

~/.osx — a collection of sensible defaults for OS X Lion - mathias
https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles/blob/master/.osx

======
antipax
Cool. I don't know that I'd call them sensible in general, though, even if
they are sensible for you. Disabling disk image verification permanently, for
instance, is probably a bad idea.

Expanded save/load panel by default is awesome, though. So thanks!

~~~
modeless
Have you ever once gotten a warning from disk image verification that saved
you enough time to justify all the time you've spent waiting for it?

~~~
Zev
Yes. Many times.

~~~
modeless
Really? What corrupted disk images are you opening? I've never had it report
an error, and I download software in .dmg files all the time (and wait for
verification all the time).

~~~
jergason
iOS SKDs are where it usually happens for me, but it has happened other times
as well.

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tvon
For a larger list of "hidden" settings you might want to check out Secrets[1],
a database of these 'defaults' settings that you can tweak from a preference
pane.

[1] <http://secrets.blacktree.com/>

~~~
llambda
Whoa, cool! I had no idea this existed. I've occasionally had to tweak some
defaults but never really knew where the seemingly arcane knowledge had been
drawn from (I was usually lucky enough to find a mailing list where someone
had mentioned a solution, but of course that eschewed where they had found
their knowledge). It's great to have a repository to draw from. Thank you!

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aiurtourist
I'm sad that this is now necessary. Mac OS X 10.5 was the first version of OS
X which I could start using for work immediately without installing any hacks
(with the one exception of the Terminal Colors SIMBL plugin).

My dad says, "I don't want to upgrade! Things work fine! They always dick
around with everything!" He's talking about QuarkXPress and MS Office and
whatnot, which is understandable. But, for the first time ever, I'm not
excited about the new version of the Mac operating system.

~~~
Duff
I'm really disappointed in Lion -- lots of gratuitous changes without much
benefit. The Finder in particular is horrific.

I do like the new Terminal.app.

~~~
justinhj
I hadn't noticed anything different about the Terminal, so I see what you
mean.

~~~
super_mario
You can now set background image, you can redefine ANSI colors, there are a
few new themes, and you can go full screen (useful on small screens).

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ammmir
another useful one to avoid creating .DS_Store files on network volumes:

    
    
      defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores true

~~~
adamkittelson
Is there a way to avoid creating .DS_Store files on specific local volumes?

I used to have my Dropbox folder on my secondary (NTFS formatted) harddrive so
I could use a symlink to share my Dropbox folder across OSX and my Windows 7
Bootcamp install instead of having duplicate Dropbox folders for each OS. It
ended up spewing .DS_Store files all over my employer's company dropbox
folders.

~~~
urza
<https://github.com/binaryage/asepsis>

Asepsis enables you to redirect creation of .DS_Store files into a special,
dedicated folder. With redirection, Finder works the same way but .DS_Store
files are isolated in the dedicated folder /usr/local/.dscache.

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tyler_ball
Some of these are hard to understand from their one-line descriptions. e.g.
'Remove useless icons from Safari's bookmark bar'? Maybe a blog post is in
order?

~~~
albedoa
Yes! Mathias, if you could do something like this, it would be very helpful. I
didn't even know about .osx.

Edit: And I don't even know how to search for information about it since the
dot is ignored in Google and GitHub :D

~~~
mathias
I should probably point out that `.osx` is not a standard or anything. I just
found myself collecting all these gems – not all of them are hidden settings,
but most are – and decided to organize them into a single file :)

It’s pretty useful though; when I set up a new machine, I just clone my repo,
run the bootstrapper, then `./.osx` and BOOM!

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jbredeche
If anybody else ran into the problem on OS X Lion where, even after turning on
devmode on the Dashboard, you couldn't get widgets to show up on the desktop:
first go to the Mission Control preference pane and uncheck "Show Dashboard as
a space". Took me a while to figure that out.

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seanalltogether
The top of my list is always this.

# Show hidden files/folders

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

~~~
zaius
You can show hidden files in an open dialog by hitting "Cmd-Shift-period". It
unfortunately doesn't work in finder though.

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Aloisius
What I want is something to reduce/eliminate the animation when switching
spaces with the three finger swipe in Lion. It is so slow that I find it
unusable.

~~~
apazzolini
A million times this. A temporary fix (if you have up to four spaces) is to
assign the arrow hotkeys to go to a space directly -- that speeds up the super
slow animation to about what Snow Leopard's animation was.

The ability to completely disable the animation (like we could in Snow
Leopard) would be amazing though.

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abrowne
I disable resume for Quicktime Player as well (I find it even more annoying
than Preview):

    
    
      defaults write com.apple.QuicktimePlayerX NSQuitAlwaysKeepsWindows -bool false

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igorgue
OS X keyboard is so slow for me, so I set this one

    
    
        defaults write NSGlobalDomain KeyRepeat -int 0
    

To make it blasting fast almost like in Linux (Gnome).

~~~
redcap
I'm not on Lion, but I use an external keyboard with a 2008 MB and recently
it's downright slow. So much that if I type after a long break it doesn't pick
up on the keystrokes properly.

Is that what you mean by slow?

~~~
igorgue
Yeah, delay until repeat and key repeat settings, with this you can make them
faster and shorter than the UI allows you to.

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CrLf

      defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -bool true
    

It is interesting how many people don't like the 3D dock. Maybe Apple should
think about this.

~~~
pkamb
Side-dock is the only way to go.

~~~
abrowne
Yeah, I don't know if I could use OS X without

    
    
      defaults write com.apple.dock pinning start
    

and either

    
    
      defaults write com.apple.dock orientation right
    

or

    
    
      defaults write com.apple.dock orientation left

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artursapek
Is there a way to disable that awful grey-blue void at the top of every
webpage in Safari, that the bounce-scroll resorts to on an overshot?

~~~
anonova
Switch to a sensible browser like Chrome. ;)

But really, Safari feels incredibly slow compared to Chrome. I always get
these strange delays/beachball moments when simply browsing and opening a new
tab in Safari.

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calloc
Is there any way to disable or shorten the animation that happens when you
switch spaces or whatever they renamed them to. I like being able to switch
between MacVim in one space and my terminal in another and the animation slows
me down that by the time it is done animating it has missed all of my
keystrokes for running make or other build tools ...

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whalesalad
The first one is BRILLIANT. I've been wanting this forever. The one thing that
I miss from being a Windows user back in the day.

~~~
peterjmag
Is this somehow different from the "Full Keyboard Access: All controls"
setting under System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts?

~~~
0x0x0x
No.

And many of the ones I skimmed can be set from various other GUIs as well.
This is just an easy way to apply one person's set of preferences to your
machine.

~~~
peterjmag
Ah, I see. I assumed that this was a selection of mostly-hidden features like
<http://secrets.blacktree.com/>. Anything that helps me avoid dialog-diving on
a new machine is good in my book.

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jasonkester
I'm looking for the setting that stops OSX from asking me to retype my admin
password 1000 times per hour.

ME: Cmd+c

Macbook Air: Seriously??? OK, if you _really_ want to copy that text I'll let
you, but first you'll need to prove that you're an administrator.

~~~
r00fus
I've been developing on OSX for years and have never run into that scenario.
What, pray tell, are you doing where CMD+C requires privilege elevation?

~~~
jasonkester
C'mon, that was a joke. It was meant to illustrate how trivial an operation
you can run and still have OSX pull you up on it.

Basically, anything you do that alters the computer in any way causes it to
complain at you. I'm looking for the setting where you can say "yes,
seriously, I'm admining. leave me alone."

On the command line, you get sudo, which remembers your password for a while
after you've entered it. As far as I can tell, there's no equivalent for OSX,
so installing a single piece of software can involve half a dozen password
prompts.

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celias
The Mac Kung Fu book from Pragmatic Bookshelf describes lots of hidden
defaults settings. <http://pragprog.com/book/ktmack/mac-kung-fu>

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richtaur
Hey, here's mine why not:
[https://github.com/richtaur/dotfiles/blob/master/osx_setup.m...](https://github.com/richtaur/dotfiles/blob/master/osx_setup.md)

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gaving
Just wish I could figure out how to disable the damn Spaces/Mission Control
'swoosh' switch animation like you could in Leopard :(

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graywh
What gets me is the option-click that hides the window you're moving away
from. Does anyone know how to disable that?

~~~
saithier
Release the option key before clicking?

~~~
graywh
What usually happens: I select line(s) in MacVim and option-click on xterm to
paste, hiding MacVim which prevents me Cmd-Tabbing back to it.

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moe
Is there also a setting to make a current-gen MBA wake up reliably from deep
sleep?

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badhairday
I always used this to enable horizontal buttons for iTunes in favor of the odd
vertical buttons.

defaults write com.apple.iTunes full-window -1

~~~
mathias
Nowadays this is the default again, no?

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swlkr
so this disables resumes for Preview:

defaults write com.apple.Preview NSQuitAlwaysKeepsWindows -bool false

Is there a way to disable resume for every app? Maybe it's just this?

defaults write com.apple.* NSQuitAlwaysKeepsWindows -bool false

~~~
stuartjmoore
I believe you can do that via Settings > General.

~~~
mathias
I’d love to get a command-line version though :)

~~~
nspragmatic

        defaults write .GlobalPreferences NSQuitAlwaysKeepsWindows -bool NO

~~~
mathias
Thanks! Committed:
[https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles/commit/7346f4c4592...](https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles/commit/7346f4c4592a38605feee862352918eafd41dd75)

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drivebyacct2
does

    
    
        defaults write com.apple.TextEdit NSQuitAlwaysKeepsWindows -bool false
    

work as well? This feature is infuriating and buggy.

~~~
mathias
Yes, that works.

If — like me — you hate the Resume feature so much, you can disable it system-
wide in System Preferences. I’m still looking for a command that does this :)

~~~
drivebyacct2
Thank you very, very much. I hadn't even thought to look for such an option.
It still took Googling to find it. Much, much better. :)

~~~
CJefferson
Why not then tell people where it is then! :)

After I googled for it as well, I can tell you it is in General (top left
icon), near the bottom.

