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Services broken - MacOS 10.14.4 Accordance 12.3.3


Daniel Saunders

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I'm a regularly user of the Accordance services, but when I went to use them today I got the error "The Acc - Insert Verses service could not be used".

 

When I opened the service in Automator the error message was something about the "Workflow being saved with an older version of Get Text"

 

The 'Get Text from any text' service still works, the bug is only with the single-step 'Insert Verses'.

 

(Sorry for the slightly incorrect title. I didn't test the 'Any Text' service until after I'd posted.)

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Edited by Daniel Saunders
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I am experiencing the same problem. It is only an issue with Pages, after updating today to Pages 8.0. The services work fine in any other application.

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The second of Daniel’s two images showed that he was using Keynote. All the iWork apps were updated by Apple yesterday. It looks like it broke something in our Services for those apps.

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One (temporary) fix that worked for me was to restore the earlier version of Pages (7.3).

 

To do this, open Applications in Finder, then click on the Time Machine icon in the upper right bar (hopefully you had that enabled) and click Enter Time Machine, and then, once it loads, scroll back to yesterday's archive (or whenever it was before you upgraded to Pages 8.0). Then I right-clicked Pages (make sure it's pages 7.3), and clicked "Restore." I had it restore to the desktop, and then I dragged it from there into applications.

 

So now I'm working again with Pages 7.3, and the accordance services work great again.

 

I guess I'll turn off automatic updates until hopefully someone here at Accordance can find a fix for the Services. I use them every day and they are so valuable to me!

Edited by juskajoetagg
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I use the service "Acc - Query Insert Verses NKJVS" which was made from Joe Weaks set. It still works perfectly in both the new Pages 8 and Keynote 9. My presumption is then that it has trouble picking up the selection to do the look up. 

 

The "Get Verses" Command-Option-A also works correctly from Accordance.

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Yes, it's the 8.0 update of iWork that breaks some Services. The good news is that it's nothing unique to the Accordance Services. Since it's a larger audience getting the bug, the fix will arrive sooner.

 

The issue is not in "grabbing the text from the application". That function is still working great, as Tony points out my previous custom Services work perfectly still because they predate the embedded Accordance Actions and official Services.

 

The newest iWork apps are breaking on several Services that use an app-specific Action. After a little evaluation, it looks like Actions/workflows that are calling other frameworks. For instance, the "Get Definition" Services gives the same error. 

 

It is surely permissions related. Tighter sandboxing is great for security but the bane of inter-application scripting processes. I'm afraid we'll have to wait for Apple to fix.

 

I must say (with apologies), it's rather pleasing to that hear folks use something I made enough to even care when it stops working.

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Joe - huge thanks for these services, I use them all the time! Hopefully we can find a work-around for this new restriction.

 

And thanks everyone for checking. Yes, you're spot on that the problem is only with the newest versions of iWork (Pages 8.0 etc.), and it's the same bug in both services. Works perfectly in other apps (e.g. tested in Textedit, Safari). 

 

(Full points for Richard Mansfield noticing the screenshot was from Keynote - impressive!!)

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Thank you for the heads-up! I use the services literally all the time. I'll avoid updating until I hear the problem has been resolved!

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I wish I would have seen this before I updated pages. Functioning without this feature is very difficult.

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I can point you to a substitute Service that works around the current broken ones, until the fix comes.

 

Feel free to let me know which one you need.

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I can point you to a substitute Service that works around the current broken ones, until the fix comes.

 

Feel free to let me know which one you need.

That would be fantastic. I mostly use the "insert verse" service.

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These are broken for me as well. I use the "insert verse" and "view verse" service almost daily. I love the functionality. If there is a workaround I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks Joe.

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My new church is public launching this week, so sorry I've been drowing in things I gotta get done.

 

Pages scripting is an embarassing mess as it is. This new break of Services that using scripting frameworks is just blah. On the bright side, the iWorks team at Apple has actually emailed me about the problem. Maybe they'll actually fix it.

 

For reobtaining similar functions in Pages specifically, you're better off using an AppleScript, rather than a Service. For example:

 

You can download this "Insert Verses" script as a substitute.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/e88ppnd602i9pvh/InsertVersesScript.zip?dl=0

 

Put it in the script menu to have quick access to it. It uses copy & paste to get the search text and place the result. That's not ideal at all. 

See this reference if you need info on the Script Menu.

 

You can also launch the script with your launcher of choice, like FastScripts.

 

You can double-click the script in Finder to see how to adjust which module it uses, and whether it uses Citation Format. You can save several versions with different choices.

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Thanks so much Joe - especially with a big week. Prayed for your new church!

 

Just tested with Pages, and it works as expected. The scripts menu isn't as streamlined as using the services menu (can't right click)...but I can always look into FastScripts or Keyboard Maestro if I want to setup shortcuts.

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I have downloaded FastScripts and this has been a big help to get the Insert Verse working again.

But we have discovered a major limitation for our workflow. If typing in Pages using outline formatting, which we do regularly, the script returns "ERR-A valid book name must be entered at the selection point." It seems that if the outline formatting is used it interferes with the script. Of course we never had this problem with Joe's services. Bummer because we use the Insert Verse so much in outline mode.

 

If anyone has a simple work around for this workflow I would love to know.

 

Thanks

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William,

When you copy from the outline/notebook view in Pages, it adds outline style info (a control characters and a bullet or dash) into the the string that broke the script, even if you copy from the middle of the paragraph.

So, I added a workaround specific for that instance into the new InsertVerses script.

 

Download here.

 

We'll get through this together. 

:D

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Thanks so much Joe. I did download the new script, but it still does not seem to work for me. I tried installing it a couple times.

It only works outside of outline mode and is pulling in the Greek text instead of my first English text.

 

Thank you for your efforts here. 

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Maybe I uploaded the wrong version? This work?

InsertVersesScript.6.zip

 

The module it uses (Greek or otherwise), is a setting in the script.

whichModule: 1

means use the first module in your module list. You'll have to learn how to set that.

 

It works in the notebook template in Pages, which I'm assuming you meant. Pages lost the "Outline" view from the toolbar several versions ago.

 

 

 

 

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Ok, thank you Joe. The new file works great and inserts the first module in the Notebook Template.

But the list style we regularly work in (Harvard) does not work.

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But the list style we regularly work in (Harvard) does not work.

Can you send me a sample document?

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi everyone, I'm facing the same issue with the services no longer working. I tried to downgrade my Pages version, with no results. Then I downloaded the temporary script you're giving but I really don't know how to make it work.

I'm a regularly user of the Accordance services, and this is driving me crazy!

Can anyone help me?

Thanks  

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… I downloaded the temporary script you're giving but I really don't know how to make it work.

 

Maybe just looking at a resource on how to run a script using the systemwide script menu can get you going. Like this one here.

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Maybe just looking at a resource on how to run a script using the systemwide script menu can get you going. Like this one here.

It finally worked!

Thank you very much!

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It finally worked!

Thank you very much!

You're welcome. Post if you have issues.

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  • 3 weeks later...

You're welcome. Post if you have issues.

I have issues. Lots of them if I'm honest, but regarding this, I've added the script to the library list, and it shows up in the list with the script in the menu bar, but I can't get it to actually do anything. Not sure what I've gotten wrong here. I'm generally pretty decent about figuring these things out. Stumped.

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