front window
    end if
end tell

It takes a lot of time when we run this using Java.

Is there any other efficient solution to this?

Answer 1

I haven't used Java in ages, so I don't remember how it accesses frameworks (assuming I ever knew), but the framework you want is Quartz Window Services. These methods give you access to the window server, which manages all of the onscreen windows.

Answer 2

This AppleScript code works for me using the latest version of macOS Mojave.

For me, this AppleScript code is lightning fast.

try
    tell application "System Events" to tell (process 1 whose it is frontmost) ¬
        to tell (window 1 whose value of attribute "AXMain" is true) ¬
        to set windowTitle to value of attribute "AXTitle"
end try