Schedule wireless on Airport Extreme

[blubbernaut]

This may seem like an odd request...

I'm wondering if there is any way to script (Applescript, Terminal, Automator or other) a schedule to turn the wireless setting in Airport Utility on or off at a set time?

[NovaScotian]

I assume you mean without losing its wired connectivity. Otherwise, just turn it off with a timer?

[blubbernaut]

Ah! Yes unfortunately I do mean with maintaining wired connectivity...otherwise what a brilliant lo-tech solution!

[NovaScotian]

You can turn the wireless portion off. I couldn't get this to take the last step:

launch application "AirPort Utility"
delay 3
tell application "System Events"
	tell process "AirPort Utility"
		activate
		tell window 1
			click button 5
			delay 3
			tell tab group 1
				click radio button 3
				delay 3
				tell menu of pop up button 1
					delay 1
					click menu item "Off"
				end tell
			end tell
		end tell
	end tell
end tell

It got to the right place, but didn't activate the drop down menu containing "Off".

[blubbernaut]

You are awesome! I understand enough to unpick a little bit of applescript, but not enough to start one up myself.

Here's what I worked out was missing:

launch application "AirPort Utility"
delay 5
tell application "System Events"
	tell process "AirPort Utility"
		activate
		tell window 1
			click button 5
			delay 10
			tell tab group 1
				click radio button 3
				delay 3
				click pop up button 1
				tell menu of pop up button 1
					delay 1
					click menu item "Off"
				end tell
			end tell
		end tell
	end tell
end tell

We just needed to "click" the pop up button first then tell it to choose "off".
That's really great, much appreciated. Now all I've got to do is get it to happen at a specific time!

[NovaScotian]

Thanks for the discovery -- it was getting late and I couldn't see what was wrong with that. By the way, you can probably reduce the delay times; I always set them long to be sure the last step has finished before the next event command.

With respect to scheduling this to happen at a specific time, you either need third-party software to do it, or you need to learn about launchd, the OS X method for scheduling events.

[idsamdg]

Quote: Originally Posted by NovaScotian You can turn the wireless portion off. I couldn't get this to take the last step: launch application "AirPort Utility" delay 3 tell application "System Events" tell process "AirPort Utility" activate tell window 1 click button 5 delay 3 tell tab group 1 click radio button 3 delay 3 tell menu of pop up button 1 delay 1 click menu item "Off" end tell end tell end tell end tell end tell It got to the right place, but didn't activate the drop down menu containing "Off".

I wish I was clever enough to understand what any of that meant.

[NovaScotian]

It's not a matter of clever. I own a piece of software called UI Browser that exposes how the GUI of an application works, i.e., what it's elements (objects) are called and "who" they belong to in the object model of the software. Background software (always running) called System Events controls the interactions between software running on your Mac and the windows it presents to you. When you do something to an interface object, System Events transmits this to the application to "inform" it of your change. The code above is a way to have an AppleScript send those same events to the application GUI objects as if you had done them to the user interface.