By tweaking one file within the System folder, it is possible to change almost any string of text that appears in Mac OS X. Amongst the endless possibilities are things like the default new folder name and the suffix added to duplicates and aliases. You can customize things like the categories in the iTunes and Finder sidebars or the System Preferences categories, or, for a bit of fun, you can change the the message you get when an application crashes.

Change the default new folder name
When you create a new folder in the Finder, it is automatically named "untitled folder". This annoyingly buries deep within a list when sorted alphabetically, rather than at the top or the bottom where it is easy to find. Luckily, it is surprisingly simple to change it.

First, navigate to Macintosh HD/System/Library/CoreServices. In here, locate the Finder application. Right-click (Control-click) on it, and choose "Show Package Contents" from the contextual menu. In the window that appears, navigate through to Contents/Resources/English.lproj. A quick way of navigating here (you might end up doing it a few times) is to use the "Go to Folder" option in the Go menu. In the box that appears, paste the following line:

/System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/

Find the file named "Localizable.strings" and drag it to the Desktop to make a copy. We are going to edit this copy on the desktop, and then copy it back into the English.lproj folder to replace the original version. You might want to make an additional copy of the file as a backup, just in case anything goes wrong.

Open up the desktop version of the localizable.strings file using TextEdit. Scroll down to the line that starts with N2. it should say the following:

"N2" = "untitled folder";

Now you can change the words "untitled folder" to anything you want. For something at the start of the alphabet, you could simply put "*untitled folder*".

Once you are done, save the file on the desktop and quit TextEdit. Finally, drag the file back to the English.lproj folder that you copied it from. Click Authenticate and type in your administrator password.

For changes to take place, you will have to relaunch the Finder, which can be done by holding down Control and Option, clicking the Finder icon in the Dock, and choosing Relaunch from the menu.

Suffixes for duplicates and aliases
These are done in exactly the same way as the new folder tip above. Only this time, change line N3 for aliases, or N4 for duplicates.

In these cases, "^0" takes the place of the original file name. So, for a duplicate, the default is "^0 copy", meaning the duplicate of "file.doc" is "file copy.doc". As above, you can change this to anything you want. "copy of ^0" would mean the duplicate would work better with file extensions, giving "copy of file.doc". However, it wouldn't be next to the original file alphabetically.

Remember to relaunch the Finder when you are done.

Shorten the Finder's 'Show Item Info' text
One of the features I like about Mac OS X is the "Show item info" check box located in the View Options of the Finder. This works for all windows in icon view, and is therefore especially useful on the desktop. However, one problem with it is the text for Hard Drives is too long, unless you make the text size really small.

You can solve this problem by editing the same localizable.strings file as above. Carry out the steps exactly the same, but search for the line "IV9" = "^0 free";. The best way to change this is to get rid of the word free, just leaving "IV9" = "^0";. You can see the result below.

Remove default Genres in iTunes
iTunes comes with a long list of genres, some of which many people will never use. Occasionally this may become annoying, for example when using the autofill feature.

To remove some of the genres, you have to edit the localizable.strings file within iTunes, rather than within the Finder. You can find this by going to iTunes in the applications folder, right-clicking and choosing "Show Package Contents". In here, navigate to Contents/Resources/Englihs.lproj where you will find the localizable.strings file. As before, you will have to copy it to your desktop before editing.

Open up the file in TextEdit. You'll find the list of genres under the line /* ===== Genres ===== */. To remove a genre, don't bother deleting it, just in case you ever want it back. Simply "comment" out the line, by putting a /* at the start, and a */ at the end. For example, to remove Techno, you will simply replace the line with /* "9200.019" = "Techno"; */.

As always, quit and reopen iTunes for changes to take effect.

Change the iTunes sidebar labels
The most obvious reason for wanting to do this is if you would prefer the labels to be lowercase. Using the same localizable.strings file as in the genre tip above, find the following lines:

"135.011" = "LIBRARY";
"135.012" = "DEVICES";
"135.013" = "STORE";
"135.014" = "PLAYLISTS";

You can change these to anything you want, or simply remove the capitalization.

Change the Finder's sidebar labels
You can do exactly the same thing in the Finder's sidebar. The file you need to edit is localizableCore.strings, located in exactly the same place as the localizable.strings file inside the Finder application. The lines you want to change are the following:

"SD5" = "DEVICES";
"SD6" = "SHARED";
"SD7" = "SEARCH FOR";
"SD8" = "PLACES";

Customize System Preferences
All the System Preferences panes are grouped into five categories - Personal, Hardware, Internet and Network, System and Other. It is quite easy to change these category names by going inside the System Preferences package, which is in the Applications folder. Inside it, navigate to the English.lproj folder inside the Resources folder. In here, find a file named NSPrefPaneGroups.strings and drag it to your desktop. Now open this file up in TextEdit and you'll see the following lines:

"personal" = "Personal";
"digitalHub" = "Digital Hub";
"hardware" = "Hardware";
"net" = "Internet & Network";
"system" = "System";
"addons" = "Other";

Don't change the words on the left, these are the ones used by System Preferences. You can change the words on the right. These are the ones displayed in the System Preferences window. Just make sure you don't delete any quotes or semicolons. Also, ignore the "Digital Hub" entry. This isn't used anymore and is probably just left over from a previous version of the operating system.

Now save the file and drag it back to the English.lproj folder from the Desktop. You will have to Authenticate this action with your administrator password.

Dock Menu items
For a bit of fun (I can't see why else) you can change the items in the menus you get when right-clicking on icons in the Dock. The Dock application is located in /System/Library/CoreServices. Right-click on it and choose "Show Package Contents". In the window that appears, navigate to Contents/Resources/English.lproj where you will find DockMenus.strings. Copy this file to the desktop to edit it.

Some of the lines you might want to edit are the "Application Not Responding" and "Force Quit" lines to something more reflective of the feeling you get when you see them.

Change Unexpectedly Quit message
With some tinkering it is possible to customize Mac OS X alert messages and dialog box text. For a bit of fun, you can change the message that appears when an application crashes to something more humorous.

Open up your hard drive and navigate to /System/Library/CoreServices. Find the Crash Reporter package and open it by right-clicking and choosing Show Package Contents.

In the window that appears, navigate to Contents/Resources/English.lproj and find Localizable.strings. Copy it to your Desktop and open it up in TextEdit. Near the bottom of the file you will see the line -

/* Unexpectedly quit dialog */

In the lines that follow this it is fairly obvious how to change the message. The symbol "%@" will make the message display the crashed Application's name, and "\n" will make a line break. Save the file and then copy it back to the package to replace the old version. You will have to enter your administrator password.

All Apple keyboards now come with volume keys, so you can easily increase, decrease and mute the volume. But did you know there is more functionality to these keys.

Holding down the Option key while pressing one of the volume change keys will bring up the Sound System Preference pane. Here you can change the alert sound, alert volume, and when different sound effects are played. You can also change the sound input and output, incase you have an external microphone or speakers.

Holding down the Shift key when pressing the volume keys will disable the sound that is normally played when you change the volume. You can disable this permanently from within the Sound Preference Pane by un-checking the box "Play feedback when volume is changed". Now, when you hold shift it does the opposite, temporarily enabling the volume change sound.

Unfortunately, this one is Leopard only. If you hold down both Option and Shift while pressing the volume keys, you can change the volume more accurately. The entire volume spectrum is divided into 65 instead of the usual 17 (by my count). This means you can adjust the volume by just a tiny amount if it is not quite right.

To disable the startup sound that plays when you turn on your mac, simply hold down the mute button while pressing the power button. Keep it held down for a while, until after the sound would have normally played.

I've noticed a lot of recent articles around the web about taking screenshots on a Mac. There's just the odd tip here and there, so I thought I'd do a complete guide. If you are familiar with taking screenshots, you might want to scroll down to the bottom, where there are some more advanced tips.

Keyboard Shortcuts
The quickest way to take a screenshot is to use a keyboard shortcut. Annoyingly, these aren't particularly intuitive. There are two main ones:

Command-Shift-3 - Take a screenshot of the entire screen.
Command-Shift-4 - Allows you to click and drag around the area you want a shot of.

Each of these will save a file to the desktop named Picture 1.png, or a higher number if that file already exists.

Now there are a few extra things you can do. If you press Space after pressing Command-Shift-4, you will notice that the cursor changes to a picture of a camera. You can now just click on a window, icon, widget or almost any other interface element to take a screenshot of it. You can also add Control into the keyboard shortcut to put the image in the clipboard instead of saving it to the desktop. For example, pressing Command-Control-Shift-3 would allow you to then paste the image into another document.

The Grab Application
If you can never remember keyboard shortcuts, the Grab application is for you. It is located in Applications/Utilities and it has many more options for screenshots than the keyboard shortcuts do. The two main advantages (in my opinion) are timed screenshots and being able to change the pointer type.

You can create a timed screenshot by going to the Capture menu, or by pressing Command-Shift-Z. Using this, you can achieve screenshots that are supposedly “impossible”. One example is the login window.

To change the pointer type, go to the Preferences. See the image below for the different options.

Disable Shadow
If you use the Command-Shift-4 Space method to take a screenshot of an entire window, you will find that the shadow is in the screenshot. This was added in Leopard because without the shadow, windows don't actually have a border if they have no scrollbars. However, if you prefer no shadows, you can disable them with a Terminal command. Simply open up Terminal (located in Applications/Utilities), paste in the following line and hit return.

defaults write com.apple.screencapture disable-shadow -bool true

Afterwards you will need to log out and in again for changes to take effect. To enable shadows again, simply repeat the command but with false at the end. The two images below show a before and after shot.


Change Image Format
The default image format for screenshots is png, which gives a nice, high quality picture. However you can change this if you want. As before, use the following Terminal command:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type png

Simply replace png with your file format of choice. The available options are jpg, tiff and pdf. Changing to jpg gives a lower quality but smaller file. Some people prefer this for quick snaps, but others dislike the slightly blurry results it gives. As before, log out and in again for changes to take effect.

Advanced Screenshot Applications
If widgets are your thing, Screenshot Plus will probably be the method of choice for you. It's free, and allows you to do everything that you can achieve with keyboard shortcuts. It also allows you to view a preview image, before saving it to the desktop or importing it into Preview.

If you really want to go all out on your screenshots, you might want to consider buying an application like Snapz Pro. It allows you to do all of the things above, as well as record movies of your screen.

Finally, if you want to get screenshots of long webpages that don't fit on the screen, Paparazzi! is your solution. It gives allows you to set the size of the image, set a delay, choose the file name and choose the file format. Of course, if you want a PDF of the web page, that functionality is already built into Mac OS X.

UPDATE: Many people in the comments have pointed out that I forgot Skitch. After playing around with a it a bit this morning, I have to say I agree, it’s probably the best screenshot application available at the moment. For those interested, there’s a great 3 minute introduction video available.

Also, the MacTipper Blog pointed out one more thing I forgot. Using another Terminal command, you can change the default save location to somewhere other than the Desktop. The command is as follows:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location /Full/Path/To/Folder

For full instructions, check out the MacTipper Blog.

With the Firefox Download Day almost over, there is likely to be a whole load of new Firefox users as of today.

Even if you are a regular Firefox user, you still may not know about the advanced configuration options. To get these options, type about:config into the Firefox address bar. Once you hit return, you get a warning because modifying these preferences can (in rare circumstances) cause strange behaviour.

Clicking "I'll be careful, I promise!" brings up a huge list of preferences, most of which aren't accessible from the normal Preferences dialog. As the list is so long, the best way to find things in it is to start typing the name of the preference into the "Filter" box at the top. Once you have found the one you want, double-clicking it allows you to change it. Here's a list of my top 12 hidden Firefox preferences. All of them work in Firefox 3, but only some work in Firefox 2.

1. browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll

The default behaviour, true, means that when you click the address bar, it automaticall selects all. Changing this to false stops this, and just inserts the cursor where you clicked.

2. browser.tabs.closeButtons

By default, Firefox displays a close button on every tab. Setting this preference to 0 will only display a close button on the currently open tab. Setting it to 3 will move the close button to the far right end of the tab bar, and setting it to 2 will get rid of all close buttons.

3. browser.search.openintab

Double-clicking this will set it to true. This makes searches from the box in the top right open in a new tab rather than the current one.

4. browser.urlbar.maxRichResults

Determines the maximum number of results that drop down from the URL bar when you start typing. Default is 12.

5. browser.fixup.alternate.suffix

Allows you to change the suffix that is automatically added when you don't specify one. For example you might want to change this to .co.uk so you will be directed here if you only type www.macosxtips.

6. browser.tabs.loadFolderAndReplace

If you open a whole folder of bookmarks at once using "Open All in Tabs", they replace all of your open tabs. Setting this preference to false will cause the new tabs to only replace the current tab and add in the rest after it.

7. accessibility.typeaheadfind.casesensitive

Setting to 1 Makes the Find function (Command-F) case sensitive.

8. ui.click_hold_context_menus

Set this to true to enable the click-and-hold way to open contextual menus.

9. browser.tabs.tabMinWidth

If you open lots of tabs in Firefox, they shrink down so they all fit across the screen. After a certain limit, your tabs don't get any smaller and you have to scroll to the left and right to view other tabs. This preference allows you to set the minimum width. Default is 100, lower values will give smaller tabs.

10. browser.chrome.toolbar_tips

Setting this to false disables the yellow tooltips that appear when you mouse over the bookmarks bar.

11. layout.spellcheckDefault

Changing this value to 2 makes the spell checker work in all text boxes, not just the large text fields.

12. browser.backspace_action

This changes the behaviour of the backspace key. setting it to 1 makes the backspace key scroll up a page in the current window. Shift-Backspace will scroll down. 2 to make the backspace key do nothing. Except delete when text is selected, of course. Changing to 0 will change back to the default behaviour of going back a page.


Of course there are hundreds more hidden settings in this list, including ones for extensions you have installed. If you know any more, add them in the comments.

This tip was submitted by Tom from OS X Gear.

Often on Mac forums users ask how to put watermarks in their Pages documents without having to copy and paste them on every page. Doing this for headers and footers doesn't present a problem, as Pages provides you with a neat little box to place content for every page. Here's how to do it for any media, anywhere on the page:

1. Arrange the media you want as a watermark (or text box, shape or image) as you want it on one of the pages. The only limitation to this method is that they cannot be inline objects. To ensure they are floating, select the objects and go to the "Wrap" tab in the inspector and use the radio buttons to correct this setting to "Floating".


2. With the watermark object selected, open the Format menu, go down to Advanced, and select "Move Object to Section Master". This deselects the items and displays them on every page in your document.


You will notice that you now cannot select these objects. If you need to move them around go to the Format menu, then select "Advanced > Make Master Objects Selectable". This lets you treat them as normal objects, though locking them is often useful as it prevents accidental modification.

MacTips.org recently published an article on 5 Commonly Overlooked System Preferences. I am quite familiar with the System Preferences panel and wasn't expecting to see anything new, so I was quite surprised to see something I had completely overlooked until now.

Number 5 on the list, smooth scrolling, is something I have never noticed before. You can find it in the Appearance section of System Preferences. When enabled, it means that pushing page up/down or hitting space bar makes the page glide instead of jumping straight to the next position. This small feature is fantastic when reading long web pages or news feeds, as you can just tap space to scroll down a page while keeping a good idea of where you are on the page.



The other 4 overlooked preferences are a bit more well known, but are probably still pretty useful for newer users. Head over to mactips.org for the full article.

When a website prompts you to upload a file to the internet, it will probably use a "choose file" or "browse" button. For example when choosing an attachment in Gmail, or when uploading a photo to Facebook. In Safari, you can speed things up by simply dragging and dropping files onto this button, instead of first clicking on it and then looking around your hard drive for the file you want.

Simply drag your file from the Finder, hold it over the button and then let go.

Last August I wrote a detailed article about the different ways to reset a user's password, however the instructions I gave for changing the password in single user mode don't always seem to work, especially in Leopard. Here is a new way to do it that should be more reliable.

Remember, only use this if you have lost the Mac OS X install DVD. Also, don't do this if you have FileVault enabled in your account, and note that this will not change your keychain password.

First, we need to restart in Single User mode. To do this hold down Command-S while the computer is starting up. A command line prompt should appear on the screen instead of the login window or your normal desktop.

At the prompt, type mount -uw / then return. Next, type
launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.DirectoryServices.plist
then return. You will need to type these exactly the same, so write them down beforehand.

The next step requires you to know the short username of the account. If you don't know this, type ls /Users followed by return, and look for it in the list that appears.

Next, type dscl . -delete /Users/username AuthenticationAuthority followed by return. Make sure you replace username with the short username of the account.

The final command to type is passwd username followed by return. As before, replace username with the short username of the account.

The rest is self-explanatory. Type the new password, followed by return. When prompted, retype the password.

Finally, type reboot and hit return! Your password should be reset.

This tip was submitted by David.

Just as desktops get cluttered because they're handy, and an easy place to put and find things, the Mac OS X Dock gets easily cluttered with every application that you might want to launch at the click of a button. A cluttered dock means it may take so long to find the (tiny) icon you're looking for that you may as well have opened your application folder and searched through. But come to mention it, the Applications folder gets rather cluttered too. You can move things around, but so many programs assume that Safari and other standard applications will be sitting right there in the Applications folder. Is there a better way to group applications sensibly, without using any special software?

With Leopard's new Stacks feature, I believe there is.

1. Keep only 2 or 3 icons in the dock for applications like iCal, Safari and Mail that you access most frequently.

2. Then create theme-based folders for every other application you want close at hand. A stack is just a folder dragged onto the Dock, so we'll create the folders first. Create folders somewhere, like your Applications folder or Documents folder. I have folders for 'Utilities', 'Internet', 'Media', and document creation.

3. Fill these folders with aliases of the appropriate applications. Do this by holding the Command and Option keys as you drag a file from the Applications folder to put an alias/shortcut of that file in the destination folder, instead of moving or copying it.

4. When you have filled your theme-based folders, drag them onto the end of the Dock near the Downloads Stack and Trash (but not IN the Trash!) In the past you would have had a bunch of identical folder icons there, but now the Stack takes on a conglomeration of icons from the contents of each folder.

5. Click once on a stack and it opens out quickly. Click once and you launch the application. Click the wrong stack by mistake? Just click the one you want without having to click the first one closed. It's one more click than having everything in the Dock separately, but since icons are grouped more logically and icons can be bigger, it's actually miles more efficient.

6. But what to do with the special Apple icons? Time Machine, Spaces, Dashboard and Expose all have Dock icons which are not normal applications. The good news is that you can get hold of them from the Applications folder and drop them in a Stack, then remove them from the Dock. After all, Time Machine is almost automatic, Spaces, Dashboard and Exposé can be triggered from the keyboard more conveniently anyway (with the F8-12 keys) so they're just extra clutter. But it might be nice to keep the icons around.

NB: You do lose a little functionality that the Dock icons provide in their contextual menus if you follow this method, but nothing really significant in my eyes. Control-click on the dock icons before you delete them and see if you'd really miss any of the functions there. Since 10.5.2 there's a Time Machine menu item now, which gives you back any functionality lost with the demise of the Dock icon. That seems to make more sense anyway.

Finally, you can control-click on the stacks to change the order the icons are sorted, which may be helpful, and affects the order of the conglomerate icon visible on the Dock.

David got paid $20 for this tip. If you know a good Mac tip, why not submit it to the site.

In the latest version of Safari, Apple have added a new hidden preference. Using a Terminal command, you can now enable one-window browsing.

If you use Safari regularly, you may notice that certain links refuse to open in the same window. If a link is set to open in a new window, normally holding down Command while clicking it will make it open in a tab instead. However, in certain places (like Gmail messages) links open in a new window no matter what you do.

This command changes the behaviour such that links that would ordinarily open in a new window now open in a new tab instead. Start by opening up Terminal (located in Applications/Utilities), and paste in the following line:

defaults write com.apple.Safari TargetedClicksCreateTabs -bool true

Press return, and quit and reopen Safari. Now all links targeted for a new window will open in tabs instead. To change back to the normal settings, use the same command but with false at the end instead:

defaults write com.apple.Safari TargetedClicksCreateTabs -bool false

Don't forget there are loads of other tricks for Safari 3, such as enabling the web inspector and bookmarking all open tabs.

[via TUAW]