Up for a challenge? Highlighting dialog buttons with ARD

[kdpyke]

So, I've got a seemingly simple task that is becoming WAY more difficult than I could have anticipated. Here's the deal:

I'm in charge of a lab of 23 iMacs, and clicking through all of the dialogs to install programs on each one is time-consuming and tedious.

To bypass all of that clicking, I've created a script which generates keystrokes to navigate through each dialog, usually consisting of several TAB and spacebar commands. I can then send that script out to all 23 iMacs at the same time, significantly cutting down on time to manually start each installation.

This works perfectly if each dialog has a highlighted or filled button. On installers where the buttons are not pre-highlighted, this script doesn't work.

So how do you highlight a button on a dialog where the buttons aren't already highlighted? Ctrl+fn+f7 on a mac keyboard (toggle full keyboard access).

The problem is, the 'fn' key is not scriptable, so there is no way to generate that keystroke. Even if I turn on 'use standard function keys...' in the SysPrefs, the target computers via ARD still interpret the 'F7' (key code 98) stroke as an iTunes rewind command.

So all I need is a way to highlight a dialog button through ARD, where there aren't any pre-highlighted buttons.

Suggestions?

 

[Mal]

I think you're trying to use the wrong tool (or the wrong part of it). ARD includes the ability to install software via the package installers without having to do any click-throughs on each machine at all. Likely a far easier solution here: http://www.apple.com/remotedesktop/softwaredistribution.html

jW

 

[kdpyke]

I think you're trying to use the wrong tool (or the wrong part of it). ARD includes the ability to install software via the package installers without having to do any click-throughs on each machine at all. Likely a far easier solution here: http://www.apple.com/remotedesktop/softwaredistribution.html

jW

You're a genius. I'd run into a couple of problems installing software via the install function a long time ago, and just assumed that I'd always have to manually install everything. Since these are school computers, permissions and passwords are always tricky, but in this case using the forgotten distributed install worked perfectly. Thanks a ton!