Pushing Webpage Shortcuts to Desktop

Addigy's Smart Software features provide lots of flexibility for deploying files and apps to your devices. This article provides the simplest workflow for pushing a file to your users' desktops that opens a specific URL, then this article will give you the simplest workflow.

First, download the "Addigy.webloc" file that is attached to this article. Replace the inside of <string>https://www.addigy.com</string> with your URL and rename the file to your liking. Make sure that it still has the .webloc extension to the file.

Creating the Smart Software Item

Create a Smart Software payload and upload the .webloc file. Then, copy the provided scripts into the Smart Software item to place the .webloc file on each user's desktop. Update the filename in the first line of the script to match your .webloc file. 

Installation script:

This script is a Bash script designed to copy a .webloc file (named Addigy.webloc) to the desktop of all valid macOS user accounts with a UniqueID of 500 or higher (typically standard user accounts and not system accounts). Here's a detailed summary of what it does:

Steps in the Script

1. Determine the Current Working Directory:

   • It assigns the current working directory to the variable current_path using the pwd command.

2. Set File Name and Path:

   • It specifies the file name (Addigy.webloc) and combines it with the current_path to create a full path to the file, stored in source_path_filename.

3. Check if the Source File Exists:

   • It checks if Addigy.webloc exists in the current directory.
   • If the file does not exist, the script outputs an error message and exits.

4. Process Each User:

   • It retrieves a list of all user accounts with UniqueID greater than or equal to 500 using dscl and processes them in a loop.

5. Determine the User's Home Directory:

   • For each user, it gets their NFSHomeDirectory (home directory path) from the macOS Directory Service (dscl).

6. Check if the File Already Exists on Desktop:

   • It verifies if Addigy.webloc already exists in the user's Desktop folder.
   • If it exists, the script skips further processing for that user.

7. Ensure the Desktop Directory Exists:

   • It checks whether the user's Desktop directory exists. If not, the user is skipped.

8. Copy the File:

   • It copies Addigy.webloc to the user's Desktop directory using the cp command.
   • If the copy fails, the script outputs an error message and skips further actions for that user.

9. Set Ownership and Permissions:

   • The ownership of the copied file is changed to the specific user (and group staff) using chown.
   • The file permissions are set to 644 (readable by everyone, writable only by the owner) using chmod.

10. Finish Execution:

    • After processing all users, the script outputs "Script finished."
11. Script Output

Conditional script:

This Bash script is designed to check if a specific file (Addigy.webloc) exists on the Desktop of all macOS user accounts with a UniqueID of 500 or higher (typically regular user accounts). Here's a detailed breakdown of what it does:

Steps in the Script

1. Define the Target File:

   • The variable filename is set to Addigy.webloc, which is the file being checked for.

2. Initialize an Array:

   • An empty array missingUsers is created to store the usernames of users who do not have the file on their Desktop.

3. Loop Through Users:

   • The script uses dscl (Directory Service command-line tool) to list all users with a UniqueID >= 500.
   • For each user:
     • Their home directory path is fetched using dscl . read /Users/$user NFSHomeDirectory.
     • It checks if the file exists on their Desktop (${userHome}/Desktop/${filename}).

4. Check for Missing File:

   • If the file is not found on the user’s Desktop:
     • The script logs a message indicating the user does not have the file.
     • The username is added to the missingUsers array.

5. Summarize Results:

   • After looping through all users:
     • If the missingUsers array contains any entries:
       • It lists all users missing the file and exits with a status code of 1 (indicating failure).
     • If no users are missing the file, it outputs a success message and exits with a status code of 0 (indicating success).
     • The condition is considered a custom condition that does not take into account the exit status of 0 as the default return. You would need to uncheck this:
       
       
6. Script Output

Final Output - Desktop:

Give your next smart software some rigorous testing, and you're good to go. Your users will now be able to access that web resource quickly and easily using the new desktop icon they have.