Mac OSX11 (BigSur) - changing Region / Country (locale) via appleScript - applescript

Question

I need to automate the change of locale (Region/Country) for format purpose from:
Region: Americas
Country: United States
to
Region: Europe
Country: Spain
So I have the following code, which seems to work up to the point where the system asks to restart the machine (or not).
property theSettings : {"", ""}
set settings1 to {"Americas", "United States"}
set settings2 to {"Europe", "Spain"}
if running of application "System Preferences" then
try
tell application "System Preferences" to quit
on error
do shell script "killall 'System Preferences'"
end try
delay 0.1
end if
repeat while running of application "System Preferences" is true
delay 0.1
end repeat
tell application "System Preferences"
reveal anchor "Language" of ¬
pane id "com.apple.Localization"
activate
end tell
tell application "System Events"
tell window "Language & Region" of process "System Preferences"
if (value of pop up button "Region:" of tab group 1) is "United States" then
set theSettings to settings2
else
set theSettings to settings1
end if
set {theRegion, theCountry} to theSettings
tell pop up button "Region:" of tab group 1
delay 0.25
click
delay 0.25
click menu item theRegion of menu 1
delay 0.25
click menu item theCountry of menu 1 of menu item theRegion of menu 1
end tell
end tell
delay 1
tell application "System Preferences" to quit
tell sheet 1 of window "Language & Region" of process "System Preferences"
delay 1
keystroke tab
delay 1
keystroke return
end tell
end tell
In the script above, after switching locale, I am trying to click the button Don't Restart. But this does not work as the sheet window does not seem to be active.
Any idea on how to save the settings?

Answer 1

This issue is, at that point the sheet is modal and typically requires physical intervention. In other words, based on its current appearance, normally one would either press enter/return key to accept the default or use the mouse to click either Don’t Restart or Cancel as tabbing in not active by default in this use case.
However, if the [√] Use keyboard navigation to move focus between controls checkbox in System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts is checked, which it is not by default, then one could simply press the space bar as Don’t Restart would have focus even though Restart Now would be, by default, solid blue.
To get past the modality of the situation, one would have to add code that would programmatically check to see that the aforementioned checkbox is checked, and if not check it.
In addition to the check and taking action if necessary, the modifications to your existing code are as follows:
In between:
repeat while running of application "System Preferences" is true
delay 0.1
end repeat
And:
tell application "System Preferences"
reveal anchor "Language" of ¬
pane id "com.apple.Localization"
activate
end tell
Add:
-- # Get the fully qualified POSIX pathname of the target .plist file.
set thePropertyListFilePath to ¬
the POSIX path of ¬
(path to preferences from user domain as string) & ¬
".GlobalPreferences.plist"
-- # Get the value of AppleKeyboardUIMode to determine if the
-- # 'Use keyboard navigation to move focus between controls'
-- # checkbox is checked on the System Preferences >
-- # Keyboard > Shortcuts tab.
tell application "System Events" to ¬
tell the property list file thePropertyListFilePath to ¬
set keyboardNavigation to the value of ¬
the property list item "AppleKeyboardUIMode"
if keyboardNavigation = 0 then
-- # Check the checkbox.
my toggleKeyboardNavigation()
end if
And to the end of the script add:
-- # Handler #
-- # Toggles checkbox: 'Use keyboard navigation
-- # to move focus between controls'
on toggleKeyboardNavigation()
tell application "System Preferences"
activate
reveal anchor "shortcutsTab" of ¬
pane id "com.apple.preference.keyboard"
end tell
tell application "System Events"
tell front window of ¬
application process "System Preferences"
set i to 0
repeat until (exists checkbox 1 of tab group 1)
delay 0.1
set i to i + 1
if i ≥ 30 then return
end repeat
click checkbox 1 of tab group 1
end tell
end tell
end toggleKeyboardNavigation
After making the aforementioned changes, then starting with:
tell application "System Preferences" to quit
Replace it and the ensuing tell block with:
ignoring application responses
tell application "System Preferences" to quit
end ignoring
delay 1
key code 49 -- # space key
Then after the end tell of the primary tell application "System Events" block, the one just below the previous code change, add the following:
repeat while running of application "System Preferences" is true
delay 0.1
end repeat
if keyboardNavigation = 0 then
-- # Uncheck the checkbox if it
-- # was previously unchecked.
my toggleKeyboardNavigation()
delay 0.2
tell application "System Preferences" to quit
end if
Notes:
The example AppleScript code shown herein to check to see if [] Use keyboard navigation to move focus between controls in System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts is checked, can be done differently by opening to that pane and ascertaining whether of not it's checked and act accordingly. The reason I've added the code for it as is, is because I've used it to reset that checkbox later on in the script in the past. If the checkbox is already checked then one doesn't have to see the extra changing of panes.