Start a script on shutdown?

pietervh · August 14, 2003, 12:30pm

I like to run a script everytime the user shutsdown his Mac. The action to start is to backup/copy some important file to a specific location. Is there any Scripting Addition, cron-script or other solution to do this?

Thanks!
Pieter

Rob · August 14, 2003, 5:43pm

I recently asked a similar question on the applescript-users mailing list. Here’s the question and answer.

On Rob Jorgensen wrote:

I have a couple of scripts that need to be executed at shut down/restart, and maybe logout, to be effective and useful. Does the NDA for Panther prohibit someone from informing us of the status of Shut Down Items in Panther? If not, is the feature (in some form) available in Panther?

Chris Nebel replied:

As a matter of fact, the NDA would prevent someone from saying. However, the feature (in some form) has been available since 10.0 – see <[url=http://developer.apple.com/documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/SystemOverview/BootingLogin/index.html]http://developer.apple.com/documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/SystemOverview/BootingLogin/index.html[/url]>.

Realize that scripts that run at startup and shutdown are running outside the context of any particular user. This is often not what you want – login and logout are more appropriate.

–Chris Nebel
Apple Development Tools

jonn8 · August 14, 2003, 6:37pm

You should check out Mike Bombich’s excellent site for information about LoginWindowManager and his running shell scripts at login/logout tip page which should allow you to run an AppleScript via a shell script.

Jon

Rob · August 14, 2003, 7:55pm

Good stuff Jon! It looks like Mike makes use of the info provided in the link supplied by Chris Nebel. It seems like his app could go one step further and provide a wrapper for AppleScript scripts but I suppose that there’s a lot to consider when trying to implement something like that (since a script could make forbidden calls to the UI). Thanks for the links!

– Rob