Modding Mac OS X: Extreme Makeovers for Your Mac

When I first laid eyes on this book, I thought it would be a end-user's guide through the OSX preferences to explain how to set up the basics. Desktop patterns, sounds, energy saver and the like. Indeed, the first few pages of the first chapter do cover these things. Turn the pages, and I find that this book well exceeds those initial impressions. It is a starter's guide to hacking system and app resources and preferences in order to change their look and feel. Do you want to learn about Application Bundles, how to add custom keyboard shortcuts to an application, how to customize an app's icons, or how to use AppleScript even when the app does not support it out-of-the-box? If so, then Modding the Mac OSX is for you. The book is laid-out in logical, easy to use sections showing time needed, `geektitude', and difficulty. It has ample graphics and generous margins for note jotting. Note that Modding Mac OSX Extreme Makeovers is not for the squeamish at heart. There are repetitive warnings that changes are done your own risk; and backup everything. That said... The first chapter starts off with easy to do tweaks of the Desktop and finder, but then the following chapters progress into more advanced changes, such as altering preference files and application bundles, and by the last chapter explains how to add scripting to non-scriptable apps. I found this book to be a very helpful reference book if you need to know anything about the inner workings of Mac application bundles or AppleScripting. It is presented in an easy to understand step-by-step method for each project or tweak to do, and includes exactly what applications, etc you will need before you start (dubbed a "Bill of Materials"). It also includes a rating system (expressed in a Chinese takeout `hot peppers' scale) for difficulty level and approximate time to do project. When reading the more advanced sections it is helpful if you have a bit of UNIX/Linux background knowledge and maybe some XML (but not required). There is abundant reference information about where various system files are located (such as preference files, system sound files, icons, etc). But it doesn't stop there, in the later chapters they follow up with precise file information about how to change those files to your liking. So you can easily customize sounds, icons, preferences, etc. Included throughout the book (in various projects), is a beginner hands-on crash course in using XCode Developer Tools. The chapter using Interface Builder (part of XCode Tools) to change contextual menus, tool tips, buttons, etc is especially good.

I didn't realize how many little things you can do to personalize you Mac beyond just selecting a theme or background. There are plenty of fun things to do that don't take much effort. There is an informative description of Application Bundles which provides the foundation for a lot of the easier mods. There are plenty of pictures and each mod that I tried out was well documented. I had the most fun just changing the icons and property list strings for various apps. I also liked the notes on "Undocumented Preferences" - using an image as the background for the Terminal app is cool. It was also neat to see how some of the tools floating out on the internet (such as TinkerTool or Safari Enhancer) do what they do. Nicely done.

Aimed at a Mac user who wants more personalisation of her OS X machine. Sadun immediately jumps into showing how to tweak your Desktop. Like changing the background and screensavers. For both, you can even import external files if you're not satisfied with what Apple offers. Plus many other options that most users never avail themselves of. To be sure, linux/unix and Microsoft machines have also had similar options for years. But the Mac tends to do it so elegantly. Much else is covered by the book. There are several examples of internationalisation. She shows how an application bundle is a directory with subdirectories of local specific data like text, audio and video, arranged in a very logical fashion. You can get an appreciation for what it means to have a program be used in a global way. Plus, you can ease into unix. Unlike simpler Mac books, Sadun describes extensively how to use the command line to delve deeper into the system.

This book is primarily about tweaking the OS X end-user applications through clever use of the application itself, preference hacking, or finally by using the developer tools to tweak the application directly. It's an interesting read that is focused on that group of folks who aren't engineers, but love to tweak their desktop with custom styles, and make use of fun features like opacity. None of these things are workflow critical, but they are fun anyway. If you are someone who loves to mod then this is great starting point for you. It's well written and does a capable job walking you through each mod so that you don't break your system in the midst of your play.