Evernote Preferences

[bpavlov]

I've been testing on 10.9.5 with Evernote 6.0.8. I'm looking at the preferences for Evernote and I've gathered the following:

Disable showing Evernote Helper in menubar: <key>helperPrefsHaveBeenSet</key> <true/> <key>showsStatusBarItem</key> <false/>

Disable Evernote Helper from running in the background when I quit Evernote <key>runHelperWithoutMainApp</key> <false/> <key>runHelperWithoutMainAppPreserved</key> <true/>

Disable Evernote Helper at login: <key>runHelperAtLogin</key> <false/> <key>runHelperAtLoginPreserved</key> <true/>

If I make a config profile using MCXtoProfile with these keys set to ALWAYS I notice that the app crashes on the next startup and will then load fine on the second run. If I remove the profile, same thing: crashes on next startup and will load fine on the second run. Why am I messing with these keys? Ideally I'd like to not have the Evernote Helper running on machines in the background which makes it easier to update the app in the future since it won't be automatically running in the background. It's also once less process running on the machine taking up resources. These are at least the goals. I haven't decided yet ultimately what to do as I'm just testing.

Has anyone else tried to manage these preferences with Evernote and noticed the same thing?

The other thought I had was to create 2 profiles: 1 that disables auto update checks set to ALWAYS (that's my primary goal with managing third party app preferences really, not trying to do much more than that), and 1 that disables the Evernote Helper set to ONCE giving the user the option to change it in the future. But I'm not sure if I can have 2 profiles that write to the same plist. Is that even possible?

[davidacland]

My past experiences with third party apps and the Always preference hasn't been good. Crashing and other issues are quite common. A lot of third party apps are confused if they can't write to their own plist files.

Have you tried just using the once or often setting only?

[bpavlov]

I haven't tried ONCE yet. The problem is I need to disable update checks ALWAYS, but anything else is probably just something I would probably only do ONCE. OFTEN apparently doesn't work too well in Yosemite so I'm not even going to bother with that. I may just let this go though and be content with disabling update checks.

[daz_wallace]

Once should give you the behaviour you desire as it will add the key into the user's plist. The only difference between once and always is that the preference won't be reapplied if the user (or the app) changes the value again.

Hope that helps!

Darren

[bpavlov]

@daz_dar Thanks for the information. I'm aware that ONCE would only set it initially. I guess my main question really is if I can have a single config profile that will set certain preferences ALWAYS and other preferences ONCE?

[daz_wallace]

EDIT: Sorry, I just re-read your original post.

If you build the profiles using ONLY the specifc keys you need, you should be able to apply multiple profiles to the same Preference File domain.

For example, I could manage two different finder settings using two different profiles, as long as each profile didn't overlap on the keys.

ORIGINAL REPLY:
Hi @bpavlov

To be honest I'm not sure as I tend to use Once for most things. I can see two possible options for you:

1) Create two profiles, one a 'normal' profile that will be just the keys from the plist file that you want set to always, and a second one, set to 'Once' (try Tim Sutton's MCXToProfile) with just the keys you want to set to once.

2) If you've got access to a Workgroup Manager App, load in the plist and configure whichever keys you need in Once and Always but on a new object (I tend to create a new computer group with a specific name and no members). Once computer, use MCXToProfile again to export the MCX as a Profile and test.

Don't forget to test! : )

Darren