Modding Mac OS X: Extreme Makeovers for Your Mac

Modding Mac OS X isn't about cutting up your Power Mac's case with a saws-all; it's about modifying Mac OS X's user interface and unlocking secrets and dispelling your fears of the Unix command line so you can take command of your Mac.

Modding Mac OS X starts out with the very basics of showing you how to configure your Mac and do simple things like change Finder views, use an image from iPhoto's library on your desktop, and how to find and use screen savers. From there, Modding Mac OS X shows you how to:

• Find hidden features in your favorite applications
• Dive inside application bundles to find hidden resources
• Change application and system-wide keyboard shortcuts
• Work with the Property List Editor to read and edit property list files
• Wrap your head around the defaults command to tweak an application's settings
• Hack on NIB files to change an application's interface
• Control an application with AppleScript, even if it isn't scriptable

Each Modding example includes detailed step-by-step instructions that even a novice Mac user can follow, while also providing the necessary detail to satisfy the experienced hacker. The knowledge you gain from tweaking one application can be easily applied to the next.

So go on, empower your inner Mac geek. You know you want to.

Sadun shows users how to take control over the way their applications look and behave and provides a structured overview of how to hack system and application preferences and resources to change the look and feel of their Macs.

Sadun shows users how to take control over the way their applications look and behave and provides a structured overview of how to hack system and application preferences and resources to change the look and feel of their Macs.

Erica Sadun holds a PhD in Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology. She has written, cowritten, and contributed to almost two dozen books about technology, particularly in the areas of programming, digital video, and digital photography. An unrepentant geek, Sadun has never met a gadget she didn't need. Her checkered past includes run-ins with NeXT, Newton, and a vast myriad of both successful and unsuccessful technologies. When not writing, she and her geek husband parent three adorable geeks-in-training, who regard their parents with restrained bemusement. Eight Ways to Get the Most out of Your Zune, the O'Reilly short cut, and Modding Mac OS X, also with O'Reilly, are her latest books. She also wrote Taking Your iPhone to the Max.