How do I add an item to Finder's sidebar?

Add an item to the Finder/Save dialog sidebar

  • I'm working on a script where a user logs into a guest account on OS and is prompted for their network credentials in order to mount their network home folder (while they benefit from working on a local user folder). As the guest folder is deleted when users log out, I want to discourage them from saving anything there. I would like to replace the items on the Finder and Open/Save sidebar lists (such as "Desktop", username, "Documents", etc) with ones that would save into their network home folder. It is possible to do this using AppleScript or Cocoa APIs, or do I need to modify a plist and restart the Finder? [Ack. Looking into ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.sidebars.plist, it isn't at all clear how I'd populate it.] Similar Questions: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/375323/applescript-adding-mounted-folder-to-finder-sidebar suggests using fstab; this code will most likely run as a user and really, automounting at that point would be too late. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1062856/how-do-you-programmatically-put-folder-icons-on-the-finder-sidebar-given-that-yo Says there is no Cocoa API, but that you can use a carbon-style LSSharedFileList API that is only documented in a single header file. Does anyone know of some example code to add an item to the Finder sidebar?

  • Answer:

    It is possible to do this using AppleScript or Cocoa APIs, or do I need to modify a plist and restart the Finder? No. As I said on that other question, the correct way to add an item to the sidebar is to use LSSharedFileList.

Clinton Blackmore at Stack Overflow Visit the source

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A co-worker came up with this method that uses applescript: tell application "Finder" activate -- Select the path you want on the sidebar in the Finder select folder "Preferences" of folder "Library" of (path to home folder) tell application "System Events" -- Command-T adds the Documents Folder to the sidebar keystroke "t" using command down end tell end tell

Clinton Blackmore

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