I've been playing around with automation recently (more on that in a later post), and I thought that being able to control a network attached Onkyo receiver from my Mac sounded like a cool thing to do. Onkyo provide a free iOS app to use as a remote control, so I wondered if there was an API available that would let me do the same thing from a Mac. Then I found that someone had already implemented such as thing: OnkyMote is a great little Mac app (US$2.99) by Tomas Larsson that sits in your menu bar and allows you to power on/off your receiver, select an input source, or adjust the volume.

With the problem half solved, the next step was to use Applescript to control OnkyMote. As a proof of concept, I decided to write and schedule a script that would turn on the radio every day at 7.30am.

The first step was to open the Applescript Editor (In /Applications/Utilities), and enter the following AppleScript:

-- Switch on Tuner with volume 20:
onkyoOn("TUNER", 2) of me

on onkyoOn(input, aVolume)
try
tell application "Finder"
activate
open application file "OnkyMote.app" of folder "Applications" of startup disk
delay 0.5
end tell

tell application "System Events"
tell process "OnkyMote"
-- Click on top level menu, to load the menu, and then select the source
click menu bar item 1 of menu bar 1
click menu item input of menu 1 of menu bar item 1 of menu bar 1

-- Click on top level menu, to load the menu, find and adjust the volume slider

click menu bar item 1 of menu bar 1
set names to name of menu items of menu 1 of menu bar item 1 of menu bar 1
repeat with i from (count of names) to 1 by -1
if item i of names starts with "Volume:" then
set value of slider of menu item (i + 1) of menu 1 of menu bar item 1 of menu bar 1 to aVolume
exit repeat
end if
end repeat

-- Click on the Label to dismiss the menu
click menu item "Devices:" of menu 1 of menu bar item 1 of menu bar 1
end tell
end tell
end try
end onkyoOn

Once the script had compiled successfully (By clicking the Compile button, which also formats the code nicely), I saved the file, ensuring that I selected the file format as "Application".

I then configured the application to be an alert for a new repeating iCal event, selecting an alert type of "Open File", and selecting the application file.

And that's pretty much it - with this initial script working, it now allows my Mac mini to switch on the receiver, select itself as the source, and play any audio I want when a particular event occurs, and that opens up all sorts of automation possibilities for the future....