System Requirements:

Mac OS X 10.4.3 or later
Mac OS X 10.5 or later
Mac OS X 10.6 or later
PPC or Intel

Version:

1.5.1 (Jan 5, 2009)

License:

Freeware

Download:

Maintidget.zip (73 KB)

Contact:

Feedback Form

Known Issues:

Refreshing the widget while the scripts are running will remove the "Scripts Running..." message.

Certain special characters used in admin passwords interefere with authentication while running the scripts on demand.

Maintidget (Maintenance Scripts Widget) is a Dashboard Widget which provides the following functions:

• Display the last time the daily, weekly, and monthly OS X Maintenance Scripts (a.k.a Cron Tasks) were run.
• Run the OS X Maintenance Scripts on demand. Just enter your administrator password and click the Run Scripts button. Maintidget is the first Dashboard Widget to provide this feature!
• Added in version 1.1: Select which scripts you want to run (the daily script must be run at all times).
• Added in version 1.2: Now works with admin accounts that don't have a password assigned.
• Added in version 1.3: Click Daily/Weekly/Monthly labels to open logs in the Console. Check for updates using a link in the widget. Slick redesign by Jason Jacques that includes multiple skins!
• Added in version 1.4: New authentication logic should reduce false-negatives when running scripts and should also help those with blank passwords (blank passwords no longer accepted by Mac OS X for sudo commands).
• Added in version 1.5: Works with case sensitive file systems. Cleaned up the user interface to reduce widget size. Option to not run the Daily script. Further refinements to the authentication logic. Supports MobileMe preference syncing. Now handles cases in which multiple output lines start with dates in a single script run (fixes text overlay and non-updating date issues).
• New in version 1.5.1: Better parsing of log files. Passwords with some special characters should be accepted more often.

Now you can keep track of when your Mac runs the scripts, and force them to run in case you need to. These maintenance scripts perform the following tasks:

Please note that the weekly script can take a long time to run (up to 10 minutes depending on the speed of the computer). During this time the "Running Scripts" message will show in Maintidget. Please do not refresh the widget during this time, as this will prematurely remove the "Running Scripts" message which will automatically remove itself when the scripts are finished running.

1. Why does Maintidgest always tells me my password is wrong?
If you have a blank password, I cannot help you (see next question). If you don't have a blank have a password, but instead have specials characters in your password (this includes $, %, etc.), then be advised that I am working on a solution to this issue. No ETA is currently available.

2. I have a blank password, how do I run the scripts?
Apple doesn't allow sudo to run with blank passwords in Leopard. Please change your password to non-blank.
http://support.apple.com/kb/TA25121

3. Can I run the scripts on demand from non-admin account with an admin user/password?
This is not possible with the current version of Maintidget. You can still see that last run date and time of each of scripts when used with a non-admin account

4. Can I setup Maintidget to shut down my Mac after running?
This is not doable with the current version of Maintidget. I can take the feature request under consideration, but I cannot promise to implement it.

5. The scripts seem to run properly, why don't the dates update to reflect this?
I believe I have fixed this issue with version 1.5. If you continue to see this problem with that version, please contact me so I can try to help.
Note: If you are using an earlier version of the utility Cocktail, to run the scripts, it may not write to the appropriate log files. Please upgrade to the latest version of Cocktail.

6. After updating, I only see half a widget. How do I get it to show properly?
The Dashboard engine seems to have a problem with different versions of widgets that are different sizes. All you have to do to fix this is activate Dashboard, click on Maintidget, and hit Command+R to refresh it.

7. Is Maintidget compatible with Snow Leopard?
I have tested Maintidget to work just fine on Snow Leopard. This includes checking last run dates, running the scripts on demand, and launching the script logs in the console.

8. I turn off or sleep my computer at night, do the scripts stil lrun automatically?
Starting with Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger), Apple revised the scheduling routines to ensure that your maintenance sripts are run when needed. Basically they will run at the first possible opportunity after the initial scheduled date/time was missed.