Apple Mail preferences

Questions & Suggestions
1

On my new Macbook Pro using High Sierra, Apple has managed to screw up Mail’s preferences somehow - they reset just about every time I start the application. I have a macro which brings up the preferences dialog and sets the values I want. The one hitch is that I need the macro to wait until the preferences dialog is active before starting to set values. How can I do this? I can’t use the title of the window, because that is set to whichever pane was active the last time the preferences dialog was out.

2

I don't usually like to rely on found image conditions myself, but in this case, maybe it will do the trick. What about using a found image that's fairly unique to Mail's prefs window, like this?

3

You should be able to do a Pause Until the FrontWindowName of the FrontApp changes.

4

Where’s an option for “window title changes” My Keyboard Maestro only does title matching.

5

There is not an exact condition for this, so we have to be a bit creative:

6

Being a “bit creative” is fine by me. I’ve been using the new macro all day with no problems, so I’d say that does it. Thanks!

1 Like
7

Hey Julian,

I believe resetting of preferences is a know bug in High Sierra, and I thought that had been fixed in a dot-update. (I'm still using Sierra, so I'm not certain of this.)

System Events can see the window structure, so it's possible to do this directly with AppleScript and System Events.

-Chris

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Auth: Christopher Stone
# dCre: 2017/11/10 21:20
# dMod: 2017/11/10 21:33 
# Appl: Mail, System Events
# Task: Open the Preferences window and select the Viewer pane.
# Libs: None
# Osax: None
# Tags: @Applescript, @Script, @Mail, @System_Events, @Open, @Preferences, @Window, @Select, @Viewer, @Pane
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

tell application "System Events"
   tell application process "Mail"
      
      tell menu bar 1
         tell menu bar item "Mail"
            tell menu 1
               tell menu item "Preferences…"
                  perform action "AXPress"
               end tell
            end tell
         end tell
      end tell
      
      set _tmr to 0
      
      repeat until button "Viewing" of toolbar 1 of (first window whose subrole is "AXStandardWindow") exists
         delay 0.25
         set _tmr to _tmr + 1
         if _tmr > 10 then error "Preferences window not found!"
      end repeat
      
      tell (first window whose subrole is "AXStandardWindow")
         set winName to its name
         if winName ≠ "Viewing" then
            tell toolbar 1
               tell button "Viewing"
                  perform action "AXPress"
               end tell
            end tell
         end if
      end tell
      
   end tell
end tell

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