Autostart MacOS and aw-watcher-window

[repercussion]

starting aw-qt from the terminal works fine for me, but when I try to create an automator app to launch aw on boot, I run into an issue with the aw-watcher-window.

In this image, you can see my attempts to launch aw from the automator application and terminal.

I have the automator app set up to run this:

/usr/bin/nohup /usr/local/bin/aw-qt >/dev/null 2>&1 &

When I start it with the Automator app, aw-watcher-window isn't able to request access to control “System Events.app“. Even if I run the same in Terminal and grant it access, launching from the Automator app still won't let aw-watcher-window get the access it needs.

The first time I run the app, osascript requests and is granted access to control “System Events.app“. Terminal and iTerm have also been granted such access.

Has anybody got aw running at boot on MacOS?

[ErikBjare]

I know @exoji2e has got it working in the past.

I think you might need to somehow give Automator such access manually through the system settings?

[xylix]

Any progress on this?

For me this works fine:
nohup /Users/xylix/activitywatch/aw-qt >/dev/null 2>&1 &

I'm running MacOS Mojave. It seems I have somehow given Automator control access in Security -> Privacy -> Accessibility. However I can't seem to remember if I managed to give it automatically through running aw-qt or did I add it manually. I recommend trying to add manual Automator permissions though.

[willvieira]

My workaround to run aw at boot on MacOS is to use launchctl.

You have basically two files: one simple bash to run aw called here ~/runActivitiyWatch.sh:

#!/bin/sh

cd /Applications/activitywatch
./aw-qt

And the system launchctl file to be saved in ~/Library/LaunchAgents called com.activitywatch.plist:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
  <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC ''-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN' 'http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd'>
  <plist version='1.0'>
  <dict>
   <key>Label</key>
   <string>com.activitywatch</string>
   <key>ProgramArguments</key>
   <array><string>/Users/wvieira/launchActivitywatch.sh</string></array>
   <key>RunAtLoad</key>
   <true/>
  </dict>
</plist>

Edit line 8 with the location of your bash file, and make sure to specify the full path to the file (do not use ~).

Finally you have to load the launchctl file and it should work correctly:

launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.activitywatch.plist

[ErikBjare]

@willvieira That looks neat, thanks for sharing! But what about the Accessibility permission in that case?

[willvieira]

@ErikBjare Good point I forgot to mention, I had to give accessibility permission to sh. So before launchctl load the agent, I manually loaded the app by sh ~/runActivitiyWatch.sh on terminal.

[ErikBjare]

This should be a lot easier with the upcoming .app bundle that will be available in v0.9, which should just be possible to add to the normal autostart applications in settings.

[xylix]

Fixed in v0.9.0