You could also use this way:
system attribute "USER"
There are other variables available with system attribute:
"HOME": posix path to users home directory
"SHELL": posix path to users shell
"USER": users short name
"LANG": user system language as two-letter code e.g. "en_US"
"PATH": content of the PATH variable
"__CF_USER_TEXT_ENCODING": Don't know the meaning of this


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I like the idea of user the 'system attribute' but forgive my ignorance, how do I USE it? (an example would be great)
Thanks!

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Another option that I use a lot:

set myname to do shell script ("whoami")

Now myname is your shortname.

For other information, like path, you can pull that from the environment, but for username it's probably simpler to just use whoami.

Joel

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How to use it:

   set short_name to system attribute "USER"

Now the variable short_name will contain your short user name.

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This works for me in OS X 10.2.4:

display dialog "The current user is " & last word of (path to current user folder as text) & "."


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Hello all, I would use this instead...

-- Get the current user of the machine
set theuser to (do shell script "echo $USER")
display dialog "Current User of Machine Is : " & theuser buttons {"Ok"} default button 1 giving up after 5 with icon note

---
Rick Bargerhuff alias cougar
Programmer / Developer
Apple Technician / Specialist / Web Designer
Personal Email: cougar718@comcast.net

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This works.

set user to do shell script "whoami"

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That may not work for scripts using sudo (or sudo -s) or the 'with administrator privileges' syntax in AppleScript (the same problem goes for any of these possiblities: $USER, 'users' and 'logname' -- there are situations where these facilites will return 'root' in response. To get the currently logged-in GUI username, a more reliable method would be this: who | grep console | awk '{print $1}' To call it from an AppleScript: set theuser to (do shell script "who | grep console | awk '{print $1}'")

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This only works if you're using the default home directory.
However, if your home directory is something else (I prefer to use a directory named as my full name bicapitalized without spaces on a separate volume), this script won't work at all.
Using 'do shell script "whoami"' is much more reliable.

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What would be nice in a school web setting is to display the username as a watermark over the desktop picture, or perhaps in the menu bar.

It would be nice to know who is logged in- it can be a problem with students logging in as another student.

It seems like it wouldn't be that difficult- Applescript Studio perhaps? Does it allow one to define window opacity, application visibility (no dock), and text opacity?



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