Complete list of known 'defaults write' commands?

[panjandrum]

I've been looking, but most resources indicate that there is not a good, known, up-to-date, list of available 'defaults write' commands. I can sometimes find what I'm looking for, but often not.

Generally speaking, MDM tools, even enhanced with utilities like iMazing Profile Editor, are still unable to push a growing number of settings we need to push, leaving us to manually configure systems in education settings. For example, the vast majority of our younger students are absolutely unable to use Apple's newer trackpads in any meaningful way as they come configured. The older trackpads sure (I mean, way back when they had an actual button), but nothing since. We have to go into every younger student's laptop and manually turn off just about every setting in order to make them usable (not cool Apple, NOT cool. That needs a single button option, like "Simple mode" and "Normal mode" or something, that can be pushed by a MDM.) A lot of that is issues with the tap to click, right click, etc.

So, as an example, I'm trying to find every trackpad and mouse setting that I can push with something like: "defaults -currentHost write -globalDomain com.apple.mouse.tapBehavior -int 0" (then I'll have to find out if I can even push terminal commands to M-series Macs, but that's another whole issue.)

 

[bogdanw]

We have to go into every younger student's laptop and manually turn off just about every setting in order to make them usable

After doing that once, read the set values from com.apple.AppleMultitouchTrackpad and turn them into your desired configuration script.

 

[hobowankenobi]

A bit tedious, but you could use something like Jamf Composer to record changes, which can be handy to reverse engineer some configurations, plus making .pkg files that can be pushed out via ARD or your weapon of choice.

I have not used Packages, but hear it is useful...it might work for building/editing prefs. I don't recall if Profile Creator would be helpful for all prefs, but might be worth a look too.

 

[panjandrum]

Thanks guys. I've tried a number of solutions already, including creating a package (using Packages, which, yes, is a VERY useful tool), that contains just edited trackpad .plist files from a single machine and then deploying that package (copy files into a specific location function) to place those .plist files on a different client. It simply does not work (the .plist files don't even get installed). My guess is that the MacOS now protects those directories and simply won't allow anything to be installed there - either that or it would need an interactive installer to allow input of admin creds, which I can't provide students. I can still copy into other directories unattended just fine (for example, I can install custom Desktop Pictures, which I push exactly the same way).

Looking at MacAdmins it looks like what I'm trying to do is just pitifully difficult on Macs these days. A shame really. Ten years ago I never would have considered Chromebooks, but I'm seriously looking into it now. It's simply become too difficult to micro-manage Macs, and in the education setting we often NEED to micro-manage.

It's all well and good to spend days trying to figure out the scripting myself, but Apple tends to change commands structure frequently, breaking any work previously accomplished. That's why an up-to-date list would be SO helpful. This simply shouldn't be nearly as hard as it is. I should just be able to lookup the appropriate 'defaults write' commands and then push those using Moysle's 'script' function, or (the now very unreliable) ARD.

In my case, I'm simply going to train a small groups students later today to go and manually set the trackpad settings for the youngers. They'll probably get it done in about an hour.

 

[bogdanw]

On MacBook Air M1 macOS 12.6 (21G115)
defaults read com.apple.AppleMultitouchTrackpad
{
ActuateDetents = 0;
ActuationStrength = 0;
Clicking = 0;
DragLock = 0;
Dragging = 0;
FirstClickThreshold = 1;
ForceSuppressed = 1;
SecondClickThreshold = 1;
TrackpadCornerSecondaryClick = 0;
TrackpadFiveFingerPinchGesture = 0;
TrackpadFourFingerHorizSwipeGesture = 0;
TrackpadFourFingerPinchGesture = 0;
TrackpadFourFingerVertSwipeGesture = 0;
TrackpadHandResting = 1;
TrackpadHorizScroll = 1;
TrackpadMomentumScroll = 1;
TrackpadPinch = 0;
TrackpadRightClick = 1;
TrackpadRotate = 0;
TrackpadScroll = 1;
TrackpadThreeFingerDrag = 0;
TrackpadThreeFingerHorizSwipeGesture = 0;
TrackpadThreeFingerTapGesture = 0;
TrackpadThreeFingerVertSwipeGesture = 0;
TrackpadTwoFingerDoubleTapGesture = 0;
TrackpadTwoFingerFromRightEdgeSwipeGesture = 0;
USBMouseStopsTrackpad = 1;
UserPreferences = 1;
version = 12;
}

 

[hobowankenobi]

Thanks guys. I've tried a number of solutions already, including creating a package (using Packages, which, yes, is a VERY useful tool), that contains just edited trackpad .plist files from a single machine and then deploying that package (copy files into a specific location function) to place those .plist files on a different client. It simply does not work (the .plist files don't even get installed). My guess is that the MacOS now protects those directories and simply won't allow anything to be installed there - either that or it would need an interactive installer to allow input of admin creds, which I can't provide students. I can still copy into other directories unattended just fine (for example, I can install custom Desktop Pictures, which I push exactly the same way).

Looking at MacAdmins it looks like what I'm trying to do is just pitifully difficult on Macs these days. A shame really. Ten years ago I never would have considered Chromebooks, but I'm seriously looking into it now. It's simply become too difficult to micro-manage Macs, and in the education setting we often NEED to micro-manage.

It's all well and good to spend days trying to figure out the scripting myself, but Apple tends to change commands structure frequently, breaking any work previously accomplished. That's why an up-to-date list would be SO helpful. This simply shouldn't be nearly as hard as it is. I should just be able to lookup the appropriate 'defaults write' commands and then push those using Moysle's 'script' function, or (the now very unreliable) ARD.

In my case, I'm simply going to train a small groups students later today to go and manually set the trackpad settings for the youngers. They'll probably get it done in about an hour.

I feel your pain.

Much of what used to be easy to do with simple tools can still be easy...but only with a full-fleged MDM, and with a team to build, test, and up load profiles.

The goods news is it is fairly enterprise grade...the bad news is it is enterprise scale and cost. The days of roll-your-own are sadly long gone.

 

[satcomer]

I use the free application called TinkerTool that's at least Universal!

 

[panjandrum]

So far I've failed to get any 'defaults write' for trackpads to push to our Monterey systems though Mosyle. This slow degradation of the tools we require in education has been happening since the advent of Lion, so I'm not surprised to find that another tool appears to be gone. I'll communicate directly with Mosyle to try and find a specific solution in this case, but their answer is often "Apple does not allow / no longer allows that function" - leaving us to craft complex and often overly fragile solutions that only work for a single school-year, as Apple will change some underlying functionality in no time.

My solution this time: Train 5 reliable 6th - 8th graders to manually set trackpad setting. Have them go to for our fleet of laptops assigned to our 4 lowest grades (K-3). Total time investment in this solution? 35 minutes; 5 to teach them and 30 for them to complete the task . Total time wasted trying to defeat Apple's continually increasing roadblocks? 3 hours and counting. 😂😂😂