Accessing Hot Corners using AppleScript in Mavericks

An old thread but in case someone else wants to get this working on Sierra, I believe the System Events error can be fixed by adding a short delay after loading the Mission Control pane. While commenting out the "activate" line works, that makes the script run invisibly in the background as Pierre noted. Adding "launch" did not fix the error on my machine.

tell application "System Preferences"

activate

set current pane to paneid "com.apple.preference.expose"

delay 0.3

...

act

If you just want to disable hot corners, the following script should do the trick:

tell application "System Preferences"

-- activate

set current pane to pane id "com.apple.preference.expose"

tell application "System Events" to tell process "System Preferences"

tell window "Mission Control"

click button "Hot Corners…"

tell sheet 1

repeat with i from 1 to 4

tell pop up button i of group 1

click

click last menu item of menu 1

end tell

end repeat

click button "OK"

end tell

end tell

end tell

quit

end tell

However, if you wish to be able to toggle between to states of the hot corners (enabled/disabled), the following script would be more appropriate:

property theSavedValues : {"Mission Control", "Desktop", "Dashboard", "Launchpad"} -- for example

tell application "System Preferences"

activate

set current pane to pane id "com.apple.preference.expose"

tell application "System Events"

tell window "Mission Control" of process "System Preferences"

click button "Hot Corners…"

tell sheet 1

tell group 1

set theCurrentValues to value of pop up buttons

if theCurrentValues is {"-", "-", "-", "-"} then

repeat with i from 1 to 4

set thisValue to item i of theSavedValues

tell pop up button i

click

click menu item thisValue of menu 1

end tell

end repeat

else

copy theCurrentValues to theSavedValues

repeat with i from 1 to 4

tell pop up button i

click

click last menu item of menu 1

end tell

end repeat

end if

end tell

click button "OK"

end tell

end tell

end tell

quit

end tell

Hi Adrian,

Well… After reading your post, I created a new standard user on my MacBook Pro in order to test the script again. I copied both versions of the script directly from Safari and pasted each of them into its own AppleScript Editor window. Both versions of the script worked flawlessly (under OS X version 10.9). I wasn't even asked to give any permission to change the system.

So, unfortunately, I can't help you. I hope someone else will find out what's going on with your system.

Just an idea (maybe silly): did you try commenting out the “activate” line of code in the toggle script? Who knows?

Like this:

property theSavedValues : {"Mission Control", "Desktop", "Dashboard", "Launchpad"} -- for example

tell application "System Preferences"

--activate

setcurrent panetopaneid "com.apple.preference.expose"

tellapplication "System Events"

[…]

Something else: it may take several seconds before you notice anything happening the first time the script is run. However, the script normally runs very fast.

On my system, the script works correctly with or without the “activate” line. In both cases, however, the System Preferences window is invisible, which is contrary to the behaviour found under the previous versions of OS X. In order to make the Mission Control window visible, I discovered that I had to change the beginning of the script as follows:

tell application "System Preferences"

launch

activate

setcurrent panetopaneid "com.apple.preference.expose"

tell application "System Events"

… and so on

Many thanks for your feedback, Adrian. I'm glad I could help you.

I am getting the error "A identifier can’t go after this identifier."

Supposedly in this line:

setcurrent panetopaneid "com.apple.preference.expose"

Didn't find any helpful tips on Google 😟 Any ideas?

You most likely wrote

tell application "System Events"

instead of

tell application "System Preferences"

at the very beginning of the script.

Almost, I had another name there from another localization, not realizing that I only need to use local names for the buttons. Thanks a lot!

This script looks great! Would anyone know how to attach this to a button within X-Code. I have a small app for maintence that I am willing to share. I would like to attach the script to a button but it is having trouble with the "Property theSavedValues " line. Any help is appreciated.

YOU ARE AMAZING. THANK YOU. I AM SHOUTING ON THE INSIDE