How can I get a popup message to appear whenever someone logs in?

Shrike said:

I work in a computer lab on a college campus, and I need the computer to show a popup window with a message of my choice whenever any user logs on. Nothing fancy, simple text would be fine. I'm running OS X on a G5. Also, I'm not really experienced on Macs (sorry!), so if you could keep the explanations as simple as possible, I would really appreciate it.
Thanks in advance!

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I found this PDF that may be of use. However, I couldn't find a login message capability for Mac OS X users, only Mac OS 9 via Macintosh Manager. If you don't use Mac OS X Server in your lab, then disregard the PDF link (it will be of no use to you in that case).

Interesting... here is a way I've just made up so if it doesn't work then sorry:

1) Open Script Editor in your Applications/AppleScript Folder
2) You are faced with an empty two-text-box-window...
3) Write in the TOP text box (the bigger box), I say this because mine reverts to the bottom one, where script cannot be entered.

4) type display dialog "hello" replacing the "hello" with what you want to be said, for example "you smell"

5) Run program, see if it works
6) File -> Save AS
7) Save whereever you like, just as in Word or any other program, remember where you've saved it. Change file format to Application and click RUN ONLY not startup screen.

8) Your done...
9) Open System Prefs (Apple Menu or your dock)
10) Click Accounts
11) Click on the account which you want the message to pop up on
12) Click "Startup Items" tab
13) DRAG the script file you made into that window
14) Make sure "hide" isn't checked

15) Your done

Hope this has helped

You could manually drag this script into everyone's "startup" items. But yes, that's time consuming. There is a folder in the Main hard disk's Library called 'startup' items. This way, I think it'll run everytime and for everyone. However, I haven't tried this but there is nothing stopping you. If your computer doesn't start up hold down "shift" when booting (and it'll disable the startup things then you can delete it).

SpaceMagic said:

You could manually drag this script into everyone's "startup" items. But yes, that's time consuming. There is a folder in the Main hard disk's Library called 'startup' items. This way, I think it'll run everytime and for everyone. However, I haven't tried this but there is nothing stopping you. If your computer doesn't start up hold down "shift" when booting (and it'll disable the startup things then you can delete it).

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I don't have that folder in any of my Libraries, and creating it didn't work (EDIT: Found it now, but it's in System which should generally never be modified). The file that contains each user's startup items is located at ~/Library/Preferences/loginwindow.plist. The only other thing in this file is version information, so it's safe to copy. I tried putting it in the root Library but it wasn't recognized. So the only way to get it working (that I know of) is to copy the file to every user's preferences folder. Unfortunately permissions prevent this from being done quickly. Maybe some Terminal commands would speed up the process.

SpaceMagic said:

You could manually drag this script into everyone's "startup" items. But yes, that's time consuming. There is a folder in the Main hard disk's Library called 'startup' items. This way, I think it'll run everytime and for everyone. However, I haven't tried this but there is nothing stopping you. If your computer doesn't start up hold down "shift" when booting (and it'll disable the startup things then you can delete it).

Click to expand...

Don't put things in StartupItems, that is for housekeeping and system configuration scripts needed by Mac OS X that only run during the boot process.

Also since only Admin users can set startup items, if you make an AppleScript application that is editable as a startup item you may create a security hole.

Save the AppleScript application as Run-only always.

If you wanted to show the user's account name as part of the AppleScript without having to make separate apps for each user try using the "MacPack Toolbox" Scripting Addition (free): http://www.exittoshell.com/products/

It is a bit more involved, you have to place the Scripting Addition component into a folder that probably hasn't been created yet (in /Library/ScriptingAdditions so all user's AppleScript app can access it) in Mac OS X. There are instructions with the file.

Then simply make the line in the script similar to:

display dialog "Welcome " & MP Long User Name & " to the lab." as string

Obviously make it however you want, there are other options as part of "MacPack Toolbox" including getting the computer's network/Rendezvous name, custom date formatting and simply text find/replace.

This will work on OS X 10.1, 10.2, 10.3 (I just tried it on 10.3.3).