Stickies - How to get them to appear on screen at startup?

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Level 3

805 points

Stickies - How to get them to appear on screen at startup?

I want a simple message to appear onscreen whenever any member of my family uses my iMac when I'm away at work.

Nothing elaborate. Just something along the lines of "I installed this software today. Read 'such and such' to use it" or "So and so is not working. Don't use it. I will attempt to fix it when I get home" sort of thing.

Stickies makes the ideal messages. I can play around with the font, style, even add complex shadow effects to my text and stuff, to my hearts content using spectacular 3D effects that I couldn't even imagine on the PC at work. Great stuff!

That aside, I want them to display when I am not around (i.e. at work). But they appear only to display when Stickies has booted.

To get these onscreen messages to appear when someone other than myself starts up my iMac, is my only option to set Stickies as a 'Start Up item' ? Or is there another, more elegant, way to achieve this? I would like to be able to set a schedule for the message to appear, then vanish again when the need has dissipated. Can this be done using iCal? It would be marvellous if I could.

PowerMac 6500/300 (603e) MacOS 9.1: eMac 1.25hz G4 MacOS 10.4.10, Mac OS X (10.6.7), iMac 24" 2.8ghz G6 Intel 750gb HDD, WD MyBook 2Tb RAID 1, Airpor

Posted on Jul 15, 2011 1:50 PM

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Answer 1

Jul 15, 2011 1:53 PM in response to El Deanio

Not elegant but Stickies will launch whenever the Mac is booted.

System Preferences / Accounts - Login Items

Click +

Navigate to the Applications folder, select Stickies

If it works for you, why not leave the Mac in sleep mode with the Stickie displayed...

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Answer 2

Jul 15, 2011 2:03 PM in response to El Deanio

Couldn't find where Stickies keeps its memos - probably in a .plist somewhere.

However, what you can do is to create the memo in Stickies (if that's your preferred way), then save it as an RTF file - use the Export Text item in the File menu to do that. This will create a TextEdit file with all formatting and styling intact. I'd send it to the Desktop for convenience.

Then drag that TextEdit file to the Dock (at the right end with the folders) - pause for a space to appear, and place it on the Dock.

Then right-click or Control-click that item in the Dock, and choose the Open at Login item from the Options submenu. You may also need to choose the Keep in Dock item in the same submenu.

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Answer 3

Jul 15, 2011 2:23 PM in response to El Deanio

Carolyn's method works, but will need adding for each user account.

To get it to open on startup whatever account is opened, put an alias to the Stickies app in Macintosh HD / Library / StartupItems.

As for the timed closure, I should think one of our AppleScript or Automator wizards might be able to help there.

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Answer 4

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Jul 15, 2011 2:50 PM in response to noondaywitch

To get it to open on startup whatever account is opened, put an alias to the Stickies app in Macintosh HD / Library / StartupItems.

That won't work at all.

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Answer 5

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Jul 15, 2011 2:53 PM in response to El Deanio

If everyone is sharing the same account, then simply adding the Stickies application to the login items is all you need to do. If you have multiple users, there's no really simple way. Dare I suggest that you write out an actual paper sticky note and paste it on the monitor?

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Answer 6

Jul 16, 2011 2:06 AM in response to Linc Davis

Thanks Linc.

Yes, I realised that after I'd gone to bed.

No use just opening the application, it needs to reference the OP's ~/Library/StickiesDatabase as well. Not sure if that's possible. Would probably need a script rather than an alias to the app.

Interesting exercise though; I'll have a play with it later and see what I can find.

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Answer 7

Jul 16, 2011 4:16 AM in response to Don Archibald

You can also create your note directly in TextEdit - it has a reasonable array of formatting and styling stuff, so you can get an attention-grabbing display:

Just experimented with placing that in the Dock and setting it to show at login - works fine, popped right up as soon as the Desktop appeared.

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Answer 8

El Deanio Author

Level 3

805 points

Jul 16, 2011 6:54 AM in response to Linc Davis

Linc Davis wrote:

...Dare I suggest that you write out an actual paper sticky note and paste it on the monitor?

Yes that probably would be easiest in the long run.

Thank you all for your input.

This is what I was trying to do -

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/11373233/MacDiscussions/Stickies/Screen%20shot%202011-07 -16%20at%2012.50.08.png

I think, what with its transparency and such, it looks rather nice.

I tried doing as Don suggested, pasting into the Dock. Yes this worked, but I couldn't use the fancy styling, drop shadowing, that I liked.

Found another way of dong this though.

As well as TextEdit, I did the same with NeoOffice. This worked the same as TextEdit but the app took longer to fire up. I wonder if I could save a Mail item to the desktop and do the same with that. I couldn't of course but it showed me a better method - Note.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/11373233/MacDiscussions/Stickies/Screen%20shot%202011-07 -16%20at%2014.46.29.png

Same editing features as Stickies, I just need to email it instead. Not immediately on the desktop as with Stickies, but they will get a Growl notification as the message arrives.

The scripting idea sounds interesting. I'm curious about what you come up with. I've not done scripting on that Mac before. Done once or twice on the PC at work. That's an avenue on the Mac that I have yet to explore.

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Answer 9

El Deanio Author

Level 3

805 points

Jul 16, 2011 7:28 AM in response to El Deanio

As an aside, do any of you recall being able to record one's own 'Alerts'? I don't think one can do it nowadays so it's probably an OS9 facility - it is on my old PM6500/300.

I recorded an alert of my own many years ago. The Mac would shout "Becky - stop it!!". My daughter claimed it made her jump every time she heard it. LOL

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Answer 10

Jul 16, 2011 7:34 AM in response to El Deanio

Yes! That was OS9 though; one of many useful features that never made it into OS X.

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Answer 11

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Jul 16, 2011 8:14 AM in response to noondaywitch

Would probably need a script rather than an alias to the app.

StartupItems are long deprecated and should be avoided entirely. They have to be in a special format that you now can't easily find documentation for. I used to know it, but have forgotten. They run only once at system startup (not when users log in), and as root.

What the OP wants could be accomplished with a LaunchAgent if he has multiple users, but that's more trouble than I think it's worth.

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