Filed under: Software
Manage secret preferences with Secrets
Here's a clever utility from the creator of Quicksilver. Secrets (no, not the Van Halen song) is a preference pane that lets you fiddle with the hidden defaults of nearly all your applications. For instance, show the iPhoto toobar in full screen mode and make those iTunes arrows link to your library instead of the store. There's a huge database available, and adding your own secret preferences is simple. Have fun!
[Via Daring Fireball]
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Joes said 5:15PM on 3-01-2008
Do you have to restart the Computer for the changes to take effect?
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mentalsticks said 5:35PM on 3-01-2008
That guy is a friggin genius.
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Adam said 5:36PM on 3-01-2008
Leopard-only. Boo!
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Jeffrey Kirk said 5:43PM on 3-01-2008
Wow, only a REAL Van Halen fan would know that song. Kudos on the B-Side Van Halen song reference!
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Simon Arch said 5:46PM on 3-01-2008
Interesting, and handy for folks unwilling to muck about with the command line.
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Conor said 5:46PM on 3-01-2008
This is a smart idea, I like it. But I can seem to add a new secret for DVDpedia. It tells me that the bundle id is not set, maybe it only allows secrets for applications that it knows about so it can display the the icon.
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Naren Hazareesingh said 6:13PM on 3-01-2008
Editing gives me this error"
"2 errors prohibited this preference from being saved
There were problems with the following fields:
Title is missing or invalid
Bundle is missing or invalid"
I figured there might be a more active community here in the comments than on the Google Code page.
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Blaktornado said 6:45PM on 3-01-2008
And this thing is completely safe with no effects on my system?
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Blaktornado said 6:45PM on 3-01-2008
*negative effects
anthony said 7:06PM on 3-01-2008
I'm having issues already. Some prefs provide options A and B but no way to disable them or go back to the system defaul! Of course there doesn't appear to be anyway to contact the developer so now I'm stuck with an ugly dock.
jason said 8:03PM on 3-01-2008
This application can be quite dangerous--after trying out the "show hidden files" preference, my Macbook with 10.5.2 completely froze. Now, I can't get it to go past the gray apple startup screen. Anybody else have (or fix) this problem? I am not going to be happy if I have to do a complete restore...
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Sam Katz said 8:36PM on 3-01-2008
This is why the command line is always safer. These things are generally boolean. They are either on or off.
I have no idea why the completely harmless setting to show all files would be ailing your machine.
There are a couple of solutions:
1. Boot to "safe mode" by holding down the Shift key. If this works, it means that the utility is starting up with the system. Go into the Users control panel and see whether you can stop it.
Lastly, if it didn't work, you will likely have to go into single user mode and reset the boolean. Reboot. Hit s. This should drop you to terminal. Type this exactly as shown.
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE
It is conceivable that cold-crashing your Mac in the middle of boot damaged something somehow.
some questions for others:
1. Is single user mode really the same as Terminal?
2. Could he use Firewire Target disk mode to safely copy com.apple.Finder.plist from another 10.5.2 installation if it is corrupted? I suppose I should also ask.. is the defaults command extensible enough to actually revert that file back to a pristine state?
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jason said 8:48PM on 3-01-2008
Sam,
Thanks for your reply. I'll try the single user mode when I get back to my computer. My next thought was to firewire target disk mode to copy the plist file... though as you said, I'm not sure if that's a safe option. I'll keep you posted.
Macskeeball said 9:07PM on 3-01-2008
I use TinkerTool for this.
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iGO said 11:47PM on 3-01-2008
I guess this secret has been exposed !!
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Rowan said 3:05AM on 3-02-2008
Great app; be good if they had a cheerful disclaimer on their site though.
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Mark P said 6:13AM on 3-02-2008
Does anyone know of a setting that disables the finder preview on network shares?
Thanks!
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Chris said 12:58PM on 3-02-2008
TinkerTool is better FTW!
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Michael said 2:21PM on 3-02-2008
I think people ought perhaps to read the manual on "defaults" _before_ using this tool. Here's the page on "defaults" at Apple:
http://developer.apple.com/DOCUMENTATION/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man1/defaults.1.html
For example, it is important to know:
*******
"Since applications do access the defaults system while they're running, you shouldn't modify the defaults of a running application. If you change a default in a domain that belongs to a running application, the application won't see the change and might even overwrite the default."
*******
In any case, it's always important to understand what one is doing and how. Otherwise, it's all just "magic" -- something that's all too common on the Mac platform. (c.f. the misunderstandings about what "Repair Permissions" is and is for.)
The app from "Alcor" (whoever he is) sounds fine in principal to me. But there is, of course, nothing here that couldn't be done with Terminal and a list of those defaults that aren't revealed in particular applications' Preferences. A webpage -- or a textfile -- of those would do just as well.
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Bart Hanson said 6:47AM on 3-13-2008
You would be far safer using a tool like Clix which helps you learn the command line while you use it.
Secrets keeps you in the dark, while it's issuing terminal commands.
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