These top 10 commands are designed to make you look cooler, act quicker or be generally useful. I have tried to keep commands down to one line, so they are simple and effective to use.
Each item will include a description of what it does as well as an appropriate picture is necessary. The list is in no particular order. Most of the commands can be reverted by replacing YES with NO and 1 with 0, the opposite. Most of these commands are Snow Leopard and Leopard compatible and many may not work on Tiger. Try them and see what happens.
To access Terminal on you Mac – Application>Utilities>Terminal.app
1. Add a message to the login window:-
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow LoginwindowText “Your Message”
Note: Be very careful while using sudo commands.
Once you hit Enter you will be getting a WARNING message
WARNING: Improper use of the sudo command could lead to data loss or the deletion of important system files. Please double-check your typing when using sudo. Type “man sudo” for more information.
To proceed, enter your password, or type Ctrl-C to abort.
Enter your admin password
To revert it
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow LoginwindowText “”
2. Changing the Format Of Screen Shots:-
If you use the screen shot function, you may want to change the format of the images, this is not easily done normally. Where png is in the code you can change this to the format your want – jpg, bmp, gif etc.
defaults write com.apple.screencapture type jpg
OR
defaults write com.apple.screencapture type gif
OR
defaults write com.apple.screencapture type bmp
To revert it
defaults write com.apple.screencapture type png
You need to log out and back in again, or restart for the changes to take effect.
3. Enable The Path View In Finder:-
One of may favourite hacks as it lets you see the current path of the Finder window you are in. Its great if you work with a lot of windows.
defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool YES
Display Finder path on top
To revert it
defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool NO
Hack to display folder path in finder
To apply these changes you need to restart the Finder or your MacAdd recent application to you dock
4. Recent Applications Stack:-
This command creates a new stack in your dock so you can view the recently used Applications.
defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array-add ‘{ “tile-data” = { “list-type” = 1; }; “tile-type” = “recents-tile”; }’
Killall Dock
To revert it
Just remove it from the dock
5. Show Hidden Files In Finder:-
A lot of the files in Finder are hidden. This is probably a wise choice by Apple as there are countless things you can screw up. But if you want to take a look at how many there are and what they are you can show them within Finder. Be careful as these files are needed by the system, if you screw something up don’t come complaining. Repeat the command with false to revert. The image above, click for larger version, show the amount of files there actually is, with these hidden there is only 4 shown normally.
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
To revert it
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE
Note: Once you turn this ON you will notice a file (DS_Store) appear on Desktop and all other folder that you will be working on. So, don’t get panic.
6. 2D Dock:-
defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES
killall Dock
2D dock in Snow Leopard
To revert it
defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean NO
Killall Dock
3D dock in snow leopard
7. Change The Login Picture:-
If you get a bored of the space picture used on the login screen, you can change it with this little bit of code. Change the file location in the second half of the string to the exact file location of your chosen picture.
defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow DesktopPicture “/System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Users/YourMacUser/YourFolder/YourFile.jpg”
8. Change The Delay When Dragging Windows In Spaces:-
This simple hack changes the delay time it takes to drag windows around in spaces, its currently set to 0.75
defaults write com.apple.dock workspaces-edge-delay -float 0.5
To revert it
defaults write com.apple.dock workspaces-edge-delay -float 0.75
9 Skip Disk Image Verification:-
If you want to save some time you can skip the disk image verification for a disk image. Potentially risky as a whole load of things could go wrong without you knowing.
defaults com.apple.frameworks.diskimages skip-verify TRUE
To revert it
defaults com.apple.frameworks.diskimages skip-verify FALSE
10) Let Terminal Talk:-
If you are bored one day you can get Terminal to quickly talk anything back to you using the voice engine. Replace hello with anything you want.
say this terminal hack stuff from mac hack pc is cool
There are plenty more terminal hacks but, I wanted to make it simple and clean. So, I ignored most of them.