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36 Ways to Tweak Tiger with TinkerTool

- 2006.02.02

How many functions does your favorite software package perform? Most of the time, we're happy to pay for an app that has one or two core functions, as long as it does those functions well.

How about a freeware package that sports about three dozen different functions? Unbelievable, but it's true in the form of TinkerTool.

How can a piece of software be so useful and still be free? TinkerTool pulls it off by simply being a front end to a Terminal command. The defaults command, which originated in NeXTstep and made its way to OS X, allows you to change application preferences, including stuff that's not available from the app's preferences window.

TinkerTool has been with us since at least Mac OS X version 10.0 (Cheetah, although Apple didn't use the big cat names publicly then). I can remember using it back then to pin the Dock at the top of the screen and hide it under the menu bar - and to add a Quit menu to the Finder.

As more defaults commands have been discovered and new apps that support the command (i.e., Safari) have been added to the OS, TinkerTool has grown into quite the little powerhouse.

Since all preferences are set at the user level and not the system level, there's no risk of doing any damage to your OS. Preferences can be set back one at a time, or all preferences can be turned back to a pre-TinkerTool state with the click of a button.

One of the newer features is the ability to speed up the opening and closing animation of sheets. This makes open and save dialog boxes, and other informational sheets, roll up and down very quickly. Although it's a placebo, this gives you the appearance of a much faster Mac.

I always make sure to install TinkerTool even if just for this feature, even on the fastest Macs I use.

Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger brings back the ability to change the screen shot format, which you could do in 10.0 and 10.1, but not 10.2 or 10.3. I like to set the format to JPEG, although there's nothing wrong with the default PNG in 10.4. It's just nice to have that extra control over your system.

From the TinkerTool site, here's a complete list of features available with OS X 10.4 (other features available in earlier OS versions omitted):

Prevent the Finder from using the Desktop background
Disable the animation effect when opening files in the Finder
Enable the Finder to show hidden and system files
Enable the "Quit" menu item of the Finder
Disable sound effects of the Finder
Disable display of the full user and group list in ownership settings of the Finder
Disable the animation effect when opening information panels or Desktop icons
Disable the animation effect when selecting information categories
Disable the display of arrows in the Finder's column view
Set the maximum number of label lines in the Finder's icon view
Disable the creation of hidden Finder .DS_Store files on network volumes
Use transparent Dock icons to show hidden applications
Display the Dock with a shadow
Put the Dock to the top screen position
Place the Dock at the beginning or end of any screen border
Set the Dock minimization effect to a "suck in" animation
Place both scroll arrow buttons of any scroll bar at both ends of the bar
Set the file format for the creation of Desktop screen shots
Enable extended options for conversion of disk images
Automatically skip checksum verification when opening disk images
Accelerate the animation of opening and closing sheets
Enable the diagnostic menu of the Address Book
Automatically activate Terminal windows by pointing at them with the mouse cursor
Control how Mac OS X handles application crashes
Enable the Mac OS X Menu Extra to open optical disk drives
Enable the diagnostic menu of Safari
Disable Dashboard
Enable the developer mode of Dashboard (allows you to put Widgets on your Desktop)
Force an updated import of Internet Explorer favorites into Safari
Set the number of visible entries in the main history menu of Safari
Set the maximum number of entries stored in the history list of Safari
Reduce the delay time of Safari before page content is displayed
Disable native PDF display support in Safari
Set nine categories of default fonts used in Cocoa applications
Enable or disable restrictions for the permission settings of newly created files or folders
Set font-smoothing limits for all types of applications

And all of this for free!

Link: TinkerTool

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