12-03-2007, 09:57 AM

Found this interesting link on the net. Some neat terminal tips.

Back in March I did a tip listing 15 Terminal Commands for Hidden Mac OS X Settings. Since Leopard has been released, there are a whole load of new ones so I thought I'd do another list.

In general, these will only work with Leopard. I have slipped in a few that will work with Tiger, but you should check out the old list for commands that will definitely work.

If you don't already know, here are some quick instructions of how to use them: You'll find Terminal in the Utilities folder within the Applications folder. To carry out any of the following commands you will need to copy/paste or type in the line of text then hit enter. Most of the commands change settings that can't be done through the application or system preferences.

For the most part, applications will need restarting before changes take place. For the Dock and the Finder, it isn't obvious how to do this. The easiest way is to type a second command into the Terminal afterwards. Type "killall Dock" followed by return for all the Spaces, Stacks and Dock commands. "killall Finder" followed by return for all the Finder related ones.

Spaces
defaults write com.apple.dock workspaces-edge-delay -float 0.5
Changes the delay when dragging windows off the edge of the screen to other spaces. Default value is 0.75.

defaults write com.apple.dock workspaces-wrap-arrows -boolean NO
Disables the wrap-around when using Control-Arrow keys to changes Spaces.

Read on...

There's also some nice helpful tips throughout the site. Give it a look.

12-03-2007, 10:30 AM

Nice list. Some helpful stuff there.

As always, caution is needed whenever mucking about in the terminal, ESPECIALLY when doing SUDU commands. A simple mistake can have very bad results, including in loss of data or a computer that won't boot.

I seem to remember some controversy surrounding the menu bar hack. I don't know if it's been settled but there was a time when it wasn't clear what unintended effects the command might have beyond the menu's translucency.

I'm sorry if I seem to be a Debbie Downer, but I just want to point out that some of these commands should not be toyed with.

12-03-2007, 10:38 AM

Thanks for the warning mate. Didn't know the seriousness of terminal hacks.

Anyway, here's one for the web developers. DOM inspector within Safari! From the same site and of course, use it with the caution that opus has mentioned. It worked fine for me though.

Enable Web Inspector
The Web Inspector allows you to easily see how the source code creates the web page. You can inspect various elements of the web page and view their style, metrics and properties. If you select an element in the inspector window, it will briefly be outlined in red on the web page.

To enable the Web Inspector, open up Terminal (located in Applications/Utilities), type the following line and press return:

defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitDeveloperExtras -bool true



Now quit and re-open Safari. Open a web page and right-click (Control-click) anywhere. You should see a new "Inspect Element" item in the list.