Scott Brind

Here are some great terminal commands for Leopard users. For those of you who do not know, terminal is a CLI (Command Line Interface) which lets you use your Mac but with text. It gives access to the Unix shell of the operating system. Don’t worry none of these tweaks are at all complicated. Make sure you show your friends so that when they see you they think you are a master of the Unix shell.

First to launch terminal go to: Macintosh HD – Applications – Utilities – Terminal

Now we are ready to start!

Rather than type these commands in you can just copy and paste them in. Copy everything between the — starting with defaults and ending in either Dock or Finder. Hit enter after you have pasted. If you type them in yourself, make sure to hit enter after each line and use the correct case.

Two Dimensional Dock

Some users of Leopard, including myself, do not like the new 3D dock. This command will turn your dock into a 2D dock, like in Tiger.

—

defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES

killall Dock

—

Three Dimensional Dock

If you want to return back to your 3D Dock.

—

defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean NO

killall Dock

—

Adds a Mouse Over gradient to items in your stacks

I find this tweak useful as it is clearer to see what item you are about to select in your stack.

—

defaults write com.apple.dock mouse-over-hilte-stack -boolean YES

killall Dock

—

To turn off

—

defaults write com.apple.dock mouse-over-hilte-stack -boolean NO

killall Dock

—

Display the address in the title bar

This tweak is handy when you need to know where a file is located without scrolling around to discover where you have gone.

—

defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool YES

killall Finder

—

To turn off

—

defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool NO

killall Finder

—

Have fun tweaking!