Terminals Hidden Secrets For Mac….Sorry Windows Users

Terminals Hidden Secrets

Ok MacHeads this article is for you guys! In this article I will show you some of the hidden treasures you may have not known your mac can do, or you want to do but you just didn’t know how. These hidden tricks and secrets I will be Discussing and showing you will all be done thru terminal mainly and some just simple little tricks you can do with a few clicks and drags. For those of you who don’t know what terminal is or you do but you never use it before, don’t worry these are all fairly simple codes to execute even if your a noob to this. First and foremost lets define terminal. The Terminal application with in Mac is a program included with all versions of Mac OS X. It is located in the Utilities folder within the Applications folder. When launched, it provides a line interface to control the underpinnings of the UNIX based operating system. So now that we got that out of the way, let the Commands Begin!!!!

1) Add A Message To The Login Window

This Terminal command enables you to add a message of your choice to the Login window. Warning it’s a sudo command which can be dangerous.

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow LoginwindowText “Your Message”

Replace “Your Message” with the message of your choice, just don’t make it to long. If you want to revert it do the following.

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow LoginwindowText “”

(note that this option now comes stock on Lion OSX)

2) Drag A Widget Onto The Desktop

After you execute this command just activate dashboard click and hold the widget you want to keep in your desktop and move it around a little so it wasn’t in the same place as it was when you clicked it. then click the dashboard button again to close dashboard and the widget you click should remain there.

This command enables widgets to be placed onto the desktop

defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode YES

3)Enable Time Machine On Unsupported Drives

This is another favorite hacks of mine, simply because it enable Time Machine to work on unsupported drives such as NAS. Use with caution as it is unsupported.

defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

4) Set The Screen Saver As The Wallpaper

This command sets the currently selected screen saver as the desktop background. Use command + c or . to stop while in Terminal. There is also an Application you can use called wallsaver.

/System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Resources/ScreenSaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS/

ScreenSaverEngine -background

5) Show X-Ray Folders in QuickLook

defaults write com.apple.finder QLEnableXRayFolders -boolean

6) Make list view stacks work like grid view Stacks

This command slightly changes the behavior in Stacks in list view. Once enabled, they act more like grid view Stacks, but with a single list of files and icons on the left. The main difference is when “drilling-down” through folders within the Stack.

defaults write com.apple.dock use-new-list-stack -bool YES

7) Recent Items Stack

This command sets a stack for your most recently used applications. Yes this is in your apple menu in the top left hand corner, but how much more convenient to have it also right in your dock!

Get More Out Of ScreenSharing

Now I myself love using the core services app ScreenSharing so this little hack just makes the experience that much more better. This hack will give you more options while using the ScreenSharing application.

defaults write com.apple.ScreenSharing \’NSToolbar Configuration ControlToolbar’ -dict-add ‘TB Item Identifiers’ \’(Scale,Control,Share,Curtain,Capture,FullScreen,GetClipboard,SendClipboard,Quality)’

9) Bring “Don’t Save” Back!!!!

So This following dialog box is an example of what pops up when you attempt to close an application after you’ve been editing a document and you haven’t saved it yet.

You can take one of the following three actions from your keyboard which this dialog box opens:If you want to cancel a file save dialog without saving the file that you modified then new keyboard shortcut combination is Command+Delete. It replaces Command+D used in previous generations of Mac OS X.

But if you just want to cancel the save and remain in the application you are editing your document in, you can hit ESC or Command+Period just like before since this too hasn’t been changed.

10) Hidden library Folder

By default, Lion hides your Users/Library folder. While it’s easy to access it by holding the Option key down in the Finder while in the Go menu (it will appear in the list), there’s an easy way to make it permanently visible. Make the Library folder visible permanently:

chflags nohidden ~/Library

To hide the Library folder again, enter again the command above but with “hidden” instead of “nohidden.”