How do I set the number of decimals in a Numbers cell using AppleScript? - numbers

Question

I can set the format of a cell in a Numbers spreadsheet using:
tell application "Numbers"
activate
tell document 1
tell active sheet
set the selectedTable to ¬
(the first table whose class of selection range is range)
end tell
tell selectedTable
tell column "J"
set the format of cell 3 to number
end tell
end tell
end tell
end tell
But how do I set the number of decimal places of the cell?

Answer 1

Unfortunately the AppleScript dictionary of Numbers does not support to set the decimal places, however you can do it with GUI scripting.
Since GUI scripting strongly depends on the software version, this is for Numbers 3.6.2
tell application "Numbers"
activate
tell document 1
tell active sheet
set the selectedTable to ¬
(the first table whose class of selection range is range)
end tell
tell selectedTable
tell column "J"
set the format of cell 3 to number
end tell
end tell
end tell
end tell
tell application "System Events"
tell process "Numbers"
tell radio group 1 of window 1
if value of radio button "Cell" is 0 then
click radio button "Cell"
repeat until value of radio button "Cell" is 1
delay 0.2
end repeat
end if
end tell
tell text field 1 of scroll area 4 of window 1
set value of attribute "AXFocused" to true
set value to "2"
keystroke return
end tell
end tell
end tell
In a system language other than English the literal string Cell might be localized.

Answer 2

Unfortunately I don't have Numbers so I can't look at the dictionary directly myself, but in theory you should have a property for the cell for the decimal places.
This page talks about how you change the decimal places manually in the application. So it would stand to reason that you should be able to do similarly in a script.
Have you tried doing something along these lines...
tell application "Numbers"
tell document 1
tell selectedTable
tell column "J"
set props1 to properties of cell 3
set props2 to properties of format of cell 3
end tell
end tell
end tell
end tell
Take a look at what props1 and props2 contain in the previous code examples. With any luck, one of them will have a reference to "decimal places" (or something similar). Sorry for any mistakes in my code, as I mentioned, I don't have Numbers to actually test any of it.

Answer 3

Regrettably I believe this is not possible, at least not with Numbers v3.6.2. The Numbers dictionary shows that the a 'Decimals' property is not present for the cell or range classes
Taking your script and running with it:
tell application "Numbers"
activate
tell document 1
tell active sheet
set the selectedTable to ¬
(the first table whose class of selection range is range)
end tell
tell selectedTable
tell column "J"
set the format of cell 3 to number
get properties of cell 3
end tell
end tell
end tell
end tell
Reveals properties:
{vertical alignment:top, row:row "3" of table 1 of sheet 1 of document id "6F1021A0-BA54-47A2-A2DE-15B7E8DAFCED" of application "Numbers", class:cell, font name:"Helvetica", formatted value:"1.2345E+02", background color:missing value, formula:missing value, name:"J3", text wrap:true, text color:{0, 0, 0}, alignment:auto align, column:column "J" of table 1 of sheet 1 of document id "6F1021A0-BA54-47A2-A2DE-15B7E8DAFCED" of application "Numbers", format:scientific, font size:10.0, value:123.45}
.. none of which look like a decimals property :-(