Enable Dragging

Morningside
Contributor II

In MacOS on a Macbook, in the Accessibility widget (in System Preferences) if you scroll all the way down to 'Mouse & Trackpad', and then click on the 'Trackpad Options' button, there is a by-default-unchecked box for 'Enable Dragging'. This option is what allows you to "tap and drag" a window around using its titlebar.

I need to know the command line for checking that box so that I can build a Policy for it. Can anyone help? Thanks!

6 REPLIES 6

Hugonaut
Valued Contributor II

You're going to need to build a script like this, https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/316637/applescript-to-turn-on-the-accessibility-keyboard-i...
i dont have the time to do it right now 100% and test for you, but something like this is exactly what you want.

If i can come up with a script in the next couple days & if there is no answer posted, I will do my best to provide you a solution!

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Morningside
Contributor II

That is very generous of you. We are experiencing end of school right now so I won't have time to dig into that until next week but I look forward to anything you muster with great anticipation. I also found the following in thinkdifferent stack exchange:

defaults write com.apple.AppleMultitouchTrackpad Dragging -bool true
defaults write com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.trackpad Dragging -bool true

I will test the command line option first since it is a simpler solution. Thanks again!

sdagley
Esteemed Contributor II

@Morningside Take a look at the thread Enable Right Click for inspiration on this. Specifically @talkingmoose's post and below. These settings have to be made in the user's preferences domain, not the global prefs domain.

Hugonaut
Valued Contributor II

@Morningside , @sdagley is right, after utilizing piddlesofts ui browser screenreader feature to acquire the system preferences - accesibility - mouse & trackpad - scroll area, buttons, window, window rows & applications for an automated unobtrusive applescript - I failed. It is not following the path I directed it to.

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Morningside
Contributor II

Is there no way to set default preferences for new users on a mac?

sdagley
Esteemed Contributor II

@Morningside There is, but in this case it's not configurable via a Configuration profile so you're going to have to do some scripting. Hopefully the thread linked above will give you some ideas.