Showing posts with label macOS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label macOS. Show all posts

Thursday, November 21, 2024

Stop the stupid: Disabling Microsoft AutoUpdate on macOS as of Nov 2024

Microsoft AutoUpdate is painfully stupid. It makes my teeth hurt stupid.

No matter what setting I use, even after I tell it to "just update everything, I don't care, go away" it launches 100 times a day (ok, at least once, maybe more than that) and leaves an ugly notification window on top of my desktop. Invariably over something I need to get at.

The click to dismiss it is causing me great emotional pain.

I asked Perplexity how to get rid of it and it did as well as Google -- it gave me answers that ought to work but don't. We all know why that is.

This has worked for me.
  1. Go to '/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/MAU2.0'
  2. Cmd-drag Microsoft AutoUpdate.app to desktop.
  3. Create alias of MAU2.0 folder on desktop.
MAU will stop notifications. Every month or so (yearly?) I drag it into the folder, run update, then drag it out.

Sooner or later Microsoft might make MAU less stupid. My theory is MSFT devs / contractors hate Microsoft Office and want it to die faster.

Saturday, July 13, 2024

End of software support for the Fujitsu (Ricoh, PFU) ix500 document scanner

Many years ago I bought a (then) Fujitsu ScanSnap ix500 document scanner. The hardware has been superb but the MacOS desktop software was always ugly and awkward. Infamously there's no API for a third party to use and no standards support. The current version of the desktop software allows only one active WiFi desktop client to protect revenue on their business line.

In contrast to the desktop app the simple iOS app, ScanSnap.app [ScanSnap Connect Application], worked well for me. It was even multi-user -- anyone could scan from their iPhone.

As of 7/2024 the ix500 still works with a single macOS device by cable or WiFi using the current desktop app. The iOS app is end of life however. A year ago it dropped Google Drive support. A few days ago OneDrive auto-upload started to crash the app following upload (it freezes, needs force quit, the document is lost).

The replacement for [ScanSnap Connect Application] is ScanSnap Home. That app does not support the ix500; it will not connect via WiFi. There is also an end-of-life ScanSnap Cloud app that uses PFU's crazy (failed?) cloud document routing service. I did not test that app.

For now we will probably switch our ix500 to a wired machine connection; I have a de facto home server that will work for that.

I'm playing around with iOS ScanSnap.app to see what still works after disabling OneDrive Auto Upload:

  1. If you preview a PDF doc it can be sent to OneDrive from preview without a crash.
  2. If you tap on the ellipsis next to a File you can AirDrop or otherwise move it about in iOS Files. 
  3. If you use the ScanSnap Edit function, select documents, then choose "Save to the Files app" the documents in <On My iPhone / ScanSnap / ScanSnap / .Files> [1] are copied to <On My iPhone / ScanSnap / ScanSnap> and from there can be manipulated using Files.
I'll update if a learn more. ScanSnap Connect Application was last updated 2m ago but I'm pretty sure it worked until 2w ago. I'm guessing something changed in OneDrive recently. Perhaps it will start working again someday -- like Apple Aperture's peculiar and transient Ventura M1 resurrection.

PS. I have never had Apple's scripting/automation software be useful for anything I really needed it for. It would be nice if there was a way to use it to move things from .Files to somewhere useful but I'd be shocked if that were possible.

Wednesday, May 01, 2024

The modest changes that would make macOS Photos.app a good app

I've submitted all of these as feature requests to Apple. If you like them please submit too, because we got nothing else.
  1. For any photo show list of albums that hold it. The UI for Contact/Folder relationships would do.
  2. Include Folder name matches in search results.
  3. Port Photos.iOS feature that shows geo view of images for an album to Photos.mac
  4. Provide a list view of images with metadata
  5. When exporting images also export metadata (ideally in image header, otherwise XMP sidecar
There's a few more I need to add but I'll remember them as I work/curse Photos.app.

Not a modest change but great benefits for customers - extend PhotoKit so third parties can fill gaps better.

Wednesday, February 14, 2024

AppleScript to very slowly list the albums a macOS Photos.app image is associated with

macOS Photos.app does not give users a way to identify which albums contain a selected photo. I found a relatively current AppleScript that works in Ventura; in our broken world there's no repository for these things so I've copied it below. You can select a photos then run the script in ScriptEditor or Export as application and run after selecting an image. On a 2023 Air with a large complex library it takes about 40 seconds to show results.

If you wish you can wrap the AppleScript in a Shortcuts.app Shortcut and from there configure it to show in the Ventura Services menu (all shortcuts can appear there).
 
Please submit a feedback request to Apple. Obviously Photos.app should support this function. Sadly, I suspect Apple goes by its usage data and has learned that most users of Photos do not use or create Albums -- or add any kind of metadata to images. So it will probably never be fixed.

Source: https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-250005659
Author: Jacques Rioux, leonie

-- Jacques Rioux's script  https://discussions.apple.com/message/29601534#29601534

-- modified by leonie for Catalina

--  version 1.01, changed a dialog to a notification

-- version 2, added the support to suppress smart albums


-- Select the photo in Photos, then run this script 

-- by pressing the "Run" button in the script editor 

-- or run it from the scripts menu.

-- The script will show first a panel with the filename of the photo it is searching for.

-- Then it will show a second panel with the list of albums. 

-- if you do not see the panels, click the script Editor icon in the Dock, if it is bouncing.


global allalbums -- the list of all albums

global allfolders -- the list of all folders



set NoSmartAlbums to true -- set this to false, if you want to find the smart albums too


--part 1. get the selected photos

tell application "Photos"

activate

-- Add the photo you want to search for to a top level album as the first item in the album

set resultcaption to "Searching for: "

try

set sel to selection

if sel is {} then error "The selection  is empty" -- no selection 

on error errTexttwo number errNumtwo

display dialog "No photos selected " & errNumtwo & return & errTexttwo

return

end try

set imagename to "unknown filename"

try

set target to item 1 of sel -- the image to seach for

tell target

set imagename to the filename of target

end tell

on error errTexttwo number errNumtwo

display dialog "Cannot get the filename of the first image: " & errNumtwo & return & errTexttwo

end try

set resultcaption to (resultcaption & imagename)

end tell



display notification resultcaption subtitle imagename


-- Part 2: get a list of all albums by searching the nested folders

set allfolders to {}

set allalbums to {}



tell application "Photos"

set allalbums to the albums --  collect all albums

set allfoldernames to {}

set allalbumnames to {}

set level to 0 -- nesting level of folders

set nextlevelFolders to the folders

set currentLevelFolders to {}

repeat while (nextlevelFolders is not {})

set currentLevelFolders to nextlevelFolders

set nextlevelFolders to {}

repeat with fi in currentLevelFolders

tell fi

set ffolders to its folders

set falbums to its albums

set nextlevelFolders to ffolders & nextlevelFolders

set allalbums to falbums & allalbums

end tell

end repeat

set allfolders to currentLevelFolders & allfolders

set level to level + 1

end repeat

-- return allalbums --test

end tell


-- removing albums with "smart" in the name

if NoSmartAlbums then

set without_smart_Albums to {}

repeat with a in allalbums

if (the name of a does not contain "smart") then set without_smart_Albums to {a} & without_smart_Albums

end repeat

set allalbums to without_smart_Albums -- to exclude smart albums 

end if


-- From Jacques Rioux's script:

tell application "Photos"

if sel is {} then return -- no selection 

try

set thisId to id of item 1 of sel

on error errText number errNum

display dialog "Error: cannot get the image ID" & errNum & return & errText & "Trying again"

try

delay 1

set thisId to id of item 1 of sel

on error errTexttwo number errNumtwo

display dialog "Skipping image due to repeated error: " & errNumtwo & return & errTexttwo

error "giving up"

return

end try --second attempt

end try

set theseNames to {}

repeat with a in allalbums

try

tell a

if ((the id of media items) contains thisId) then

set theseNames to {the name of a} & theseNames

end if

end tell

--set theseNames to name of (albums whose id of media items contains thisId)

on error errText number errNum

display dialog "Error: cannot get the albums" & errNum & return & errText & "Trying again"

try

delay 1

tell a

if ((the id of media items) contains thisId) then

set theseNames to {the name of a} & theseNames

end if

end tell

on error errTexttwo number errNumtwo

display dialog "Skipping image due to repeated error: " & errNumtwo & return & errTexttwo

error "giving up"

return

end try

end try

end repeat

end tell


if theseNames is not {} then

set {oTid, text item delimiters} to {text item delimiters, return}

set {t, text item delimiters} to {theseNames as string, oTid}

-- return oTid

else

set t to "No album"

end if

activate


set resultcaption to resultcaption & ", found it in these albums:

" & t as string

set the clipboard to resultcaption

display notification resultcaption subtitle "Saved to the Clipboard"


display dialog resultcaption & ", Saved to the Clipboard" buttons {"OK"} default button "OK"

-- you can press the Enter key or the return Key to close the dialog

return resultcaption -- léonie