Launchd Editor

An easy way to create and edit Launchd property list files.

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Current version: 1.0.1

Requires Mac OS X 10.4

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Get support for Launchd Editor in the forums.

About

After Tiger came out I heard about this new process that replaced cron, at, watchdog, init, startup items, and a variety of other things. As I looked into launchd I discovered that it was a powerful program but that the power of it was lost in a horridly complicated property list file. While I know that I could make one if I wanted to, I also knew that a large number of people would not be able to or would have problems doing do. An even larger number of people would be excluded entirely because they simply don’t “get” property lists and don’t have Xcode installed and, thus, don’t have the Property List Editor.

So, I solved all of this. Launchd Editor is a graphical editor for launchd’s property list files. It makes sure that the proper keys are of the proper values and lets you enter in whatever information you want in those keys. I shied away from validating the input too much so as to not prevent the more esoteric things from being possible, so it’s still useful to review the manual page for launchd.plist to make sure you’re using the values correctly.

Features

• Provides a graphical interface for all published launchd options.
• Creates property list files for launchd using all of the correct data types that launchd expects.
• Enforces required/optional keys to ensure a valid file.
• Does not save an option if it is set to the default or not set at all. This reduces file size and reduces the chance that a file will do something unexpected.

Basic How-To

Launchd Editor does just that, it edits the files. It does not add them to launchd for you. To setup a basic service, create a new document and put the following settings in:

• General
  • Label: com.apple.TextEdit
  • Program: /Applications/TextEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/TextEdit
• Startup
  • Interval: 90

Save this file somewhere easily accessible (to make it start when you login, create the folder ~/Library/LaunchAgents and save it there) and then run the following in Terminal:

launchctl load path_to/com.apple.TextEdit.plist

TextEdit should start. Wait at least 60 seconds, but not more than 90, and quit TextEdit. When 90 seconds comes around, it will start again (that was your StartInterval setting). To remove the job, enter:

launchctl unload path_to/com.apple.TextEdit.plist

Screenshots

Version History

1.0.1 – June 14, 2005

• Added re-ordering and cross-document drag-and-drop to the arguments, queue, and watch folder tables.

1.0 – June 12, 2005

• Initial release