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User Experience Wishlist

  • May 4, 2023
  • 3 replies
  • 18 views

binjali
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I have a list of requirements/desires that have been handed to me from management and I want to make them happen. No clue how, though.

-Set Scrolling to Classic (down is down, up is up)
-Set default to Home Folder, not recent items
-Show Hard Disks on desktop
-Show Connected Servers
-Show filename extensions
-Set Accent Color
-Set Desktop Wallpaper
-Always Show Scrollbars
-Warn before emptying trash
-Dark mode selected by default

Any advice or direction would be appreciated! Thanks!

3 replies

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  • Contributor
  • May 4, 2023

This could be accomplished through capturing the username, through this or a similar method:

currentuser=`stat -f "%Su" /dev/console`

And then using a series of default write commands to appropriate preference domains and keys that you'd like to set.

defaults write /Users/$currentuser/<pathtopreferencedomain> <key>

Some of these settings may also be possible to set via a configuration profile that would apply to everyone. That said with apple's focus on privacy and the fact that a lot of these settings are personal preference, seems like a lot of work for minimal gain, could easily turn into IT is setting MY preferences rage. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should, time for new bosses


binjali
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  • Author
  • Contributor
  • May 4, 2023

This could be accomplished through capturing the username, through this or a similar method:

currentuser=`stat -f "%Su" /dev/console`

And then using a series of default write commands to appropriate preference domains and keys that you'd like to set.

defaults write /Users/$currentuser/<pathtopreferencedomain> <key>

Some of these settings may also be possible to set via a configuration profile that would apply to everyone. That said with apple's focus on privacy and the fact that a lot of these settings are personal preference, seems like a lot of work for minimal gain, could easily turn into IT is setting MY preferences rage. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should, time for new bosses


I don't disagree about the new bosses, but while they are the ones signing my checks, I have to implement as much of their vision as possible, even when I disagree with it.


YanW
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  • Contributor
  • May 5, 2023

Here is what I have. Some of them aren't essential to our org so I don't have the scripts. We don't use all of them, so you'll have test it. 

Warn before emptying trash is on by default I think. 

#!/bin/sh currentUser=$(ls -l /dev/console | awk '{print $3}') # Set Scroll Bar To Always Showing defaults write -g AppleShowScrollBars -string Always # Show Hard Drive and Connected Servers on Desktop su "$currentUser" -c "defaults write com.apple.finder ShowHardDrivesOnDesktop -bool true;" su "$currentUser" -c "defaults write com.apple.finder ShowMountedServersOnDesktop -bool true;" # Toggle Dark/Light Mode osascript -e \\ 'tell application "System Events" to tell appearance preferences to set dark mode to not dark mode' # Show All Filename Extensions sudo -u $currentUser /usr/bin/defaults write /Users/$currentUser/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist AppleShowAllExtensions -bool true sleep 2 killall Finder