11 ms·

OSX For Hackers

469 points by zackattack 15y ago

joedevon 15y ago
OK, any of these "bad"?
- robbiet480 15y ago
  Upon quick glance, nope everything seems fine.
- AlisdairO 15y ago
  enables tap to click, which you may not like - personally i loathe it.
  - ticks 15y ago
    It's useful for when the physical clicking mechanism on Apple's trackpads eventually die. Though you still need a mouse to drag/draw things.
    - vbo 15y ago
      You can drag windows by double tapping the titlebar, then dragging.
      - riobard 15y ago
        or just enable drag with three fingers in the trackpad preference panel.
- WimLeers 15y ago
  I think "Map bottom right Trackpad corner to right-click" is annoying. And I'm not sure why you'd want "Remove Dropbox’s green checkmark icons in Finder"? Other than that, looks great :)
  - mathias 15y ago
    Here’s my reasoning: I assume all files in my Dropbox get synced correctly; if something goes wrong, I’ll be able to tell by the red warning icon anyway. Why would I want the green checkmark icons? They only add visual noise.
    - tubbo 15y ago
      For larger datasets, such as Logic Pro projects, you can tell exactly which files have been synced so you don't accidentally open up/save and corrupt your projects.
    - mathias 15y ago
      @tubbo That’s still possible when the green icons are hidden: no icon means it’s synced successfully.
  - jomohke 15y ago
    Agreed. Ctrl-Click works on the rare occasion that you want to right click in an OS X app.
    - fabjan 15y ago
      I use the two finger click.
    - prophetjohn 15y ago
      Or just two-finger click.
- lalc 15y ago
  They're largely harmless. Some of them seem pointless or purely resisting-change, like disabling menu bar transparency. Subpixel font rendering could look pretty bad on the wrong screen. A lot of those Finder options are just going to increase noise on the screen. It's rare that I ever need to know the full path of something in OS X. Either I'm already on the command line, or I just use Spotlight. Disabling the “Are you sure you want to open this application?” dialog seems just wrong. Confirming once per program downloaded from the net seems like a sane default. Anyway these are pretty subjective things. Good thing they're so easy to pick and choose from and revert.
  - doktrin 15y ago
    Subpixel font rendering being disabled by default caused text to appear absolutely horrible on my brand new 23' IPS display. Can you provide an example of an external display on which it's not necessary or harmful?
    - astrange 15y ago
      A projector.
  - r0s 15y ago
    > It's rare that I ever need to know the full path of something in OS X. Either I'm already on the command line, or I just use Spotlight. I will never understand this.
- msbarnett 15y ago
  Disabling the quarantine on executables downloaded from the internet strikes me as a bad idea, but that's just me. The quarantine is the bit that causes a dialog to pop up the first time you attempt to open a file newly downloaded from the internet that has the executable bit set. Good for catching, say, executables disguised as documents, or stopping anything from exploiting a browser hole to get an executable downloaded to your machine and opened by your browser.
TamDenholm 15y ago
This is totally awesome, however one of the biggest things for me since i've recently bought a mac and coming from linux is the focus follows mouse issue, which i know has been attempted to get working but failed. Other things i miss are basics like double clicking the title bar to maximise, right clicking to create a new file and a few other things i miss from linux.
- pooriaazimi 15y ago
  I don't understand what you mean by 'focus follows mouse issue'. Please explain more, maybe there's a solution to that (whatever that issue is!)
  - joe_fishfish 15y ago
    On Linux, whenever you hover the mouse over a window, that window has focus. On OS X, you have to click in that window in order for it to gain focus. Steve Yegge mentioned in a rant[0] a while back. [0] http://steve-yegge.blogspot.co.uk/2008/04/settling-osx-focus-follows-mouse-debate.html http://steve-yegge.blogspot.co.uk/2008/04/settling-osx-focus...
    - losvedir 15y ago
      For whatever reason, OS X does work that way for scrolling; while typing this comment I can point at and scroll the window behind this one. Not sure why typing doesn't behave the same, though.
      - pooriaazimi 15y ago
        I see. I have to say I like OS X's behavior much much more. Directing key strokes to a window that my mouse just happens to point to would be very confusing (to me at least).
      - rimantas 15y ago
        Even more: while holding command key you can click on background windows, or select text in them without them gaining focus.
jamessb 15y ago
This seems to be a copy of Mathias Bynen's Dotfiles (https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles/blob/master/.osx https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles/blob/master/.osx, 'sensible hacker defaults for OS X'), with a few minor changes. Specifically, comments explainung each line have been changed to echo statements, and the following lines have been inserted: echo "Use current directory as default search scope in Finder" defaults write com.apple.finder FXDefaultSearchScope -string "SCcf" echo "Show Path bar in Finder" defaults write com.apple.finder ShowPathbar -bool true echo "Show Status bar in Finder" defaults write com.apple.finder ShowStatusBar -bool true echo "Set a shorter Delay until key repeat" defaults write NSGlobalDomain InitialKeyRepeat -int 12 Also, some commands have been commented out: # Automatically hide and show the Dock # defaults write com.apple.dock autohide -bool true # Show remaining battery time; hide percentage # defaults write com.apple.menuextra.battery ShowPercent -string "NO" # defaults write com.apple.menuextra.battery ShowTime -string "YES" # echo "Always show scrollbars" # defaults write NSGlobalDomain AppleShowScrollBars -string "Auto" # Disable window animations and Get Info animations in Finder # defaults write com.apple.finder DisableAllAnimations -bool true # Don’t animate opening applications from the Dock # defaults write com.apple.dock launchanim -bool false # Disable opening and closing window animations # defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSAutomaticWindowAnimationsEnabled -bool false # Empty Trash securely by default # defaults write com.apple.finder EmptyTrashSecurely -bool true # Remove useless icons from Safari’s bookmarks bar # defaults write com.apple.Safari ProxiesInBookmarksBar "()" # Disable send and reply animations in Mail.app # defaults write com.apple.Mail DisableReplyAnimations -bool true # defaults write com.apple.Mail DisableSendAnimations -bool true # Disable Resume system-wide # defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSQuitAlwaysKeepsWindows -bool false #Fix for the ancient UTF-8 bug in QuickLook (http://mths.be/bbo) # Commented out, as this is known to cause problems when saving files in Adobe Illustrator CS5 :( #echo "0x08000100:0" > ~/.CFUserTextEncoding
- aes256 15y ago
  # This is script with usefull tips taken from: # https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles/blob/master/.osx https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles/blob/master/.osx
ralfd 15y ago
> MacBook:~ ralf$ defaults write enable-spring-load-actions-on-all-items -bool true Okay. Now just to check… > MacBook:~ ralf$ defaults read com.apple.dock enable-spring-load-actions-on-all-items 2012-03-31 12:46:35.173 defaults[33945:707] The domain/default pair of (/Users/ralf/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist, enable-spring-load-actions-on-all-items) does not exist Hm?
- moeffju 15y ago
  That should probably be defaults write com.apple.dock enable-spring-load-actions-on-all-items -bool true
piger 15y ago
for hackers? LOL.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
maxer 15y ago
my biggest gripe with mac os having recently moved from windows is hitting the maximise button on finder and it barely filling half the screen. other well documented one is the ability to turn the laptop screen of when using another screen but still the laptop keyboard
- crb 15y ago
  Hold Shift while hitting the green plus ("resize window") button to make it maximise the window.
  - vbo 15y ago
    Cheers for that, I've been mildly annoyed with the resize button for years but never enough to look for a solution. This works great.
    - Vecrios 15y ago
      still, doesn't work for me! what version are you using?
      - driverdan 15y ago
        IIRC it was introduced fairly recently, either Snow Leopard or Lion.
      - vbo 15y ago
        Using Lion, but I recall doing this for some time (Tiger?); I may be wrong. Do you have tap to click enabled?
      - Angostura 15y ago
        It is app-dependent too.
  - msluyter 15y ago
    Holy crap! I wish I could give you multiple upvotes for this. I wonder if there's a way to make this the default? This reminds me that I really need to spend a couple of days delving into basic OSX functionality (features/keyboard shortcuts). There are probably a ton of other features like this that I'm oblivious to.
johnpowell 15y ago
I just use secrets. It was found here. http://secrets.blacktree.com/ http://secrets.blacktree.com/ I'm not sure why the site is down. But I mirrored it here. http://stfudamnit.com/ryan/Secrets.prefPane.zip http://stfudamnit.com/ryan/Secrets.prefPane.zip
- mathias 15y ago
  Sadly, Secrets is a bit outdated. Lots of useful hidden tweaks aren’t listed there.
gaving 15y ago
Still waiting for a god damned "disable swoosh effect" defaults key for switching between desktops as you could in snow leopard.
- homebrewalright 15y ago
  If you mean how slow mission control is it's this one: defaults write com.apple.dock expose-animation-duration -int 0; killall Dock
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - gaving 15y ago
    Nah, not that one but that's good too.
mitsche 15y ago
Before I saw this gist I had been completely unaware of the fact that Snow Leopard disables subpixel font rendering on non-Apple displays. Font rendering is something that drives me crazy if it's not done right. It's one of my main gripes with Windows (YMMV). Thanks to the respective hack my Samsung 24" has suddenly become acceptable to work on again. Awesome.
- dfc 15y ago
  Font rendering must really drive you crazy if you had not noticed yet that it was off...
  - mitsche 15y ago
    See my answer to jaylevitt's posting.
- jaylevitt 15y ago
  Don't you hate being a font-rendering snob and then realizing you've been staring at something ugly for months without realizing it? I'm not being snide; it's happened to me. I used to be a typesetter, and yet when I had trouble using Inconsolata in Sublime Text, I reverted back to Menlo, which I hated - and spent the next few months preaching about how hard I'd worked to find the Perfect Programmer Font For Me, not realizing I wasn't actually looking it in the editor. Worse, I was seeing it in Terminal; I had no excuse. It's the visual equivalent of the classic audio production goof: You spend hours tweaking a particular equalizer setting, everybody agrees that it sounds perfect now, and then realize the EQ hasn't been patched in at all and you've been changing nothing.
  - mitsche 15y ago
    I just stopped using the monitor after half an hour of using OS X on it and gave it to my roommate, since I'm hardly ever home anyway. Now it's back on my desk again. It bugs me that I thought I needed a better screen instead of instantly seeing what's the issue. Especially since I used to play around a lot with the Freetype settings in Ubuntu and should have known what makes the fonts look the way they do. But then again I trusted Apple to not let this kind of stuff happen.
tamasss 15y ago
thank you so much for sharing!
jasonkester 15y ago
I'm still waiting for the "Quit asking me to retype my password every time I try to do anything" setting. You'd think that the fact I typed it in 30 seconds ago when I logged in would be sufficient proof that I'm me. This is the type of security that actually leads to less security. Eventually I'll get so sick of not being able to hit the back button on my browser (or whatever similarly impactful action that OSX decides is going to destroy my machine) without special one-time-only admin privileges that I'll just remove the password from my account altogether.
- arthurschreiber 15y ago
  How often do you come across the need to type in your password? Personally, I do not have to do that too often, and when I have to it usually makes sense to re-authenticate.
- dakotasmith 15y ago
  Sounds like you need to fix some Keychain Access settings. Grasping at Internet straws, but perhaps something like this will help? https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2108355?start=0&tstart=0 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2108355?start=0&tst... (Fair warning, I'm presuming the back button of which you speak is a Safari back button. I have not experienced this problem myself and I have full-disk encryption on, which requires you to enter a password for most anything.)
  - chc 15y ago
    This is quite possibly the case. OS X doesn't normally ask for your password once you're logged in except when you're doing something that will affect multiple users (e.g. updating the system). The big exception is when it has somehow lost your keychain password, in which case it will ask for your password every time it needs to look at the keychain.
- ceejayoz 15y ago
  If you're getting a password request when you hit the back button, you've got some funky browser plugins.
Cyph0n 15y ago
Great list of modifications. I believe Deeper for OS X has many of these tweaks bundled into a nice interface. http://www.titanium.free.fr/download.php http://www.titanium.free.fr/download.php
ctingom 15y ago
For OS X I love TotalFinder - better finder.
nikcub 15y ago
If you are worried about some of these settings before running them, you can backup your preference files All that the 'defaults' command does is alter values stored in plist files, which are located in /Library/Preferences (and for the user in ~/Library/Preferences). You can add something like this to the top of the script: echo "Making a backup.." tar -pzcf ~/preferences-`date "+%Y%m%d-%H%M%S"`.tgz ~/Library/Preferences /Library/Preferences You may need to sudo to read some of the machine plist files
- NHQ 15y ago
  This is what I was looking for. Thanks!
sofuture 15y ago
"OSX for Hackers" would have a real tiling window manager.
- cgag 15y ago
  It doesn't compare to using something like i3, but size up 2 makes it a little less painful.
  - cbrinke1 15y ago
    Along the same lines I am enjoying http://manytricks.com/moom/ http://manytricks.com/moom/
philip1209 15y ago
Great tips. Thanks for sharing. I did everything except the track pad right click hack and removing the top bar transparency.
deepkut 15y ago
Your changes to the dock are nothing short of spectacular. Thanks for this! Simple, easy to install, and in accordance with the hacker ethic.
trimbo 15y ago
For me, the biggest problem with OS X is the command key / meta key situation. I have an impossible time going between Linux, Windows and Mac because of this. Any hacks people know of for this?
- travisjeffery 15y ago
  Go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Modifier Keys... and configure them however you want.
  - trimbo 15y ago
    Hm, I feel like I've tried this and couldn't get the behaviors I wanted. How does this accomplish e.g. overloading control-C to copy across the system? You wouldn't want to map command to control, since you still want control-C to be control-C in a shell. Know what I mean?
    - packetslave 15y ago
      I use Keyboard Maestro to remap ctrl-X/C/V to copy/paste everywhere except Terminal/iTerm. Same for Chrome so that the Ctrl shortcuts from Linux work on OSX as well.
      - trimbo 15y ago
        Sweet! I'll give it a try.
  - chimeracoder 15y ago
    Not quite however you want. It doesn't work the way it does in Linux where you can rebind keys in arbitrary ways. The built-in modification only enables a few different common/popular rebindings, but from my brief stint with OS X, I found it maddening that I couldn't get the rebinding exactly as I wanted it.
billsix 15y ago
I am surprised that this article made the front page.
- mathias 15y ago
  Me too, given that the original (http://mths.be/osx http://mths.be/osx) made the front page 200 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2974911 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2974911
pkamb 15y ago
Replace Snow Leopard Exposé (terrible) with old Leopard-style Exposé (amazing). http://superuser.com/questions/118424/old-leopard-expose-on-snow-leopard-for-mac http://superuser.com/questions/118424/old-leopard-expose-on-... Unfortunately it won't help those of you who have "upgraded" to Lion...
dustingetz 15y ago
and now my osx is like my emacs - nobody can use it except me, and i can't even keep my configuration straight across all my machines.
- emidln 15y ago
  Put your config files in your favorite online vcs (private repo or encrypted if you must).
miles_matthias 15y ago
A 2D dock is what hackers need? Is this really for hackers or just someone's personal preference?
- uxp 15y ago
  I honestly don't have a preference on the eye candy present in most operating systems, but I do know that I dislike the agonizing wait introduced to open a new window, watching it's open animation progress frame by frame after I've put my workstation under _Heavy_ load. Removing a lot of the visual fluff can help keep someone productive, even when their machine isn't being the most responsive. It's entirely preference, dependent on the specs of the workstation and the user's ability to open a couple hundred web browser tabs, 5 VMs, and 2 different O(log n) sorting operations on some database all at once while still maintaing a Skype conversation with a co-worker.
astrange 15y ago
Does changing every single default really make you feel better about yourself? At least one of these changes (disabling local backups) doesn't even increase performance. Unless you just like data loss.
dgallagher 15y ago
I through together a (rough) Cocoa version: https://github.com/dave-gallagher/OSX-For-Cocoa-Hackers https://github.com/dave-gallagher/OSX-For-Cocoa-Hackers Binary: https://github.com/downloads/dave-gallagher/OSX-For-Cocoa-Hackers/OSX%20For%20Hackers.zip https://github.com/downloads/dave-gallagher/OSX-For-Cocoa-Ha... git clone git@github.com:dave-gallagher/OSX-For-Cocoa-Hackers.git It's not as robust as the script, but it lets you choose individually what setting you want changed, and also added defaults.
pixelcort 15y ago
It seems down right now, but there was a nice database of secret preferences at http://secrets.blacktree.com/ http://secrets.blacktree.com/ and included a Preference Pane to access them.
jluxenberg 15y ago
If you're looking for "Alt-Tab" style window switching on OS X, the best thing I've found is Witch (http://manytricks.com/witch/ http://manytricks.com/witch/) "Alt-Tab" switches between windows in the order you last focused each window, so it's ideally suited to a stack-based workflow where you may have many windows open but are only using a few of them. OS X already has "Command-Tab", but that switches between applications, not windows.
- Schwolop 15y ago
  Try Cmd+Tilde.
wildtype 15y ago
Ah, i don't have enough money to buy Apple stuffs, can't be hackeer :(
asmosoinio 15y ago
Why would one disable Time Machine logal backups?

OSX For Hackers

469 points by zackattack 15y ago

joedevon 15y ago

OK, any of these "bad"?

robbiet480 15y ago
Upon quick glance, nope everything seems fine.
AlisdairO 15y ago
enables tap to click, which you may not like - personally i loathe it.
- ticks 15y ago
  It's useful for when the physical clicking mechanism on Apple's trackpads eventually die. Though you still need a mouse to drag/draw things.
  - vbo 15y ago
    You can drag windows by double tapping the titlebar, then dragging.
    - riobard 15y ago
      or just enable drag with three fingers in the trackpad preference panel.
WimLeers 15y ago
I think "Map bottom right Trackpad corner to right-click" is annoying. And I'm not sure why you'd want "Remove Dropbox’s green checkmark icons in Finder"? Other than that, looks great :)
- mathias 15y ago
  Here’s my reasoning: I assume all files in my Dropbox get synced correctly; if something goes wrong, I’ll be able to tell by the red warning icon anyway. Why would I want the green checkmark icons? They only add visual noise.
  - tubbo 15y ago
    For larger datasets, such as Logic Pro projects, you can tell exactly which files have been synced so you don't accidentally open up/save and corrupt your projects.
  - mathias 15y ago
    @tubbo That’s still possible when the green icons are hidden: no icon means it’s synced successfully.
- jomohke 15y ago
  Agreed. Ctrl-Click works on the rare occasion that you want to right click in an OS X app.
  - fabjan 15y ago
    I use the two finger click.
  - prophetjohn 15y ago
    Or just two-finger click.
lalc 15y ago
They're largely harmless. Some of them seem pointless or purely resisting-change, like disabling menu bar transparency. Subpixel font rendering could look pretty bad on the wrong screen. A lot of those Finder options are just going to increase noise on the screen. It's rare that I ever need to know the full path of something in OS X. Either I'm already on the command line, or I just use Spotlight. Disabling the “Are you sure you want to open this application?” dialog seems just wrong. Confirming once per program downloaded from the net seems like a sane default. Anyway these are pretty subjective things. Good thing they're so easy to pick and choose from and revert.
- doktrin 15y ago
  Subpixel font rendering being disabled by default caused text to appear absolutely horrible on my brand new 23' IPS display. Can you provide an example of an external display on which it's not necessary or harmful?
  - astrange 15y ago
    A projector.
- r0s 15y ago
  > It's rare that I ever need to know the full path of something in OS X. Either I'm already on the command line, or I just use Spotlight. I will never understand this.
msbarnett 15y ago
Disabling the quarantine on executables downloaded from the internet strikes me as a bad idea, but that's just me. The quarantine is the bit that causes a dialog to pop up the first time you attempt to open a file newly downloaded from the internet that has the executable bit set. Good for catching, say, executables disguised as documents, or stopping anything from exploiting a browser hole to get an executable downloaded to your machine and opened by your browser.

TamDenholm 15y ago

This is totally awesome, however one of the biggest things for me since i've recently bought a mac and coming from linux is the focus follows mouse issue, which i know has been attempted to get working but failed. Other things i miss are basics like double clicking the title bar to maximise, right clicking to create a new file and a few other things i miss from linux.

pooriaazimi 15y ago
I don't understand what you mean by 'focus follows mouse issue'. Please explain more, maybe there's a solution to that (whatever that issue is!)
- joe_fishfish 15y ago
  On Linux, whenever you hover the mouse over a window, that window has focus. On OS X, you have to click in that window in order for it to gain focus. Steve Yegge mentioned in a rant[0] a while back. [0] http://steve-yegge.blogspot.co.uk/2008/04/settling-osx-focus-follows-mouse-debate.html http://steve-yegge.blogspot.co.uk/2008/04/settling-osx-focus...
  - losvedir 15y ago
    For whatever reason, OS X does work that way for scrolling; while typing this comment I can point at and scroll the window behind this one. Not sure why typing doesn't behave the same, though.
    - pooriaazimi 15y ago
      I see. I have to say I like OS X's behavior much much more. Directing key strokes to a window that my mouse just happens to point to would be very confusing (to me at least).
    - rimantas 15y ago
      Even more: while holding command key you can click on background windows, or select text in them without them gaining focus.

jamessb 15y ago

This seems to be a copy of Mathias Bynen's Dotfiles (https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles/blob/master/.osx https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles/blob/master/.osx, 'sensible hacker defaults for OS X'), with a few minor changes. Specifically, comments explainung each line have been changed to echo statements, and the following lines have been inserted: echo "Use current directory as default search scope in Finder" defaults write com.apple.finder FXDefaultSearchScope -string "SCcf" echo "Show Path bar in Finder" defaults write com.apple.finder ShowPathbar -bool true echo "Show Status bar in Finder" defaults write com.apple.finder ShowStatusBar -bool true echo "Set a shorter Delay until key repeat" defaults write NSGlobalDomain InitialKeyRepeat -int 12 Also, some commands have been commented out: # Automatically hide and show the Dock # defaults write com.apple.dock autohide -bool true # Show remaining battery time; hide percentage # defaults write com.apple.menuextra.battery ShowPercent -string "NO" # defaults write com.apple.menuextra.battery ShowTime -string "YES" # echo "Always show scrollbars" # defaults write NSGlobalDomain AppleShowScrollBars -string "Auto" # Disable window animations and Get Info animations in Finder # defaults write com.apple.finder DisableAllAnimations -bool true # Don’t animate opening applications from the Dock # defaults write com.apple.dock launchanim -bool false # Disable opening and closing window animations # defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSAutomaticWindowAnimationsEnabled -bool false # Empty Trash securely by default # defaults write com.apple.finder EmptyTrashSecurely -bool true # Remove useless icons from Safari’s bookmarks bar # defaults write com.apple.Safari ProxiesInBookmarksBar "()" # Disable send and reply animations in Mail.app # defaults write com.apple.Mail DisableReplyAnimations -bool true # defaults write com.apple.Mail DisableSendAnimations -bool true # Disable Resume system-wide # defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSQuitAlwaysKeepsWindows -bool false #Fix for the ancient UTF-8 bug in QuickLook (http://mths.be/bbo) # Commented out, as this is known to cause problems when saving files in Adobe Illustrator CS5 :( #echo "0x08000100:0" > ~/.CFUserTextEncoding

aes256 15y ago
# This is script with usefull tips taken from: # https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles/blob/master/.osx https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles/blob/master/.osx

ralfd 15y ago

> MacBook:~ ralf$ defaults write enable-spring-load-actions-on-all-items -bool true Okay. Now just to check… > MacBook:~ ralf$ defaults read com.apple.dock enable-spring-load-actions-on-all-items 2012-03-31 12:46:35.173 defaults[33945:707] The domain/default pair of (/Users/ralf/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist, enable-spring-load-actions-on-all-items) does not exist Hm?

moeffju 15y ago
That should probably be defaults write com.apple.dock enable-spring-load-actions-on-all-items -bool true

piger 15y ago

for hackers? LOL.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

maxer 15y ago

my biggest gripe with mac os having recently moved from windows is hitting the maximise button on finder and it barely filling half the screen. other well documented one is the ability to turn the laptop screen of when using another screen but still the laptop keyboard

crb 15y ago
Hold Shift while hitting the green plus ("resize window") button to make it maximise the window.
- vbo 15y ago
  Cheers for that, I've been mildly annoyed with the resize button for years but never enough to look for a solution. This works great.
  - Vecrios 15y ago
    still, doesn't work for me! what version are you using?
    - driverdan 15y ago
      IIRC it was introduced fairly recently, either Snow Leopard or Lion.
    - vbo 15y ago
      Using Lion, but I recall doing this for some time (Tiger?); I may be wrong. Do you have tap to click enabled?
    - Angostura 15y ago
      It is app-dependent too.
- msluyter 15y ago
  Holy crap! I wish I could give you multiple upvotes for this. I wonder if there's a way to make this the default? This reminds me that I really need to spend a couple of days delving into basic OSX functionality (features/keyboard shortcuts). There are probably a ton of other features like this that I'm oblivious to.

johnpowell 15y ago

I just use secrets. It was found here. http://secrets.blacktree.com/ http://secrets.blacktree.com/ I'm not sure why the site is down. But I mirrored it here. http://stfudamnit.com/ryan/Secrets.prefPane.zip http://stfudamnit.com/ryan/Secrets.prefPane.zip

mathias 15y ago
Sadly, Secrets is a bit outdated. Lots of useful hidden tweaks aren’t listed there.

gaving 15y ago

Still waiting for a god damned "disable swoosh effect" defaults key for switching between desktops as you could in snow leopard.

homebrewalright 15y ago
If you mean how slow mission control is it's this one: defaults write com.apple.dock expose-animation-duration -int 0; killall Dock
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- gaving 15y ago
  Nah, not that one but that's good too.

mitsche 15y ago

Before I saw this gist I had been completely unaware of the fact that Snow Leopard disables subpixel font rendering on non-Apple displays. Font rendering is something that drives me crazy if it's not done right. It's one of my main gripes with Windows (YMMV). Thanks to the respective hack my Samsung 24" has suddenly become acceptable to work on again. Awesome.

dfc 15y ago
Font rendering must really drive you crazy if you had not noticed yet that it was off...
- mitsche 15y ago
  See my answer to jaylevitt's posting.
jaylevitt 15y ago
Don't you hate being a font-rendering snob and then realizing you've been staring at something ugly for months without realizing it? I'm not being snide; it's happened to me. I used to be a typesetter, and yet when I had trouble using Inconsolata in Sublime Text, I reverted back to Menlo, which I hated - and spent the next few months preaching about how hard I'd worked to find the Perfect Programmer Font For Me, not realizing I wasn't actually looking it in the editor. Worse, I was seeing it in Terminal; I had no excuse. It's the visual equivalent of the classic audio production goof: You spend hours tweaking a particular equalizer setting, everybody agrees that it sounds perfect now, and then realize the EQ hasn't been patched in at all and you've been changing nothing.
- mitsche 15y ago
  I just stopped using the monitor after half an hour of using OS X on it and gave it to my roommate, since I'm hardly ever home anyway. Now it's back on my desk again. It bugs me that I thought I needed a better screen instead of instantly seeing what's the issue. Especially since I used to play around a lot with the Freetype settings in Ubuntu and should have known what makes the fonts look the way they do. But then again I trusted Apple to not let this kind of stuff happen.

tamasss 15y ago

thank you so much for sharing!

jasonkester 15y ago

I'm still waiting for the "Quit asking me to retype my password every time I try to do anything" setting. You'd think that the fact I typed it in 30 seconds ago when I logged in would be sufficient proof that I'm me. This is the type of security that actually leads to less security. Eventually I'll get so sick of not being able to hit the back button on my browser (or whatever similarly impactful action that OSX decides is going to destroy my machine) without special one-time-only admin privileges that I'll just remove the password from my account altogether.

arthurschreiber 15y ago
How often do you come across the need to type in your password? Personally, I do not have to do that too often, and when I have to it usually makes sense to re-authenticate.
dakotasmith 15y ago
Sounds like you need to fix some Keychain Access settings. Grasping at Internet straws, but perhaps something like this will help? https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2108355?start=0&tstart=0 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2108355?start=0&tst... (Fair warning, I'm presuming the back button of which you speak is a Safari back button. I have not experienced this problem myself and I have full-disk encryption on, which requires you to enter a password for most anything.)
- chc 15y ago
  This is quite possibly the case. OS X doesn't normally ask for your password once you're logged in except when you're doing something that will affect multiple users (e.g. updating the system). The big exception is when it has somehow lost your keychain password, in which case it will ask for your password every time it needs to look at the keychain.
ceejayoz 15y ago
If you're getting a password request when you hit the back button, you've got some funky browser plugins.

Cyph0n 15y ago

Great list of modifications. I believe Deeper for OS X has many of these tweaks bundled into a nice interface. http://www.titanium.free.fr/download.php http://www.titanium.free.fr/download.php

ctingom 15y ago

For OS X I love TotalFinder - better finder.

nikcub 15y ago

If you are worried about some of these settings before running them, you can backup your preference files All that the 'defaults' command does is alter values stored in plist files, which are located in /Library/Preferences (and for the user in ~/Library/Preferences). You can add something like this to the top of the script: echo "Making a backup.." tar -pzcf ~/preferences-`date "+%Y%m%d-%H%M%S"`.tgz ~/Library/Preferences /Library/Preferences You may need to sudo to read some of the machine plist files

NHQ 15y ago
This is what I was looking for. Thanks!

sofuture 15y ago

"OSX for Hackers" would have a real tiling window manager.

cgag 15y ago
It doesn't compare to using something like i3, but size up 2 makes it a little less painful.
- cbrinke1 15y ago
  Along the same lines I am enjoying http://manytricks.com/moom/ http://manytricks.com/moom/

philip1209 15y ago

Great tips. Thanks for sharing. I did everything except the track pad right click hack and removing the top bar transparency.

deepkut 15y ago

Your changes to the dock are nothing short of spectacular. Thanks for this! Simple, easy to install, and in accordance with the hacker ethic.

trimbo 15y ago

For me, the biggest problem with OS X is the command key / meta key situation. I have an impossible time going between Linux, Windows and Mac because of this. Any hacks people know of for this?

travisjeffery 15y ago
Go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Modifier Keys... and configure them however you want.
- trimbo 15y ago
  Hm, I feel like I've tried this and couldn't get the behaviors I wanted. How does this accomplish e.g. overloading control-C to copy across the system? You wouldn't want to map command to control, since you still want control-C to be control-C in a shell. Know what I mean?
  - packetslave 15y ago
    I use Keyboard Maestro to remap ctrl-X/C/V to copy/paste everywhere except Terminal/iTerm. Same for Chrome so that the Ctrl shortcuts from Linux work on OSX as well.
    - trimbo 15y ago
      Sweet! I'll give it a try.
- chimeracoder 15y ago
  Not quite however you want. It doesn't work the way it does in Linux where you can rebind keys in arbitrary ways. The built-in modification only enables a few different common/popular rebindings, but from my brief stint with OS X, I found it maddening that I couldn't get the rebinding exactly as I wanted it.

billsix 15y ago

I am surprised that this article made the front page.

mathias 15y ago
Me too, given that the original (http://mths.be/osx http://mths.be/osx) made the front page 200 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2974911 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2974911

pkamb 15y ago

Replace Snow Leopard Exposé (terrible) with old Leopard-style Exposé (amazing). http://superuser.com/questions/118424/old-leopard-expose-on-snow-leopard-for-mac http://superuser.com/questions/118424/old-leopard-expose-on-... Unfortunately it won't help those of you who have "upgraded" to Lion...

dustingetz 15y ago

and now my osx is like my emacs - nobody can use it except me, and i can't even keep my configuration straight across all my machines.

emidln 15y ago
Put your config files in your favorite online vcs (private repo or encrypted if you must).

miles_matthias 15y ago

A 2D dock is what hackers need? Is this really for hackers or just someone's personal preference?

uxp 15y ago
I honestly don't have a preference on the eye candy present in most operating systems, but I do know that I dislike the agonizing wait introduced to open a new window, watching it's open animation progress frame by frame after I've put my workstation under _Heavy_ load. Removing a lot of the visual fluff can help keep someone productive, even when their machine isn't being the most responsive. It's entirely preference, dependent on the specs of the workstation and the user's ability to open a couple hundred web browser tabs, 5 VMs, and 2 different O(log n) sorting operations on some database all at once while still maintaing a Skype conversation with a co-worker.

astrange 15y ago

Does changing every single default really make you feel better about yourself? At least one of these changes (disabling local backups) doesn't even increase performance. Unless you just like data loss.

dgallagher 15y ago

I through together a (rough) Cocoa version: https://github.com/dave-gallagher/OSX-For-Cocoa-Hackers https://github.com/dave-gallagher/OSX-For-Cocoa-Hackers Binary: https://github.com/downloads/dave-gallagher/OSX-For-Cocoa-Hackers/OSX%20For%20Hackers.zip https://github.com/downloads/dave-gallagher/OSX-For-Cocoa-Ha... git clone git@github.com:dave-gallagher/OSX-For-Cocoa-Hackers.git It's not as robust as the script, but it lets you choose individually what setting you want changed, and also added defaults.

pixelcort 15y ago

It seems down right now, but there was a nice database of secret preferences at http://secrets.blacktree.com/ http://secrets.blacktree.com/ and included a Preference Pane to access them.

jluxenberg 15y ago

If you're looking for "Alt-Tab" style window switching on OS X, the best thing I've found is Witch (http://manytricks.com/witch/ http://manytricks.com/witch/) "Alt-Tab" switches between windows in the order you last focused each window, so it's ideally suited to a stack-based workflow where you may have many windows open but are only using a few of them. OS X already has "Command-Tab", but that switches between applications, not windows.

Schwolop 15y ago
Try Cmd+Tilde.

wildtype 15y ago

Ah, i don't have enough money to buy Apple stuffs, can't be hackeer :(

asmosoinio 15y ago

Why would one disable Time Machine logal backups?