I am completely new to bash scripting, and would like to know how I can write a script to create a shortcut to go on a mac osx doc.
This is to enable the user to open a specific file by clicking a shortcut on the mac osx doc. In my case, the file in question is .command file that launches an application with the required arguments.
Hope somebody can help.
Thats easy, just dump the .command file into the terminal window and it will give you the path to the file, then
ln -s /Users/username/path/.command ~/Desktop/command
If you double click this the file will open. If you have not set .command to be opened by a given program just use " " and set the program you want it to be opened in.
On macOS, bash scripts do not work right out of the box. You can use shell script instead.
defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array-add '<dict><key>tile-data</key><dict><key>file-data</key><dict><key>_CFURLString</key><string>**/Applications/Google Chrome.app**</string><key>_CFURLStringType</key><integer>0</integer></dict></dict></dict>'
killall Dock
Make sure that you replace the string /Applications/Google Chrome.app with whatever application you want to put into Dock.
You can just open the terminal app and you can copy paste (with editing the name of the application you want to put into dock) and then killall Dock this should work for you.
I'm thinking of using the Mac's applescript to make a program that mutes the system when it is shutting down.
Though I'm new to applescript and I don't know how to use the IF-statement to determine if the system is shutting down. I've done some googling and I've found that the finder app is the app that is "controlling" the shutdown, but i don't know how to check if the state is "shut down". Can anybody assist me in this matter?
AppleScript has no direct mechanism for detecting a shutdown/logout.
It does have a mechanism for creating applications that can react to themselves being quit.
Thus, you can:
use AppleScript to create a stay-open application (.app bundle) with a standard on quit handler, in which you perform the desired action (
make sure that the application is launched on login - in the simpler case as a Login Item (via System Preferences, see below), or, with more flexibility but complexity, as a launch agent (see https://stackoverflow.com/a/22872222/45375).
Instructions:
Open Script Editor and open a new script window.
Paste the following code:
# This standard handler is called when the application quits.
on quit
# Mute the system volume.
# !! See caveat below.
set volume with output muted
continue quit # signal to the system that it's OK to quit
end quit
Save the script as a stay-open application:
with File Format Application
check Stay open after run handler
Open System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login Items, drag the newly saved *.app bundle into the list, and check the checkbox next to it, so as to make it launch hidden.
The final step is to hide the new application's Dock icon, as there's no reason for it to have one:
From Terminal, run the following:
defaults write /full/path/to/newApp.app/Contents/Info.plist LSUIElement 1
Note: You could use LSBackgroundOnly too, but the advantage of LSUIElement is that you can still display UI elements if you want to, such as for debugging.
Important: Substitute the full path of your new app for /full/path/to/newApp.app; the command will only work if you specify the full path to the Info.plist file.
To test, start the new app interactively, and make sure that no Dock icon appears. (You can quit the app via Activity Monitor).
CAVEAT: If the intent is to suppress the system startup sound, set volume with output muted has two drawbacks:
it will not work if headphones happened to be plugged at the time of shutdown
you will have to unmute the volume on startup (however, you could do that in an on on run handler in the same app).
Consider the alternative approach below, which requires admin privileges to set up and invokes nvram SystemAudioVolume=%80 with root privileges, which bypasses the above drawbacks.
You could run do shell script "nvram SystemAudioVolume=%80" user name "someAdminUsername" password "matchingAdminPassword" with administrator privileges from the above AppleScript app, but you'd have to hard-code the password, which is not advisable for security reasons.
Alternative approach, using a system-wide logout hook via com.apple.loginwindow.
There's a deprecated mechanism for running a script on logout that, however, still works as of OSX 10.10; given that there's no direct non-deprecated equivalent, it may continue to be supported.
Note that you do need admin privileges:
sudo defaults write com.apple.loginwindow LogoutHook <yourScript>
<yourScript> must be an executable, such as a shell script; note that the executable is run in the context of the root user.
In case you're thinking of muting the startup sound, invoke the following shell command from that script:
nvram SystemAudioVolume=%80 # to try this interactively, prepend `sudo `
This will mute sounds until after a reboot, effectively muting the startup sound, without keeping the sound muted.
Note that the nvram command requires root privileges, which are by definition in effect in a script run via the com.apple.loginwindow logout hook.; by contrast, to try the command interactively, use sudo nvram SystemAudioVolume=%80 - otherwise, you'll get the following, unhelpful error message: nvram: Error setting variable - 'SystemAudioVolume': (iokit/common) general error
Honestly, it is better to make a deterministic solution. What I mean is, is that you make a script that:
Mutes your computer.
Shuts it down.
Then you take your script and create an Automator service, that you can assign to some shortcut, to make it easier for you to use it. ctrl-opt-cmd-eject or something. :)
This is just how I would have solved it, if I have the need, it is short and sweet to make work, and should work reasonably well.
If you want to use the LogoutHook mentioned in #mklement0's answer.
You can use the normal Applescript command set volume with output muted.
You just need to add the osascript shebang to the top of the Applescript document
i.e
#!/usr/bin/osascript
set volume with output muted
And then save the file as applescript text file.
In the save dialogue use : file format: Text )
It will get the extension .applescript
Once it is saved, use Terminal.app to chmod the script as you would a normal shell script which in effect it is.
i.e
/bin/chmod +x foo.applescript
Then add it to the loginwindows LogoutHook.
sudo defaults write com.apple.loginwindow LogoutHook foo.applescript
I Know this is an old post but for anyone still looking how to do this(like I was) I have a simple method.
Before I started Scripting I created a new folder in my home folder called toolbar scripts.(this is optional)
With the desktop showing Finder click on Go >Utilities >Script Editor.
In the window that opens type in or copy and paste the code
set volume with output muted
tell application "finder"
shut down
end tell
Click on the last button above the script you added - it should be compile. If you cannot find that button then on the top click on Script >Compile
Click on File >Save in the save as I called mine shutdown and chose the script folder (this is optional)
Down the bottom of the dialog box at file format click on the arrow and change the format to application and click on save.
Open the folder you saved it in and drag the icon to the dock. Click on the icon you just put in the dock.
now if all is right this should mute the volume and shutdown the computer.
This will not shutdown the computer if you still have anything open.
Cheers
Peter
first, you should create a sound-off script (with terminal)
sudo nano /Library/Scripts/sound-off.sh
after filling it with these lines:
#!/bin/bash
osascript -e ‘set volume output muted 1’
and make a sound-on script like that
sudo nano /Library/Scripts/sound-on.sh
and fill it with:
#!/bin/bash
osascript -e ‘set volume 4’
then access them as executing files
sudo chmod u+x /Library/Scripts/sound-off.sh
sudo chmod u+x /Library/Scripts/sound-on.sh
and the last part is set them when the mac device is turn off and on:
sudo defaults write com.apple.loginwindow LogoutHook /Library/Scripts/sound-off.sh
sudo defaults write com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook /Library/Scripts/sound-on.sh
When someone says "edit your .plist file" or "your .profile" or ".bash_profile" etc, this just confuses me. I have no idea where these files are, how to create them if I have to do that, etc, and also why there seem to be so many different ones (why? Do they do different things?)
So could someone please explain very patiently to a previous Windows user (wanting desperately to become more familiar with the pleasant if initially somewhat confusing OS X world) how to do this step by step?
I need the variables to be set both for GUI applications and command line applications, and at the moment it's for an ant script that needs the variables, but there will most likely be other needs as well.
Please note that I have Lion too, since many of the answers you get Googling seem to be outdated for Lion...
Also note that I have practically zero experience using the Terminal. I'm willing to learn, but please explain for a novice...
First, one thing to recognize about OS X is that it is built on Unix. This is where the .bash_profile comes in. When you start the Terminal app in OS X you get a bash shell by default. The bash shell comes from Unix and when it loads it runs the .bash_profile script. You can modify this script for your user to change your settings. This file is located at:
~/.bash_profile
Update for Mavericks
OS X Mavericks does not use the environment.plist - at least not for OS X windows applications. You can use the launchd configuration for windowed applications. The .bash_profile is still supported since that is part of the bash shell used in Terminal.
Lion and Mountain Lion Only
OS X windowed applications receive environment variables from the your environment.plist file. This is likely what you mean by the ".plist" file. This file is located at:
~/.MacOSX/environment.plist
If you make a change to your environment.plist file then OS X windows applications, including the Terminal app, will have those environment variables set. Any environment variable you set in your .bash_profile will only affect your bash shells.
Generally I only set variables in my .bash_profile file and don't change the .plist file (or launchd file on Mavericks). Most OS X windowed applications don't need any custom environment. Only when an application actually needs a specific environment variable do I change the environment.plist (or launchd file on Mavericks).
It sounds like what you want is to change the environment.plist file, rather than the .bash_profile.
One last thing, if you look for those files, I think you will not find them. If I recall correctly, they were not on my initial install of Lion.
Edit: Here are some instructions for creating a plist file.
Open Xcode
Select File -> New -> New File...
Under Mac OS X select Resources
Choose a plist file
Follow the rest of the prompts
To edit the file, you can Control-click to get a menu and select Add Row. You then can add a key value pair. For environment variables, the key is the environment variable name and the value is the actual value for that environment variable.
Once the plist file is created you can open it with Xcode to modify it anytime you wish.
Your .profile or .bash_profile are simply files that are present in your "home" folder. If you open a Finder window and click your account name in the Favorites pane, you won't see them. If you open a Terminal window and type ls to list files you still won't see them. However, you can find them by using ls -a in the terminal. Or if you open your favorite text editor (say TextEdit since it comes with OS X) and do File->Open and then press Command+Shift+. and click on your account name (home folder) you will see them as well. If you do not see them, then you can create one in your favorite text editor.
Now, adding environment variables is relatively straightforward and remarkably similar to windows conceptually. In your .profile just add, one per line, the variable name and its value as follows:
export JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/Home
export JRE_HOME=/Library/Java/Home
etc.
If you are modifying your "PATH" variable, be sure to include the system's default PATH that was already set for you:
export PATH=$PATH:/path/to/my/stuff
Now here is the quirky part, you can either open a new Terminal window to have the new variables take effect, or you will need to type .profile or .bash_profile to reload the file and have the contents be applied to your current Terminal's environment.
You can check that your changes took effect using the "set" command in your Terminal. Just type set (or set | more if you prefer a paginated list) and be sure what you added to the file is there.
As for adding environment variables to GUI apps, that is normally not necessary and I'd like to hear more about what you are specifically trying to do to better give you an answer for it.
Here's a bit more information specifically regarding the PATH variable in Lion OS 10.7.x:
If you need to set the PATH globally, the PATH is built by the system in the following order:
Parsing the contents of the file /private/etc/paths, one path per line
Parsing the contents of the folder /private/etc/paths.d. Each file in that folder can contain multiple paths, one path per line. Load order is determined by the file name first, and then the order of the lines in the file.
A setenv PATH statement in /private/etc/launchd.conf, which will append that path to the path already built in #1 and #2 (you must not use $PATH to reference the PATH variable that has been built so far). But, setting the PATH here is completely unnecessary given the other two options, although this is the place where other global environment variables can be set for all users.
These paths and variables are inherited by all users and applications, so they are truly global -- logging out and in will not reset these paths -- they're built for the system and are created before any user is given the opportunity to login, so changes to these require a system restart to take effect.
BTW, a clean install of OS 10.7.x Lion doesn't have an environment.plist that I can find, so it may work but may also be deprecated.
echo $PATH
it prints current path value
Then do vim ~/.bash_profile and write
export PATH=$PATH:/new/path/to/be/added
here you are appending to the old path, so preserves the old path and adds your new path to it
then do
source ~/.bash_profile
this will execute it and add the path
then again check with
echo $PATH
Unfortunately none of these answers solved the specific problem I had.
Here's a simple solution without having to mess with bash. In my case, it was getting gradle to work (for Android Studio).
Btw, These steps relate to OSX (Mountain Lion 10.8.5)
Open up Terminal.
Run the following command:
sudo nano /etc/paths (or sudo vim /etc/paths for vim)
Go to the bottom of the file, and enter the path you wish to add.
Hit control-x to quit.
Enter 'Y' to save the modified buffer.
Open a new terminal window then type:
echo $PATH
You should see the new path appended to the end of the PATH
I got these details from this post:
http://architectryan.com/2012/10/02/add-to-the-path-on-mac-os-x-mountain-lion/#.UkED3rxPp3Q
I hope that can help someone else
Simplified Explanation
This post/question is kind of old, so I will answer a simplified version for OS X Lion users.
By default, OSX Lion does not have any of the following files:
~/.bashrc
~/.bash_profile
~/.profile
At most, if you've done anything in the terminal you might see ~/.bash_history
What It Means
You must create the file to set your default bash commands (commonly in ~/.bashrc). To do this, use any sort of editor, though it's more simple to do it within the terminal:
%> emacs .profile
[from w/in emacs type:] source ~/.bashrc
[from w/in emacs type:] Ctrl + x Ctrl + s (to save the file)
[from w/in emacs type:] Ctrl + x Ctrl + c (to close emacs)
%> emacs .bashrc
[from w/in emacs type/paste all your bash commands, save, and exit]
The next time you quit and reload the terminal, it should load all your bash preferences. For good measure, it's usually a good idea to separate your commands into useful file names. For instance, from within ~/.bashrc, you should have a source ~/.bash_aliases and put all your alias commands in ~/.bash_aliases.
What worked for me is to create a .launchd.conf with the variables I needed:
setenv FOO barbaz
This file is read by launchd at login. You can add a variable 'on the fly' to the running launchd using:
launchctl setenv FOO barbaz`
In fact, .launchd.cond simply contains launchctl commands.
Variables set this way seem to be present in GUI applications properly.
If you happen to be trying to set your LANG or LC_ variables in this way, and you happen to be using iTerm2, make sure you disable the 'Set locale variables automatically' setting under the Terminal tab of the Profile you're using. That seems to override launchd's environment variables, and in my case was setting a broken LC_CTYPE causing issues on remote servers (which got passed the variable).
(The environment.plist still seems to work on my Lion though. You can use the RCenvironment preference pane to maintain the file instead of manually editing it or required Xcode. Still seems to work on Lion, though it's last update is from the Snow Leopard era. Makes it my personally preferred method.)
Setup your PATH environment variable on Mac OS
Open the Terminal program (this is in your Applications/Utilites folder by default).
Run the following command
touch ~/.bash_profile; open ~/.bash_profile
This will open the file in the your default text editor.
For ANDROID SDK as example :
You need to add the path to your Android SDK platform-tools and tools directory. In my example I will use "/Development/android-sdk-macosx" as the directory the SDK is installed in. Add the following line:
export PATH=${PATH}:/Development/android-sdk-macosx/platform-tools:/Development/android-sdk-macosx/tools
Save the file and quit the text editor.
Execute your .bash_profile to update your PATH.
source ~/.bash_profile
Now everytime you open the Terminal program you PATH will included the Android SDK.
Adding Path Variables to OS X Lion
This was pretty straight forward and worked for me, in terminal:
$echo "export PATH=$PATH:/path/to/whatever" >> .bash_profile #replace "/path/to/whatever" with the location of what you want to add to your bash profile, i.e: $ echo "export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/Cellar/nginx/1.0.12/sbin" >> .bash_profile
$. .bash_profile #restart your bash shell
A similar response was here: http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/os-x-operating-system/255324-problems-setting-path-variable-lion.html#post1317516
Open Terminal:
vi ~/.bash_profile
Apply changing to system (no need restart computer):
source ~/.bash_profile
(Also work with macOS Sierra 10.12.1)
I had problem with Eclipse (started as GUI, not from script) on Maverics that it did not take custom PATH. I tried all the methods mentioned above to no avail. Finally I found the simplest working answer based on hints from here:
Go to /Applications/eclipse/Eclipse.app/Contents folder
Edit Info.plist file with text editor (or XCode), add LSEnvironment dictionary for environment variable with full path. Note that it includes also /usr/bin etc:
<dict>
<key>LSEnvironment</key>
<dict>
<key>PATH</key>
<string>/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/dev/android-ndk-r9b</string>
</dict>
<key>CFBundleDisplayName</key>
<string>Eclipse</string>
...
Reload parameters for app with
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -v -f /Applications/eclipse/Eclipse.app
Restart Eclipse
Let me illustrate you from my personal example in a very redundant way.
First after installing JDK, make sure it's installed.
Sometimes macOS or Linux automatically sets up environment variable for you unlike Windows. But that's not the case always. So let's check it.
The line immediately after echo $JAVA_HOME would be empty if the environment variable is not set. It must be empty in your case.
Now we need to check if we have bash_profile file.
You saw that in my case we already have bash_profile. If not we have to create a bash_profile file.
Create a bash_profile file.
Check again to make sure bash_profile file is there.
Now let's open bash_profile file. macOS opens it using it's default TextEdit program.
This is the file where environment variables are kept. If you have opened a new bash_profile file, it must be empty. In my case, it was already set for python programming language and Anaconda distribution. Now, i need to add environment variable for Java which is just adding the first line. YOU MUST TYPE the first line VERBATIM. JUST the first line. Save and close the TextEdit. Then close the terminal.
Open the terminal again. Let's check if the environment variable is set up.
I took the idiot route.
Added these to the end of /etc/profile
for environment in `find /etc/environments.d -type f`
do
. $environment
done
created a folder /etc/environments
create a file in it called "oracle" or "whatever" and added the stuff I needed set globally to it.
/etc$ cat /etc/environments.d/Oracle
export PATH=$PATH:/Library/Oracle/instantclient_11_2
export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=/Library/Oracle/instantclient_11_2
export SQLPATH=/Library/Oracle/instantclient_11_2
export PATH=$PATH:/Library/Oracle/instantclient_11_2
export TNS_ADMIN=/Library/Oracle/instantclient_11_2/network/admin
It is recommended to check default terminal shell before setting any environment variables, via following commands:
$ echo $SHELL
/bin/zsh
If your default terminal is /bin/zsh (Z Shell) like in my case (Personally prefer Z Shell), then you should set these environment variable in ~/.zshenv file with following contents (In this example, setting JAVA_HOME environment variable, but same applies to others):
export JAVA_HOME="$(/usr/libexec/java_home)"
Similarly, any other terminal type not mentioned above, you should set environment variable in its respective terminal env file.
More detail, which may perhaps be helpful to someone:
Due to my own explorations, I now know how to set environment variables in 7 of 8 different ways. I was trying to get an envar through to an application I'm developing under Xcode. I set "tracer" envars using these different methods to tell me which ones get it into the scope of my application. From the below, you can see that editing the "scheme" in Xcode to add arguments works, as does "putenv". What didn't set it in that scope: ~/.MACOS/environment.plist, app-specific plist, .profile, and adding a build phase to run a custom script (I found another way in Xcode [at least] to set one but forgot what I called the tracer and can't find it now; maybe it's on another machine....)
GPU_DUMP_DEVICE_KERNEL is 3
GPU_DUMP_TRK_ENVPLIST is (null)
GPU_DUMP_TRK_APPPLIST is (null)
GPU_DUMP_TRK_DOTPROFILE is (null)
GPU_DUMP_TRK_RUNSCRIPT is (null)
GPU_DUMP_TRK_SCHARGS is 1
GPU_DUMP_TRK_PUTENV is 1
... on the other hand, if I go into Terminal and say "set", it seems the only one it gets is the one from .profile (I would have thought it would pick up environment.plist also, and I'm sure once I did see a second tracer envar in Terminal, so something's probably gone wonky since then. Long day....)
Step1: open ~/.bash_profile
Now a text editor opens:
Step2: variable name should be in capitals. in this example variable is NODE_ENV
Step3: export NODE_ENV=development
Save it and close.
Restart your system.
Done.
To check env variable: open terminal and type
echo $NODE_ENV
I made a mistake in my gnome terminal configuration. I entered a command to start with in the preferences, but that command fails, and now all I get is a window that opens and closes right away, and I basically can't use gnome terminal anymore :-( Is there any way I can remove the configuration file and restart fresh??
Thanks!
Open the XTerm (Standard terminal for linux) and enter this command
gnome-terminal -e bash
It opens the gnome-terminal. Open profile preferences and configure your terminal to "Hold the terminal open".
Editing preferences
$HOME/.gconfd/saved_state
the above file might be of interest depending on exactly what configuration you changed. Of course, it holds configuration from other programs as well.
If you are on the newer gnome terminal that uses dconf, it's a little trickier, but still doable:
Profiles are stored with a UUID, you need to find the UUID of the profile to remove:
dconf dump /org/gnome/terminal/ | less
Search for a visible-name='...' entry matching the profile you want to remove. Look above that for the section header like [legacy/profiles:/:...]. The full name of the item you want to delete is thus /org/gnome/terminal/legacy/profiles:/:.... Delete it thus:
dconf reset -f /org/gnome/terminal/legacy/profiles:/:...
Side note: This Q&A probably should be moved to unix.stackexchange.com.
In Windows I would create a .bat file to run this script from my desktop, on my Mac how do I create something similar that can be run from the desktop to execute this:
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
killall Finder
Create a file with the following content
#!/bin/bash
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
killall Finder
From the terminal.app, run chmod o+x <filename> to make the file executable.
To run the file simply open the terminal.app and ./<filename>
Name the file .command or .sh.
Shoan's instructions for making a shell script will work fine, but you need to run it from within Terminal. If you add jtbandes suggestion of giving the filename a .command suffix (.sh doesn't work for me) the file becomes double-clickable in the Finder -- but it still opens a Terminal window, and leaves it open when it finishes. If you don't want to be bothered with this, there are a couple of ways of doing the job without any extraneous UI stuff:
1- Create an AppleScript in the AppleScript Editor (which is either /Applications/Utilities/AppleScript Editor.app or /Applications/AppleScript/Script Editor.app, depending on which version of OS X you have). Enter this as your script:
do shell script "defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE; killall Finder"
... and then save the script in Application format so it's double-clickable (if you save it as a "Script", double-clicking it will open the script editor instead).
2- Create an Automator workflow using /Applications/Automator. Use the Application template (again, to make it double-clickable), find the "Run Shell Script" action in the second column (it's a huge list, so I just type "shell" in the search field at the top) and drag it into the workflow space at the right. Make sure it's set to use a reasonable shell, paste in your commands, and save.
I used to use batch files but the pain was having to find the folder where the scripts where kept. This became a pain so now I use alias's which work from any location in terminal and do not require finding your script.
Of course you can use these together nicely.
To get started you need to access your bash_profile.
A bash profile is an invisible file that lives on your machine, I believe it is homeless without a particular location.
So how do you find it?
Well it either exists or it does not, so to access the file simply write:
sudo nano ~/.bash_profile
This command will either create it or open it up
Once inside, add the following lines:
alias showFiles='defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES; killall Finder /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app'
alias hideFiles='defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles NO; killall Finder /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app'
Thats it...
ctrl + O to save
ctrl + X to exit
And finally refresh the bash profile:
source ~/.bash_profile
How do you use the commands? Well now to show files, simply write: showFiles and to hide files just write: hideFiles... voila!
I use this to make life easier while using terminal. For instance to ssh to websites, or open help files, or to access mysql etc. etc.
Here are some further uses you may find useful:
alias goWebsite='open http://www,google.com'
alias goDoc='open -a TextEdit /users/myusername/documents/mydocument.txt'
alias goLocation='cd /applications/mamp/htdocs/workspaces/general/website.com/trunk'
alias sshToServer='ssh user#mysite.sitename.com'
Now all you need to do is type the alias from terminal and the command will execute.
Hope you find the above useful