Disable Sonoma Text Insertion Point ("Cursor" / "Caret")

sonoma-text-insertion-point-downgrade.jxa.js

#!/usr/bin/env osascript -l JavaScript

const App = Application.currentApplication();
App.includeStandardAdditions = true;

const kCFPrefsFeatureFlagsDir = '/Library/Preferences/FeatureFlags/Domain';
const kCFPrefsFeatureEnabledKey = 'Enabled';

const kUIKitDomainPrefsTemporaryPath = '/tmp/UIKit.plist';
const kUIKitRedesignedTextCursorKey = 'redesigned_text_cursor';

function run(_) {
  const dict = $.NSMutableDictionary.new;

  const enabled = $.NSMutableDictionary.new;
  enabled.setValueForKey(false, kCFPrefsFeatureEnabledKey);

  dict.setValueForKey(enabled, kUIKitRedesignedTextCursorKey);

  const error = $();
  dict.writeToURLError(
    $.NSURL.fileURLWithPath(kUIKitDomainPrefsTemporaryPath),
    error,
  );

  if (typeof error.js != 'undefined') {
    return `🫤: ${error.localizedDescription}`;
  }

  return App.doShellScript(
    [
      `mkdir -p '${kCFPrefsFeatureFlagsDir}'`,
      `mv '${kUIKitDomainPrefsTemporaryPath}' '${kCFPrefsFeatureFlagsDir}'`,
    ].join(' && '),
    {
      administratorPrivileges: true,
    },
  ).length == 0 ? '😃' : '🫤';
}

@jorjGizer That looks correct. What might be causing an issue is the file ownership. I'm not certain, but I think that root needs to be the owner for the file to take effect — such is the way that launchd handles certain property lists, too. Try changing ownership with:

sudo chown root /Library/Preferences/FeatureFlags/Domain/UIKit.plist

I do this and now I have root owner
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 96 9 фев 17:59 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 96 9 фев 17:39 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 272 9 фев 17:59 UIKit.plist

I reboot my Mac, maybe I forgot smth, but I want to hide this.

Hi, maybe somebody knows how to change the cursor to block in TextEdit (mac osX Sonoma). Thanks!

@zdravnick The systemwide insertion point doesn’t offer a block-type presentation style, so a feature like that would need to be implemented in the application itself or in a custom input method.

you're right. But I have no idea how to do this...

Thank you for taking the time to put this together. When I copy it in, I get the message
zsh: event not found: /usr/bin/env
And the caps lock feature still displays.

I'm very new to using the terminal window, and have no real history of monkeying around with such things.