CFPreferences

[cmsj]

In researching #1437 it seems that a fair number of macOS system components work by setting preference values with CFPreferences API calls and NSDistributedNotification messages. We already support the latter, and adding the former doesn't look like it would be a huge amount of work.

[latenitefilms]

Maybe #1441 & #1432 should be combined to offer a new hs.preferences extension that covers both basis?

[asmagill]

@cmsj, In response to some questions raised in #1078, I have started on writing a module utilizing the CFPreferences to more accurately mirror defaults then hs.plist or hs.settings currently do. I hadn't seen this entry at that time; I hope to have something test worthy this weekend, but if you've already got something in the works, I can hold off... just let me know.

[latenitefilms]

@asmagill - Awesome! For the sake of completeness, it would also be amazing to have edit functionality and NSKeyedArchiver support as discussed in #1498.

[asmagill]

with the same caveats archived objects have in hs.pasteboard, I don't think that will be a problem

[latenitefilms]

@asmagill Incredible. This is going to open up so many doors for us (as all of Final Cut Pro's Pasteboard data is organised using NSKeyedArchiver), if you can make this happen (as we've been dreading trying to write our own NSKeyedArchiver code in Lua) - so a MASSIVE thank you in advance!

[cmsj]

@asmagill go for it, I haven't made any moves on this :)

[latenitefilms]

I've been playing around with hs._asm.cfpreferences. It seems to read Preferences great - but writing to them, opens up some challenges.

If we use TextEdit as an example:

> hs.inspect(cfpreferences.applicationMap()["com.apple.TextEdit"])
{ "file:///Users/chrishocking/Library/Containers/com.apple.TextEdit/Data/Library/Preferences/", "file:///Users/chrishocking/Library/Preferences/" }

It seems hs._asm.cfpreferences.getValue() and hs._asm.cfpreferences.setValue() only modify the ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.TextEdit file, and not the sand-boxed ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.TextEdit/Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple.TextEdit file - which is what TextEdit actually uses.

Maybe related? http://ddeville.me/2012/12/shared-preferences-between-sandboxed-applications

[latenitefilms]

Actually, this works:

> cfpreferences.setValue("AppleLanguages", {"fr-FR"}, "/Users/chrishocking/Library/Containers/com.apple.TextEdit/Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple.TextEdit")

Source: https://stackoverflow.com/a/33264463

[latenitefilms]

@asmagill - Not urgent, so please don't feel like you have to reply if you're absolutely flat out, but I was just wondering why we're seeing different results in Hammerspoon versus CommandPost? Any tips or ideas?

[latenitefilms]

@asmagill - FYI: I'm seeing the following memory leak using hs._asm.cfpreferences:

This seems to be where the problem lies - but I can't see anything obvious as it looks like you're already releasing everything?

https://github.com/asmagill/hammerspoon_asm/blob/master/cfpreferences/internal.m#L595

Any ideas?