How to you active the Script Menu Bar with AppleScript

applescriptmenu barscript

In AppleScript if you want to show the Script Menu in the menu bar you have to:

Click Applications
Scroll down and click Utilities
Click Script Editor (this was called AppleScript Editor in older OS X
versions)
Click the “Script Editor” menu item, then click “Preferences…”
On the Preferences dialog click “Show Script menu in menu bar”
If it isn’t selected, you’ll want to enable the “Show Computer scripts”
option

but is there a file in system that I can target to activate this in a script? Trying to build an installer that will turn this on when if not active but I'm having issues trying to find where in the system I can hit this. Dont mind a do shell but prefer not to use Automator.

Best Answer

10.13 (High Sierra) and before

If you do not want to have to go through Script Editor > Preferences > General to check the
[ ] Show Script menu in menu bar check box, then here is one way of enabling the Script Menu using AppleScript:

tell application "System Events"
    if not (script menu enabled) then
        tell current application
            do shell script "open '/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/Script Menu.menu'"
        end tell
    end if
end tell

You could just use:

do shell script "open '/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/Script Menu.menu'"

However, since System Events has a script menu enabled property, it makes sense to check whether or not it's enabled first. Either way though, opening the target file loads the Script Menu and checks the [√] Show Script menu in menu bar check box in: Script Editor > Preferences > General

Also, from Terminal, you could just run:

open '/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/Script Menu.menu'

Opening the target file in any manner shown accomplishes the goal.

By the way, when the Script Menu is enabled the target plist file is:

com.apple.systemuiserver.plist

The key is a Boolean and is NSStatusItem Visible com.apple.scriptmenu, and will also have an element in the menuExtras Array as a String holding the pathname of the item.

Note that the information above was gathered under macOS 10.13.5.

10.14 (Mojave) and up

The script menu has been upgraded into a full-fledged application, instead of a .menu file. It is now located at /System/Library/CoreServices/Script Menu.app.

To activate it on 10.14+, the terminal/shell command changes to:

open '/System/Library/CoreServices/Script Menu.app'

Related Solutions

Hide/Show Battery Icon in Menu Bar with AppleScript

Update: This updated script wouldn't flash through the screen, i.e runs in the backgound. The old version is still valid.

tell application "System Events"
    tell process "System Preferences"
        activate
    end tell
    tell application "System Preferences"
        set current pane to pane "com.apple.preference.energysaver"
    end tell
    tell process "System Preferences"
        click checkbox 1 of window 1
    end tell
    tell application "System Preferences"
        quit
    end tell
end tell

From Oct. 18th:

-- Allow Script Editor in Accessibility <- Privacy <- Security & Privacy <-  System Preferences. For testing, at the very least.

tell application "System Preferences"
    activate
    set current pane to pane "com.apple.preference.energysaver"
end tell


tell application "System Events"
    tell process "System Preferences"
        tell window 1
            click checkbox 1
        end tell
    end tell
end tell

tell application "System Preferences"
    quit
end tell

-- Create an Automator Service with this, so that you can bind the action to a keyboard shortcut.

Script to relocate the menu-bar on dual monitors set-up

You can use a command line utility named cscreen to do that. You can wrap it in a AppleSctipt script or in Automator. You can download the cscreenIntel.dmg from the link provided. In a terminal use cscreen -h to output the internal help information.

I have a MBP and a Thunderbolt Display so in a Terminal I want to have cscreen list my displays

$ cscreen -l
DisplayID  Index     Depth     Width     Height  Refresh
5ac6fa7f       1        32      1440        900     0
 3247b0f       2        32      2560       1440     0
use -h to display all usage options
$

So to set the Thunderbolt Display to have the menu bar I run the following command:

cscreen -s 2 -p

I can then toggle it back using the same command as the Index shifts.

In AppleScript: do shell script "/<path_to>/cscreen -s 2 -p"

In Automator add Run Shell Script and add command: /<path_to>/cscreen -s 2 -p

Note: This is a simple toggle if you only have two displays however if you have more then two you'll need to write some logic flow into the script.

You can also use, cscreen -i <DisplayID> -p, e.g. cscreen -i 3247b0f -p to code with the DisplayID which doesn't change.

This can also just be used in a Terminal as a singular command or incorporated into a shell script without using AppleScript and or Automator.