Great script! But, how do I make an alias of iTunesHelper when I can't find it?


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Hello,

The iTunesHelper app is located inside of the iTunes.app package, right here to be specific: iTunes.app/Contents/Resources/iTunesHelper.app To access the contents of a package, right click on the package and select "View package contents" from the contextual menu.

Unfortunately, it is not quite a normal application as it does not open if you double click on it.

You can however make iTunesHelper launch with AppleScript:

tell application "iTunesHelper"
activate
end tell

My login items script only opens alias files, so if you save this script directly in the login items folder it will be ignored. Instead save the scipt someplace else then make an alias to it and put that in the login items folder. Another option would be to paste this little scrap of script right into the login items script.


HTH
David Nelson (AKA Yertman)



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Thanks - that worked!


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This script has solved one of my biggest issues on my beige G3. Typically, if I have 3 or more items in my login items, there is a 70% chance that the computer will hang on login. Well, having added Microsoft Office last night, that made three (MagicMenu, MouseWorks Background, and the Microsoft Database Daemon).

The hard disk activity when I login has dropped tremendously after using this script instead of putting those things in my login items, and the time has dropped, as well.

One thing to note, is that the Microsoft Database Daemon put itself back into the login items upon logout/login. If anyone knows how to keep it from doing this, I would love to know.

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I created the script and all works well, except I have netbarrier for x and I have typed hide and "hide" in the comments window on the alias and it will not hide it...so if anyone can help please reply...thanks...excellent script though!

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Hi,

Just the word hide, without quotes, in the comments field should do it.

You could also try changing the script so the line that reads:
if (comment of i is "hide") then

To:
if (comment of i contains "hide") then

Also try putting the word hide in some of the other alias file's comment boxes, and see if the script hides them.

HTH
David Nelson





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I like this script, but after playing around with it for a little while I found a couple of things that could do with improving. First, the standard Login Items launches everything in the background, which looks much nicer (well, to me anyway). Second, if you rename the aliases (e.g., to set the launching order), process hiding no longer works because the script uses the alias name rather than the name of the original item. Actually, it's also just occured to me that the second one would also prevent you from "hiding" documents. (hack, hack :) Here's an updated version of the script that fixes these:

property pPathToLoginItemsFolder : "" -- The script will set this value.
set loginItemsList to {} -- The script will set this value.
set interLaunchDelay to 5 -- Seconds between launching applications. Feel free to fiddle with this one.
tell application "Finder"
  set pPathToLoginItemsFolder to ((container of (path to me) as alias) as text) & "Login Items:"
  set loginItemsList to every alias file of folder pPathToLoginItemsFolder
  repeat with i in loginItemsList
    delay interLaunchDelay

        -- Getting the original item of the alias allows us to have aliases with different names from
    -- the original items. If we don't do this, it screws up hiding processes below because the
    -- process name doesn't match the item name.
    set originalItem to original item of i

        -- It looks nicer if applications open in the background without coming to the front.
    -- Using "open" won't do this, but "launch application" will. However, we can't just use
    -- "launch application" for everything because that doesn't let us include documents
    -- in the login items. We therefore need to check first whether we're dealing with an
    -- application file.
    if (class of originalItem is application file) then
      -- Odd: "launch application" doesn't work without the "tell me", don't know why.
      -- We convert originalItem to a string to get the full path to the application (see
      -- http://www.applescriptsourcebook.com/tips/launchbycreator.html for an
      -- explanation).
      tell me to launch application (originalItem as string)

      -- Hide those processes that should be.
      if (comment of i is "hide") then
        set visible of process ((displayed name of originalItem) as text) to false
      end if
    else -- Not an application, so just open it.
      open originalItem

      -- Hide those processes that should be.
      if (comment of i is "hide") then
        set appName to (displayed name of application file id (creator type of originalItem)) as text
        set visible of process appName to false
      end if
    end if
  end repeat
end tell

I haven't tested it extensively, but it appears to do the job. Hope you find it useful!

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I had some problems with another applescript login item as well as some problems with other user accounts with this tip.

An applescript I had made for moving my browser cache to the trash on login stayed open and became unresponsive when it was a run only script so I had to put it into the regular login items together with this tip script.

When I tried to use this setup in other user accounts, it wouldn't run because of a certain login item called Cookie Dog Login which is kept in ~/Library/Preferences and is listed as a document not an application. It is also in reality a carbon app. The reason it doesn't work is because it doesn't have the correct permissions being another user account.

But I do like the way this tip works for my admin account. I set the time variable to only one second and it works just fine. It's certainly better than having all the login items launch at once. And you can still control the order they launch too.

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I have an emech that I'd like to start at boot/login. How can I get this script to launch it and similar programs?

Thanks

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I'm trying to solve a vexing problem prerquisite to using your applescript. I cannot for some reason remove items from my Login Items List. I am an admin and all of that. I click on the - and nothing happens. I have searched the hard drive looking for anything that would appear to store this information and have found nothing so far. Any idea where apple hides this info?

Thanks in advance

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