Enable Spotlight indexing in iPhoto 6
For those of you still stuck with iPhoto 6, I discovered how to enable Spotlight to properly index iPhotos -- including keywords, titles and other details. I am not sure if this applies to every iPhoto 6 user, but in my iPhoto 6 application, Apple forgot to tell Spotlight what to look for. Follow these steps to fix this: Open /Applications, Control-click on iPhoto, and select Show Package Contents from the pop-up menu. In the new window that opens, locate the Contents/Info.plist file. Open TextEdit, and drag the Info.plist file onto the TextEdit icon in the Dock to open it. Please make a copy of the file before editing, just in case! At the end of the file, just before </dict></plist>, insert the following code: <key>UTExportedTypeDeclarations<...
published on Wednesday, the 1. October 2008, macosxhints
10.4: Run Spore Creature Creator Demo in 10.4.11
To run the Spore Creature Creator Demoo in Tiger, just edit the Info.plist file you'll find inside the demo application. Control-click on Spore Creature Creator.app, choose Show Package Contents from the pop-up menu, and open the Contents folder.With Info.plist open in your favorite text editor, locate these strings:<key>MinimumSystemVersion</key><string>10.5.3</string>Edit the strings as follows:<key>MinimumSystemVersion</key><string>10.4.11</string>Save the changes and quit the editor. The demo works great on a first generation 3GHz Mac Pro with an ATI X1900XT video card.[robg adds: System requirements are typically based on features in a given level of the OS, so there may be unknown issues if you use this hint to run the demo on an earlier version of the OS.]May be this will work for the full version too...
published on Monday, the 23. June 2008, macosxhints
10.5: Set Help Viewer windows to non-floating mode
The following Terminal command will revert the Help Viewer window to its "not always floating" 10.4 behavior: defaults write com.apple.helpviewer NormalWindow -bool true Additionally, execute the following (bash) commands as an administrator in Terminal to have access to the application via Command-Tab or its Dock icon: i=/System/Library/CoreServices/Help Viewer.app/Contents/Info.plist sudo defaults write "${i%.plist}" LSUIElement 0 sudo chmod 644 "$i" Sources: Non-floating window command from Ars OpenForum. Command-Tab and Dock icon from macosxhints. [robg adds: This hint makes the second half of...
published on Tuesday, the 3. June 2008, macosxhints
Script Bundle Tool 4.0.8
Script Bundle Tool creates an application bundle from an editable AppleScript source file and a contents folder. When you first use Script Bundle Tool, the contents folder is created automatically and you set the properties: Short Version, Get Info Text, Stay Open and Show in Dock. Subsequently, you need only to Select, Launch and Click to create a new build of your application bundle. The source file may be any editable AppleScript application or script document created with Smile or Script Editor. When you build an application bundle, the sub-folders of the project's contents folder are copied into the new bundle's Contents folder and any custom keys in the project.plist file, are written to the new bundle's Info.plist file. A locked and dated copy of the source file is copied to the versions folder, if present. Script Bundle Tool uses Script Editor to create bundles, then modifies the bundle to correct certain errors. Script Scribe now included. This allows you to see and print snippets of code in dot-indent format from Script Editor or Smile.
published on Wednesday, the 2. April 2008, scriptbuilders
10.5: Export Mail.app's RSS feed URLs in Terminal
As I wanted to pass my newsfeeds from Mail.app to a friend I realized that there is no "Export RSS-feeds to ..." button in Mail.app. So I wrote this little workaround to export them in Terminal (assuming the bash default shell): IFS=$'\n';for i in $(find ~/Library/Mail/RSS/ -name "Info.plist");do grep "<string>http://" $i | sed "s/.*\(http[^<]*\).*/\1/";done This exports all URLs from your Mail.app RSS directory directly into the shell. I could then easily pass this list to my friend. As an additional option, here is a little modification to open all feed URLs in the default web browser: ...
published on Wednesday, the 26. March 2008, macosxhints
Make Matlab Dock icon disappear in -nojvm mode
When running the student version of Matlab 2007a, it is immediately noticed that running /Applications/MATLAB_SV74/bin/matlab -nojvm -nosplash in the Terminal still produces a Matlab icon in the Dock, which is now completely useless because all input and output to the program must go through the Terminal. To keep the icon from being added to your dock, you must modify /Applications » MATLAB_SV74 » bin » maci » MATLAB.app » Contents » Info.plist. This is not a new hint, but it is important to know which file to put this in, and where to put it. The inserted text needs to be placed with the other NS-type elements, so search for: <key>NSPrincipalClass<key> <string>NSApplication</string> Then insert the following directly below it: <key>NSUIElement</key> <string>1</string> Now run...
published on Wednesday, the 20. February 2008, macosxhints
10.5: View any PowerPoint document in Quick Look
Sometimes I would be able to view PowerPoint (.pps) documents with Quick Look, but sometimes I wouldn?t. This problem bothered me for some time, but I think I've solved it -- thanks to the helpful folks on this forum thread (in French). The solution involves editing the Office Quick Look generator file; read on for the how-to... Here's what I did: Navigate to /System » Library » QuickLook » Office.qlgenerator. Control-click on the generator and pick Show Package Contents from the pop-up menu. Then navigate to Contents. Create a copy of info.plist to use as a backup. Open info.plist with TextEdit or your favorite text editor. Scroll down to find the following text: ...
published on Friday, the 15. February 2008, macosxhints
10.5: Keep Virtual PC 7's kext out of the Dock
In Leopard, although Virtual PC 7 generally works fine, it puts VirtualPCNetworking1040.kext in the Dock, which should be running in the background. To fix this, open its Info.plist file (probably at /Library » Extensions » VirtualPCNetworking1040.kext » Control-click and pick Show Package Contents » Contents » Info.plist), and add a key of LSUIElement with a string value of 1 just before the final </dict> tag. In a text editor, this would be: <key>LSUIElement</key> <string>1</string> Or you can use the Property List Editor from the Developer Tools to add a new child of the Root with the appropriate key (LSUIElement), class (String), and value (1). ...
published on Friday, the 11. January 2008, macosxhints
Script Bundle Tool 4.0.7
Script Bundle Tool creates an application bundle from an editable AppleScript source file and a contents folder. When you first use Script Bundle Tool, the contents folder is created automatically and you set the properties: Short Version, Get Info Text, Stay Open and Show in Dock. Subsequently, you need only to Select, Launch and Click to create a new build of your application bundle. The source file may be any editable AppleScript application or script document created with Smile or Script Editor. When you build an application bundle, the sub-folders of the project's contents folder are copied into the new bundle's Contents folder and any custom keys in the project.plist file, are written to the new bundle's Info.plist file. A locked and dated copy of the source file is copied to the versions folder, if present. Includes complete documentation. NEW -- A Script document can now be used for the source file. NEW 4.0.4 -- Version archiving.
published on Wednesday, the 28. November 2007, scriptbuilders
10.5: One way to create an opaque menu bar
It's no secret that the transparent menu bar is unpopular. Since I keep a bare minimum of stuff in my menu bar, I decided to get rid of it altogether. The Info.plist trick detailed in this hint works in Leopard. Note that somewhere in the comments it's pointed out that you need to move the app before opening it again with a hidden menu bar to bypass some cached files. Much to my amazement, though, when you mouse over the menu bar after using this trick, the menu bar reappears fully opaque. Obviously this isn't a solution for everyone, especially menu bar junkies, but hopefully someone that knows more than me can figure out why thi...
published on Thursday, the 15. November 2007, macosxhints