Q: How can I automate the "use dark menu bar and dock" preference in Yosemite?
I love the dark menu bar and dock feature in OSX Yosemite! However, I think it would be perfect if I could change it without having to open System Preferences every time. I have absolutely no experience whatsoever with AppleScript, but I'm trying to figure out how to write an AppleScript that will set the dark setting to on or off. I found this example on macosxautomation.com:
tell application "System Events"
tell appearance preferences
get properties
--> returns: {scroll arrow placement:together, font smoothing limit:4, recent applications limit:10, scroll bar action:jump to next page, double click minimizes:true, recent servers limit:10, appearance:blue, recent documents limit:10, highlight color:{46516, 54741, 65535}, class:appearance preferences object, smooth scrolling:false, font smoothing style:automatic}
set properties to {scroll arrow placement:together at top and bottom, font smoothing limit:4, recent applications limit:10, scroll bar action:jump to here, double click minimizes:true, recent servers limit:20, appearance:blue, recent documents limit:20, highlight color:{0, 0, 32000}, smooth scrolling:true, font smoothing style:light}
end tell
end tell
It looks promising, but those properties are obviously for an older version of OSX. Since I'm so new to this, I don't know how to define a new property to modify. This is what I tried (which didn't work):
tell application "System Events"
tell appearance preferences
get properties
set properties to {Use dark menu bar and Dock:true}
end tell
end tell
This also didn't work (all I did was add quotation marks in line 4):
tell application "System Events"
tell appearance preferences
get properties
set properties to {"Use dark menu bar and Dock":true}
end tell
end tell
Any ideas as to how to do this? Once I have this AppleScript written, I can easily throw it into Automator to make it change with the time of day. I can't wait! Any help is greatly appreciated. Have a wonderful day!
MacBook Air, OS X Yosemite (10.10.5), 256GB, 8GB LPDDR3 1600, 1.6GHz i5
Posted on Aug 29, 2015 3:53 PM
The way to find out what is scriptable is to open the Dictionary for that app in Script editor. For the Appearance Suite, you'd see:
Here is the script to set the dark mode on.
tell application "System Events"
tell appearance preferences
set dark mode to true
end tell
end tell
Posted on Aug 29, 2015 4:08 PM
