Tuning Leopard

No matter how good OS X Leopard is, there are always things that people don’t like and would like to change them. And the higher the user level, the more requests and desire he has to change something to his taste. In this post, I will try to talk about small tips that will allow you to improve the appearance of the Leopard.


The dock

3D / 2D Dock
Let's start with the classics. If you do not like the new view of the Dock, you can change it to the 2D version by executing the following command in the terminal:
$ defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES ; killall Dock

Dockcolor
If you still like the 3D Dock, then you can customize the dock colors with this small program.
')
Leopardocks.com , Dockulicious.com
These two great sites allow you to completely change the appearance of the dock (a large number of topics have been collected).


Stacks

Stack drawers
The main task of the stacks is to unload the desktop, but sometimes it becomes very difficult to distinguish the stacks themselves. Stack Drawers helps you organize their appearance.

Stacks in da place
And this program is a great addition to Stack Drawers. It automatically detects all your stacks and allows you to select an icon for the stack with just drag'n'drop.


HierarchicalDock
Many complained that the ability to navigate through directories through the dock was removed in Leopard. This application will help you to return justice.


Recent Items Stack
Do you often use Recent Items? Well then this tuning is for you. Having executed this command, you will add a new stack, which will contain the last 10 documents, applications, servers, etc.

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array-add '{ "tile-data" = { "list-type" = 1; }; "tile-type" = "recents-tile"; }' ; killall Dock

Activate mouse over gradient
This command adds a gradient to the active item in the stack.
defaults write com.apple.dock mouse-over-hilte-stack -boolean YES ; killall Dock


The menu bar

OpaqueMenuBar
One of the most controversial changes in Leopard is the translucent menu. OpaqueMenuBar will allow you to change the transparency of the menu.


Leo colorbar
This utility allows you to choose colors for the menu, moreover, it allows you to make the menu rounded or scale the picture on the background so that it does not fall under the menu.


Finder

Intermediate illumination
If you do not like the bluish interlaced backlight, you can delete it with a simple action in the terminal:
defaults write com.apple.finder FXListViewStripes -bool FALSE ; killall Finder


Sidebar Headers
To do this, you need to open the file (using Xcode) - /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/LocalizableCore.strings and find the strings SD5, SD6 .... Change them to your taste, restart finder:
killall Finder

Icons in Tulbare
It turns out that you can add application icons to the Finder toolbar. Say, sometimes you have to use VLC for files that QT cannot open, but you don’t want to place the VLC icon in the dock. Then you can place it in the Finder toolbar. Just drag and drop the apps you need. Then you can use these icons as well as dock icons.


Icons

Candybar 3
Candybar is a great application that lets you change OS X system icons.


IconFactory
IconFactory is a giant archive of Mac icon resources that can be used with CandyBar.

Login Window

Visage Login
Using this application, you can fully customize the login (login window). You can change the background image, icons, name and enter any information to display.


DefaultDesktop.jpg
If you only want to change the image on the background, then for this you only need to replace this file /System/Library/CoreServices/DeafaultDesktop.jpg and the next time you log in, you will see a new background.

QuickLook

Folder QuickLook Plugin
QuickLook is one of the most important innovations of Leopard. Using this plugin, you can conveniently browse directories.


Zip QuickLook Plugin
Another QuickLook plugin that will allow you to view files in Zip archives without opening them.


Other

Displaperture
Another thing that was removed from Leoparad is the rounded view of the corners. Dispalperture is a background process that allows you to round corners as in the good old Tigris.


fonts500
This does not apply to Leopard, but this site deserves attention, as it contains 500 high-quality free fonts.

InterfaceLift
Another site worth noting. It contains thousands of constantly updated icons, themes and other for Mac and PC.

Of course, this is not a complete list of what can be done, but here are the most vivid examples. Hope you enjoyed it :-)

Shl. I know that there must be an insane amount of typos and errors. Do not scold hard, tried as best I could (multilingual spell checker works insanely bad). I hope with your help I will fix them 8-)

According to the materials
www.appletell.com/apple/comment/ultimate-leopard-tweaking-guide
www.usingmac.com/2007/11/18/leopard-tweaking-terminal-codes
www.macworld.com/article/60944/2007/11/leopardfirsttweaks.html
lifehacker.com/344376/customize-your-mac-with-leopard-power-tweaks