Change iChat settings with applescript?

Question

Is there a way to create a script that will change the preferences of iChat to run the script when a message is received?

In other words, I want to make a script to change the iChat preferences to enable the "Message Received.applescript" i have created. Wow, this is confusing. Let me simply this.

I want a script that does this:

Activate iChat Open iChat Preferences Move to "Alerts" tab select event "Message Received" turn on "Run applescript" select a certain script from the script folder called "Message Receive.applescript"

please help?

Answer 1

You just need to edit iChat's plist file. defaults is a bit awkward for nested values so use System Events instead:

tell application "System Events"
    set EventActions to property list item "EventActions" of property list file ((path to preferences folder from user domain as text) & "com.apple.iChat.plist")
    repeat with e in {property list item "MessageNotification" of EventActions, property list item "SubsequentMessage" of EventActions}
        make new property list item at end of e with properties {name:"RunAppleScript", value:true}
        make new property list item at end of e with properties {name:"iChatAppleScriptsKey", value:{"~/Library/Scripts/iChat/Message Received.scpt"}}
    end repeat
end tell

This will attach "Message Received.scpt" to both initial text invitations and subsequent messages - you could simplify it if you only wanted it for subsequent messages. Also note you may need to relaunch iChat for the change to take effect.