Read & Set Energy saver pref file

Scripting Forums AppleScript | Mac OS X
#1

I am trying to read and set disk and display sleep timer preferences (without opening the prefpane).
As a variation on what Kai teached us some time ago,
I am using


tell application "Finder" to set f to (name of startup disk & ":Library:Preferences:SystemConfiguration")
tell application "Finder" to set l to (folder f's files whose name starts with "com.apple.PowerManagement")
repeat with i in l
	set p to (i as Unicode text)'s POSIX path
	tell application "System Events" to tell property list item ¬
		"\"Disk Sleep Timer\"" of property list file p to if exists then
		if value is 0 then
			set value to 180
		else
			set value to 0
		end if
	end if
end repeat

However, this fails as “"Disk Sleep Timer"” can not be found.

However, it is in the plist as can be checked with:


do shell script " defaults read /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.PowerManagement "

Why doesn’t this work…?

#2

Hi Eelco,

two reasons:
¢ a property list file in System Events has a “normal” path, not POSIX
¢ the nesting of property list items isn’t correct

This gets the value of Disk Sleep Timer

tell application "Finder" to set f to (name of startup disk & ":Library:Preferences:SystemConfiguration:com.apple.PowerManagement.plist")
tell application "System Events"
	tell property list file f
		get value of property list item "Disk Sleep Timer" of property list item 1 of property list item 1 of contents as integer
	end tell
end tell

or much easier

last word of (do shell script "pmset -g disk | grep disksleep") as integer

to set disksleep you can use

set t to 180 as string
do shell script "pmset -a disksleep " & t with administrator privileges
#3

Very good, thanks Stefan.
There is some discussion on what the “real” setting is, the pmset value or the "property list item “Disk Sleep Timer” that pmset occasionally seems write to on system events, but this will definitiely work for the time being.

Would you know what the parameter for System Sleep is…?
(this is different from disk sleep & display sleep!)

#4

it’s the same as disksleep with displaysleep as parameter

get:

get ((do shell script "pmset -g disk | awk '/displaysleep/ {print $2}'" as string) as integer)

set:

set d to 10 as string
do shell script "pmset -a displaysleep " & d with administrator privileges