Change Messages Current Itunes Song format to show different order

Question

Level 1

34 points

Change Messages Current Itunes Song format to show different order

I've posted on here before about this issue ( https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3572563 ). It seems every few iterations of OSX, they change how you adjust the format of how iChat/Messages displays the song info from Itunes, when you select the Current Itunes Song option for your status in Messages.

Reinstalled a clean version of Mavericks, and the process that worked previously on Lion (see above link), no longer seems to work (adjust imagent file, killall imagent, restart messages and reselect the option). It still displayed as I had wanted in my original OSX upgraded to mavericks from a previous install that had it tweaked (so it is possible under mavericks), but not sure how to set it up on a clean install. Any help appreciated.

Trying to get it to show as '♬ %Artist - %Track'

Thanks,

iMac (27-inch, Late 2013), OS X Mavericks (10.9.2)

Posted on Mar 18, 2014 8:03 AM

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Answer 1

Mar 18, 2014 2:43 PM in response to illbilly

HI,

I have checked my com.apple.imagent.plist and it does not have the iTunes playing format set (it does not show until it is written to as with the MacOSXHints item modified for the iChat or later Messages versions.

I then ran the Terminal Instruction, whilst the app was shut down and the Force Quit IMagent.

It seems this did write to the .plist but did not effect the current display of Track - Artist in the Buddy list Status Messages when selected.

This does look like it has been moved to a different .plist

At present i can't find which one.

9:43 pm Tuesday; March 18, 2014

 iMac 2.5Ghz i5 2011 (Mavericks 10.9)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad

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Answer 2

illbilly Author

Level 1

34 points

Mar 19, 2014 8:04 AM in response to Ralph-Johns-UK

Hi Ralph,

Glad to have you back on the case. Yes, it appears that file no longer effects it. I tweaked the file several ways under a Maverick clean install, and it did not seem to effect the actual display. BUT as I said, it is possible to tweak the display in this OS somewhere....... As I had it working in Mountain Lion, upgraded to Mavericks, and it carried over and was still displaying properly.... So just need to figure out where that setting has migrated to.

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Answer 3

Mar 19, 2014 12:55 PM in response to illbilly

Hi,

I can exclude some that I have already looked at.

1) The plain com.apple.ichat.plist

This does hold some info about the Saved and Recent Available and Away Messages but these tend to be old ones (it shows some on Mine that have been deleted from the Away list in particular).

In the .plist there is nothing about the "current iTunes playing' option.

2) the various "account" .plists.

The AIM one lists all the AIM and AIM valid Logins and this have reveal triangles when using Xcode to view that show the server and various Account settings in those.

These would be the Jabber, Yahoo and Subnet (for Bonjour) ones as well as the AIM one.

2) The com.apple.iChat.LSSharedFileList.plist used to be the one that held the Recent Items lists (both A/V chats and Text chats of all types but even this is not longer held here.

3) The logical one would seem to be com.apple.iChat.StatusMessages.plist but it is not.

It just holds the Current Available and Away messages with nothings about what is being played

The same applies to likely items in ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.ichat and com.apple.soagent

Some of the soagent ones are not Aliases that lead back to the ~/Library/Preferences ones but I have found nothing yet.

I did try using the Modified column and changing the setting to On and Off.

The com.apple.ichat.plist does seem to be the only one in the ~/Library/Preferences that changes.

When we were first doing this the info did not appear in the iChatAgent .plist as to the order.

It seems many settings don't show until they are changed.

One this I have noticed when I enable the settings for Current iTunes Playing it also sends up and Notification each time the Track changes.

I have an app to update here so I will look again later.

7:55 pm Wednesday; March 19, 2014

 iMac 2.5Ghz i5 2011 (Mavericks 10.9)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad

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Answer 4

Mar 19, 2014 1:19 PM in response to Ralph-Johns-UK

Hi,

I manually edited the com.apple.iChat.StatusMessages.plist rather than using Terminal

I added the Apple symbol and the order was Album, Track, Artist.

On starting Messages and setting the Current iTunes Song I got this

However as you can see in the first pic I have since changed this to Artist Track Album but I now can't seem to get the Status Messages to change.

I have tried restarting Messages to no avail.

I will try stopping the song and restarting Messages.

8:19 pm Wednesday; March 19, 2014

 iMac 2.5Ghz i5 2011 (Mavericks 10.9)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad

Reply

Answer 5

Mar 19, 2014 1:40 PM in response to Ralph-Johns-UK

Hi again,

Having deleted the StatusMessages .plist and restart Messages it is not recreated in the ~/Library/Preferences folder but the Status Messages remain in the Buddy Lists.

This is bizarre. Nothing I do now seems to edit this.

However the Track Title is updating.

8:40 pm Wednesday; March 19, 2014

 iMac 2.5Ghz i5 2011 (Mavericks 10.9)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad

Reply

Answer 6

Mar 19, 2014 1:59 PM in response to Ralph-Johns-UK

wherever the standard Track Artist info is stored is invoked by the Menu bar icon choice (all Buddy Lists) but shows as %Track and %Artist rather than the info.

Using a Buddy List's Own Status Messages selection is picking up on the Status Message.plist (but what I set originally and not what I currently have).

This is the Menu Bar icon menu after selecting Current iTunes Song

8:59 pm Wednesday; March 19, 2014

 iMac 2.5Ghz i5 2011 (Mavericks 10.9)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad

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Answer 7

Mar 19, 2014 2:29 PM in response to Ralph-Johns-UK

More info.

The com.apple.ichat.plist has this section

Deleting the two items with %Track %Artist in them only works for a while.

Somehow this info is written back from somewhere.

Having created the  - %Album - %Track - %Artist I can't get rid of it.

I have tried Editing it with no luck either.

Some of the items relate back to 2012 but have been deleted from the actual options in the Buddy List and the Menu Bar Menu list.

9:29 pm Wednesday; March 19, 2014

 iMac 2.5Ghz i5 2011 (Mavericks 10.9)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad

Reply

Answer 8

illbilly Author

Level 1

34 points

Mar 19, 2014 3:23 PM in response to Ralph-Johns-UK

Hmmm, I tried to write directly to the iChat.plist fie to change the recent availables with

defaults write com.apple.iChat RecentAvailableList -string '%Artist - %Track'

but that didn't adjust the order it shows, and now I can't change back to "Available" in the status section in Messages, its stuck on the Current Itunes Song now (still showing incorrectly). And i can't edit the file itself in BBEdit, whenver I open Messages, it just rewrites the plist old file exactly as it was last time i closed the app.

I am now trying to go through the plist files on the computer upgraded to mavericks, that shows the previously tweaked formatting, and see if any of the files contain a formatting line verbosely that it could be picking up. The StatusMessages file does not contain anything specifically., On the proper formatting computer the only file ive come across with it so far is com.apple.iChat.plist.

I realize now that I dont have the <dict> tags in the new file iChatplist as I wrote it, but dont know how to do that from command line to make it effectively show as:

<key>RecentAvailableList</key>

<dict>

<key>♬ %Artist - %Track</key>

</dict>

Which is what shows as the last effective line on the computer thats been upgraded through OS's and shows as I want it to.

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Answer 9

illbilly Author

Level 1

34 points

Mar 20, 2014 7:58 AM in response to illbilly

Well I ended up getting it to work, but I cheated.

As I broke my Messages above (it wouldnt start anymore). I had to reinstall the OS to get it working again, but before I did that, I copied over all the iChat plist and imagent plist files from the other mavericks computer that it worked correctly on (because it had been upgraded through OS's with it set with the previous tricks). Upon reinstalling and rebooting into Mavericks, using the hijacked files from the other computer, it displays exactly as I want it (and had it on my other computer). So its fixed, and the config appears to be buried somewhere in those files. My guess is its in the RecentAvailableList section, as that seems to be the only thing I can find that shows the proper formatting as I want it, in any of those files. It will take a more sophisticated user than me, that knows how to use the -dict command with default writes, to be able to inject the properly formatted text into that file so that it would work correctly though.

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Answer 10

Mar 20, 2014 12:45 PM in response to illbilly

Hi,

I re-did this myself as well.

I deleted the items in the Status Messages .plist (I am using Xode which will do it as in the pics above).

I made sure the app was Quit

I then quit IMAgent twice using Activity Monitor.

Then I used Terminal to put the Artist, Album, Track in the IMAgent.plist

Without restarting IMagent this showed up in Messages in the Buddy lists.

However editing the IMAgent.plist again fails to see a change in the app.

I may get more time at the weekend to look in to this further.

7:45 pm Thursday; March 20, 2014

 iMac 2.5Ghz i5 2011 (Mavericks 10.9)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad

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