11 incredibly useful snow leopard terminal hacks

7/28/2019 11 Incredibly Useful Snow Leopard Terminal Hacks

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11 incredibly useful Snow Leopard

Terminal hacks

There are plenty of Terminal tweaks you can carry out, such as X-ray folders in Quick Look

For reasons known only to Apple, useful settings for many of its applications remain out of the reach of typical

users. But by using Terminal, you can tweak settings and use options that aren't available through standard

preferences panes. Some of the best are below.

15 Terminal commands to supercharge OS X

Note: unless otherwise stated, switch 'no' for 'yes' or '1' for '0' (or vice-versa in either case) to revert to the default

settings.

1. Amend the stacks List view

The Terminal commands below replace the hierarchical stacks List option with a view that looks and functions

more like Grids mode. Access a folder and it opens within the stack, and you go up one level in the folder

hierarchy by using the arrow at the top-left.

defaults write com.apple.dock use-new-list-stack -boolean yes; killall Dock
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2. Revert click-hold Dock icon behaviour

Annoyed that click-holding a Dock icon activates Dock Expos? Hate having to hold Control when clicking to

access Dock item menus? Use the following commands to bring back Leopard's behaviour.

defaults write com.apple.dock show-expose-menus -boolean no; killall Dock


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3. Show the stacks highlight during mouseovers

When navigating a Grid stack using the keyboard, the selected item is highlighted. Using the Terminal commands

below, the highlight also appears when you mouseover an item in the stack.

defaults write com.apple.dock mouse-over-hilite-stack -boolean yes; killall Dock


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4. Enable X-ray folders in Quick Look

In Leopard, Folder.qlgenerator could be installed to enable you to peek inside folders via Quick Look. In Snow

Leopard, this unceremoniously stopped working. Apple's rough equivalent is disabled by default, perhaps

because it's more eye candy than genuinely useful. Still, run the command and the contents of folders are cycled

in Quick Look via a neat but time-consuming animation.

defaults write com.apple.finder QLEnableXRayFolders -boolean yes


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5. Lower screen-sharing image quality

This tip should also work with Leopard. Use the following command to drop screen-sharing quality significantly,

making the observed screen black and white. Numbers 2 through 5 can also be used

2 for greyscale, 3 for 8-bit

colour, 4 for 16-bit colour and 5 for full colour. 0 isn't an option for this command.

defaults write com.apple.ScreenSharing controlObserveQuality 1


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6. Change the screen-grab file-name string

In Snow Leopard, screen grabs are labelled "screen shot" and date and time stamped. To change the string at the

start of the file-name, use the following commands, replacing 'one or more words' with your chosen string.

defaults write com.apple.screencapture name "one or more words"; killall SystemUIServer


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7. Bring back Leopard's Dictionary window behaviour

In Snow Leopard, Dictionary spawns new windows for terms requested in other apps. Use the following command

to make the Dictionary app only ever use a single window.

defaults write com.apple.Dictionary ProhibitNewWindowForRequest -boolean yes


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8. Turn on QuickTime X auto-play

Use the following command to make QuickTime X auto-play a movie as soon as it's opened.

defaults write com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX MGPlayMovieOnOpen 1


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9. Amend the QuickTime X interface

The commands below enable you to disable auto-show controls and auto-hide controls, and to kill rounded

window corners, so your movie's corners aren't 'hidden'. The auto-hide command isn't very useful, because

QuickTime X's toolbar and controls partially cover the movie, but 'never auto-show' is useful if you use auto-play.

defaults write com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX MGUIVisibilityNeverAutoshow 1defaults write

com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX MGUIVisibilityNeverAutohide 1defaults write

com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX MGCinematicWindowDebugForceNoRoundedCorners 1

10. Force QuickTime X to remain in full-screen mode

In QuickTime X, play a movie in full-screen mode and switch to another app. Your movie will revert to a standard

window. To stop this happening, use the following rule.

defaults write com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX MGFullScreenExitOnAppSwitch 0


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11. iTunes 9 zoom button

This quickfire tip relates to the iTunes update that appeared at the same time as Snow Leopard. In iTunes 9, the

zoom button worked in the default Mac manner, switching between a user and default window state. In 9.0.1, the

old behaviour returned, switching iTunes between its standard and "mini player" views. The following command

brings back iTunes 9.0's behaviour.

defaults write com.apple.iTunes zoom-to-window -boolean yes


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11 incredibly useful snow leopard terminal hacks

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