Same screen saver on all Macs?

January 2, 2009 10:21 AM

I need to set all Macs in the business to use the same screen saver. I'd like to do it remotely. I have Apple Desktop Remote. I have a file. I can put the file where needed, but how do I make a universal change to the control panel?
posted by Gungho to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

Write an Applescript macro to talk to the control panel. There's lots of examples floating around online.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 10:32 AM on January 2, 2009

Here is a script that will change the interval to 3 minutes and change the screensaver to the "Computer Name" screensaver, which is mostly black: (from here).

set prefsFolder to (path to "pref")'s POSIX path & "ByHost/"
tell application "System Events"
set prefsFile to property list file ((folder prefsFolder's first file where name starts with "com.apple.screensaver.")'s POSIX path)
tell prefsFile
set value of property list item "moduleName" to "Computer Name"
set value of property list item "idleTIme" to 180
set value of property list item "modulePath" to "/System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Computer Name.saver"
end tell
if exists process "System Preferences" then quit application "System Preferences"
end tell 

posted by DreamerFi at 10:34 AM on January 2, 2009

Response by poster: Actually there are at least two ways of doing this... depending on the version of OSX. Control Panels are only scriptable in Leopard. So in Tiger you just tell the Finder to use a selected picture.

tell application "Finder"
set desktop picture to {":Library:Desktop Pictures:mypicture.jpg"} as alias

end tell


In the future I'll Google it first.
Thanks.
posted by Gungho at 1:01 PM on January 2, 2009

If these user accounts exist in Open Directory, this should be easy to do with Workgroup Manager.
posted by PueExMachina at 4:47 PM on January 2, 2009