This pages is a collection of useful things I discovered during the last few years. Some paragraphs are still german because I started this page in german. Perhaps when I have the time I'll translate them. Some hints are copied from other websites, sometimes unmodified, sometimes simplified. If you feel I've broken copyright somewhere, just let me know and I'll promptly remove it. I tried to give credit to the source if I remember it.
OS X essential software table: www.martin.girschick.net/cci/mac/osx_essentials.html
Run the following to enable old-style text-on-screen kernel panics:
sudo nvram boot-args="debug=0x144"
Run the following to undo that:
sudo nvram boot-args=""
defaults write -g NSUmask 2 führt bei neu angelegten Dateien zu schreibrechten für die Gruppe. Abschaltbar durch 18 statt 2.
Stop creation of .*-files on remote volumes:
defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores true
Set Finder to column view as default (does this really help?)
sudo defaults write com.apple.finder AlwaysOpenInColumnView True
www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050217012732914
Flashplay by click: www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050313224837662 or www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20041217163514494
The middle mousebutton (where available) opens a link in a new tab (default-behaviour). I assigned cmd-shift click to the middle button which opens the link in a new background tab.
To enable Pipelining-Support (useful for broadband connections) type about:config in location bar, search for network.http.pipelining and network.http.proxy.pipelining and set both to true.
Add a search url where the searchword has been replaced by %s. Add a keyword to the bookmark and now can you search by entering the keyword and the searchword(s) into the url-bar and hitting return. Great feature, with one small bug - it doesn't support international characters. To solve this the javascript-function mentioned above does the trick. For example use the following keyword-location for google:
javascript:location.href='http://www.google.de/search?client=googlet&q='+escape('%s')
The default keyboard set is very annoying as it doesn't work good with german keyboards. Use the following lines to reset Preferences, Zoom, Previous and Next Tab.
defaults write org.mozilla.camino NSUserKeyEquivalents -dict-add 'Bigger Text' '@+' defaults write org.mozilla.camino NSUserKeyEquivalents -dict-add 'Preferences\U2026' '@;' defaults write org.mozilla.camino NSUserKeyEquivalents -dict-add 'Previous Tab' '@$1' defaults write org.mozilla.camino NSUserKeyEquivalents -dict-add 'Next Tab' '@$2'
Commands taken from: www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20031125022312849
There are a few keyboard shortcuts in Eudora, which should be added and changed as well to enhance productivity. As cmd-e sends a Mail, I defined cmd-shift-e to change the Label to "WAITINGFOR" essentially marking a mail in the outbox so that I know I'm waiting for a reply.
defaults write com.qualcomm.eudora NSUserKeyEquivalents -dict-add 'Settings...' '@,' defaults write com.qualcomm.eudora NSUserKeyEquivalents -dict-add 'Trash' '@2' defaults write com.qualcomm.eudora NSUserKeyEquivalents -dict-add 'Drawer' '@$1' defaults write com.qualcomm.eudora NSUserKeyEquivalents -dict-add 'WAITINGFOR' '@$E'
<x-eudora-setting:10007> Format for ñfixedî date summaries; time, date, weekday, zone. <x-eudora-setting:6109> Format for ñvery oldî date summaries; time, date, weekday, zone <x-eudora-setting:6110> Format for ñoldî date summaries; time, date, weekday, zone. <x-eudora-setting:6111> Format for recent date summaries; time, date, weekday, zone. <x-eudora-setting:6112> How old is ñoldî for date display; in hours, or -1 for ñnot todayî. <x-eudora-setting:6113> How old is ñvery oldî for date display; in hours.
TeXShop is quite a nice Editor for LaTeX documents featuring full PDFLaTeX integration.
Zoom Window apple-shift-m
Fit to window apple-opt-1
previous/next page to apple-opt-5 and -6
Unindent/Comment cmd-shift-{opt}-7 and cmd-opt-,/.
Fixed Magnification cmd-2
defaults write TeXShop NSUserKeyEquivalents -dict-add 'Fixed Magnification' '@2' defaults write TeXShop NSUserKeyEquivalents -dict-add 'Fit to Window' '@3'
In addition to the system wide way to change keyboard shortcuts using the above method TeXShop has another preference file for the keyboard shortcuts which lives at ~/Library/TeXShop/Menus/...
* Command is @ * Shift is $ $ * Control is ^ * Option is ~
With some DSL-Providers the default MTU-Value of 1500 makes problems, because the maximum MTU for PPPoE-Connections is 1492.
A workaround is:
Doing this is only good until you reboot your Mac then it defaults back to 1500. Here's my solution. Log in as root and launch the terminal. I used pico but vi and emacs will work, too. Open the network file located at /System -> Library -> StartupItems -> Network -> Network and find the references to setting up your network interface. Add a line and enter ifconfig en1 mtu 1492 for airport or ifconfig en0 mtu 1492 for ethernet. This needs to be done on ALL computers connected to the internet and sending email using Verizon.net. Restart your computer and you should now automatically be setup with an MTU of 1492 and emails should send correctly. Life is good.
The fix has problems with notebooks because the MTU is reset after sleep. If anyone has a workaround, let me know.
This hint has been rudely copied from www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20020712014842725 if you don't like that, send me a mail and I'll remove it promptly.
Either use MouseZoom (http://homepage.mac.com/bhines/mousezoom.html) or the shell:
defaults write -globalDomain com.apple.mouse.scaling -float 0.8
The last hint doesn't apply in realtime you have to reboot (or perhaps only log out) to apply it. As an alternative with same sideeffect you can edit directly ~/Library/Preference/.GlobalPreference.plist:
[key]com.apple.mouse.scaling[/key] [real]1.700000000000000e+00[/real]
Again this is copied from MacOSXHints.com.
defaults write -g NSDragAndDropTextDelay -int 100
'man fs_usage' in a terminal will give detailed information. It needs to be run as root (or via 'sudo'). It produces a spool of output that you can either see immediately or redirect into a file that can be viewed later:
fs_usage can also be used to monitor specific applications, as such:
Those commands can be used to deal with the mac os x pasteboard.
For example to strip all formatting from the pasteboard simply pipe it thru the shell:
#!/bin/sh pbpaste | pbcopy
A list of error codes is included with the DevTools at
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/CarbonCore.framework/Headers/MacErrors.h
Type the following into a shell:
setenv AEDebug 1 setenv AEDebugSend 1 setenv AEDebugReceives 1
Then you need to open the application from the same terminal, using this command:
open /Applications/Example/AppName.app &
Next, you should open the Console (in /Applications -> Utilities), where you can see any AppleEvents being sent or received by that application.
See www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20030318214645101 for more information
Sets a hotkey for all applications with a menu item featuring the exact string. Problem are the elipsis-character - it might help to simply use three dots instead. There are special chars for the modifier keys, look at macosxhints.com for more information.
defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSUserKeyEquivalents '{"Quit Safari" = "@Q"; "Preferences..." = "@;";}'
Use the Replace menu command ("Replace with calculated result" option) to set the field to itself. It will default the text formatting for that field for all records in the current set.
If you anticipate the need to do this regularly and/or to do it to many different fields, you can create a script to automatically default each field. Make sure that the script goes to a layout which contains all the fields that it is to be used on before using the Replace script step.
Make sure you backup before you try this the first time - both the Replace command and the Replace script step can be very destructive if you accidentally set the field to another field by mistake!
Background color can be set using a formula. Follow these instructions: