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IN THIS CHAPTER:

■ What ResEdit is

■ Fundamentals of using ResEdit

■ Customizing menus, buttons, and dialog boxes

■ Secret messages in your system software

■ Ten great ResEdit pranks

This book could not live up to its name without a chapter on ResEdit. ResEdit

isn’t just another application; it’s the key that unlocks some of the Mac’s

strangest and most elusive secrets.

And we’re talking real secrets here — not just undocumented features,

obscure Ô-key combinations, or cute hidden messages. We’re talking about

the nuts-and-bolts stuff of which programs are made, stuff that’s completely

invisible to the average user.

ResEdit lets you poke into any application’s resources, its most basic com-

ponents, and rebuild them the way you want. If you don’t like the name of a

menu command, you can change it. If you’re running short on hard drive

space, you can rip unneeded sounds and pictures right out of your applica-

tions. You can totally redesign menus, dialog boxes, icons — all without

knowing the first thing about programming.

Veteran Mac Secrets owners are no doubt rifling through their CDs,

exclaiming,“Hey — where the heck’s ResEdit?” It’s true: for the first time, this

edition of Mac SECRETS doesn’t come with ResEdit. Apple increased the

Chapter 21

The ResEdit Chapter

683

amount it charges us to license ResEdit tenfold — a weird and goofy move,

we think, since ResEdit is available for free from about 11,000 sources. For

example, it’s on America Online (use the Search Software Libraries command

in the Go To menu). It’s also available from Apple’s Internet software site,

ftp://ftp.support.apple.com/apple_sw_updates/US/Macintosh/Utilities; our own

Web site, http://www.idgbooks.com/idgbooksonline/macsecrets, has a link to

Apple’s ResEdit download page.

And if you have no modem, a local Mac user group can provide ResEdit; as

a last resort, you could call IDG Books at 800-434-3422 and request the

floppy-disk set from the third edition of this book.

WHAT IS RESEDIT?Every recognizable Mac element of a program — icons, menus, dialog boxes,

cursors, background patterns, sounds, graphics — are called resources.

ResEdit stands for resource editor, and that’s just what it is: Apple’s own utility

for changing a file’s resources. Apple created ResEdit early in the Mac’s his-

tory so that programmers could easily manipulate the basic elements of the

Macintosh interface. Over the years, successive versions of ResEdit have

become safer and more user-friendly. Today, it’s accessible enough even for an

advanced beginner to use.

ResEdit lets you edit many different kinds of resources. System 7.5.5’s

System file alone contains 178 different types. Some are easier to edit than

others. To work with icons, for example, ResEdit provides basic painting

tools. For windows and dialog boxes, there are tools for changing the color,

size, and arrangement of the window elements; these tools closely resemble

those you might find in a drawing program.

Other types of resources aren’t quite so easy to handle. If

you try to edit a resource for which ResEdit has no special

editing tools, the program opens the resource in a hex edi-

tor. A hex editor is a window that displays the resource’s

code in raw hexadecimal form.

The first time you open a hex editor (see Figure 21-1),

you may momentarily think you’re working with some-

thing very foreign and incomprehensible — like DOS.

Nonetheless, you can edit a resource using a hex editor;

you just have to know which part of the code to change.

Several of the Secrets described in this section require you

to work with a hex editor. But don’t worry, we’ll tell you

precisely which part of the code to select and how to change

it. All in all, it’s pretty painless.

684 Part III: Application Secrets

Figure 21-1The unfriendly looking hex editor displays aresource’s code in hexadecimal form.

HOW TO USE RESEDITEditing a resource is simple: Drop the icon of the

file you want to examine or edit onto the ResEdit

icon. (Actually, drop a copy of that file, for safety;

more on this topic later.)

Alternatively, or in System 6, launch ResEdit. An

Open File dialog box presents itself; open the file

you want to change.

You can open any kind of file: applications, con-

trol panels, system extensions, or any other file.

(Most documents don’t have resources, however.)

Doing so reveals a window filled with icons repre-

senting all the different types of resources used in the

file, as shown in Figure 21-2.

As you can see, each resource type is identified not only by an icon, but by

a four-character code, such as FOND, DLOG, or STR#. (Some resource

names like “snd” or “STR” appear to be only three characters long, but they

actually consist of three characters and one space.) Often these codes hint at

their contents. The ICON resource is where you can change the shape of your

icons (the real icons, not the kind you can paste into the Get Info box in

System 7); the DLOG is how you change a dialog box; and CURS is where the

cursor shape lives.

Chapter 21: The ResEdit Chapter 685

Figure 21-2SimpleText, as seen through the eyes of ResEdit. Each resource

type is represented by an icon.

ANSWER MAN

A hex on both your houses

Q: Not so fast there, Answer Men. You’re notgoing to lob a term like hexadecimal at uswithout defining it, are you?

A: No.

Because it’s a binary machine, the Mac has 16“fingers” to count on instead of 10, likehumans. Therefore, it has to count beyond 15before advancing into two-digit numbers.

As a consequence, we humans have inventeda bizarre numbering system calledhexadecimal, in which you can count all theway up to 15 with a single digit. You count inhex like this: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E,F. The next number, in our notation, would be16. In hex, the next number is written 10!

Here are some basic equations in hexadecimalnotation: 2 + 2 = 4. Next, we have 4 + 4 = 8.But 8 + 7 = F. And F + 1, as we’ve said, is 10 (inhex).

Get it? (We admit that this sort of plays withyour head.)

Look for the type of resource you want to edit. Then

open its icon by double-clicking. This introduces a new

window listing all the individual resources of that particu-

lar type (for example, all the sounds in a program). Each

resource is tagged with an ID number. Double-click the

resource you want to modify and the appropriate editing

window will open. (We’ll walk you through all this, step by

step, in the following Secrets.)

Occasionally, when you try to open resources in the

System file, you’ll encounter a dialog box warning you that

the resource is compressed and asking if you want to edit it

anyway. Click Yes and the resource will automatically be

decompressed.

That’s really all you need to know to pull off any of the

tricks listed in this section. But before you go hacking away

at your System file, we need to discuss the Peril Factor.

The Peril FactorArticles and books on ResEdit are generally introduced with a morose warn-

ing about how perilous this program can be. We’ve heard people describe

ResEdit as if it were some kind of poisonous snake, difficult to handle and

potentially hazardous.

Actually, ResEdit is neither intimidating nor dangerous. In fact, we’re con-

fident that using it will never result in any kind of fatal computing disaster if

you follow these sensible guidelines:

■ Make sure you have a backup, somewhere, of whichever file you try to edit

with ResEdit. (You can’t edit the active Finder — only a copy of it.) The

procedures here are all tried and tested. But if, through some slip-up, you

end up with a System file that behaves oddly, the backups make it easy to

recover.

■ To make a quick backup of your System file, Option-drag it out of your

System Folder — to, say, the Desktop. Make your ResEdit changes to this

copy. After saving your changes to the copy, put your original, untouched

System file (until now, still in the System Folder) into a safety folder of its

own. Finally, put the edited copy — sitting out on the Desktop — into the

System Folder. You’ve just swapped them. Now restart the Mac. (Keep your

still-virginal copy around for handy replacing access.)


ANSWER MAN

It don’t work!

Q: I tried one of your ResEdit hacks,and it didn’t work!

A: Hey. We tried. We tested everytrick on almost every System versionwe could find, but there are someincarnations of the Mac’s Systemsoftware we simply couldn’t get ourhands on. We are sorry if somethingdoesn’t work on your system, or withyour particular set of extensions. Butfrankly, this is hacking; you do yourdeed and then see if it flies.

If you operate only on a backup ofthe target file, you’ve lost nothing bytrying.

■ Nothing you do in ResEdit “takes” until you save your changes using the

Save command. You can fiddle around with a file in ResEdit all you want

with virtually no danger of ruining it — just don’t save your changes

before quitting.

■ After you’ve made one change to a program with ResEdit, save your work,

quit, and examine the results before making the next change. This way, if

something does go wrong, it’ll be much easier to hunt down the problem.

A primer in customizing menusResEdit is the Mac’s premiere menu-customizing tool. Not only can you use

it to add a Ô-key equivalent to any command on any menu in any program,

you can also rename menus and the items on them. You can even change the

color and style of menu items, enabling you, for example, to make your most

frequently used commands stand out in bright red italics. You can assign a

color to the menu background and to each of the separator lines that appear

between menu items. And perhaps wildest of all, you can add your own icons

to any menu command!

To add a keyboard command to a menu itemOpen the application you wish to customize with ResEdit. Then, with a

double-click, open its MENU resource icon (see Figure 21-3). (You

won’t find a MENU resource in the Finder, though — only in normal

programs. Instead, you have to open and edit the fmnu resource; we’ll get

to that in the next section.

When you open the MENU resource, you see each of the program’s menus

displayed in a separate box within a window. For example, if you opened

SimpleText’s MENU resource, you’d see the win-

dow shown in Figure 21-4. Scroll to the particular

menu you want to edit and double-click it to open

up the menu-editing window.

Suppose you want to add a keyboard equiva-

lent for the Clear command on SimpleText’s Edit

menu. Just select the command (or press Return

to cycle through the menu items one by one) and

then press Tab twice. This selects the Ô-key field

in the lower-right portion of the window. Type in

the letter you want for the command (in this

example, we chose “D”), and it’s automatically


Figure 21-3The MENU resource.

Figure 21-4The opened MENU resource, with each menu displayed.

added to the menu (see Figure 21-5). Save the changes using the Save com-

mand before quitting ResEdit.

To change the names, colors, and styles of menu itemsSelect a menu item (or the menu title itself). Its name appears in the Text

field. You can rename the command or title by pressing Tab (to select the Text

field) and then typing in a new name. To change the style of the text —

adding italics or underlining, for example — use the Style menu on ResEdit’s

menu bar. Figure 21-6 shows how the Clear command has been renamed

Delete and set in italics.

When the menu title is selected, the three color pop-up palettes allow you

to pick a custom color for the title of the menu, the menu background, and

the default color of all text in the menu commands. When a menu command

is selected, the same three palettes let you choose new colors for the text of the


Figure 21-6In this example, a menu item has been renamed, assigned a keyboard equivalent, and set in italics.

Figure 21-5Adding a Ô-key equivalent to a menu.

selected command, its associated Ô-key, and any mark or symbol selected to

appear next to the command.

Renaming a menu or menu item can make it easier to locate an obscure-

but-needed command. For example, when using the telecommunications

program MicroPhone II, we can never remember which Settings-menu com-

mand you’re supposed to use to change the baud rate. Is it the

Communications or Terminal command? We ended the confusion by chang-

ing the name of the Communications command to Baud Rate. We’ve never

opened the wrong menu item since.

Adding icons to menu commandsAfter opening a MENU resource, select the menu command to which you’d

like to add an icon and choose the Choose Icon command from ResEdit’s

Menu menu (see Figure 21-7).

In the Choose Icon window, select one of the three size options: Normal,

Reduced, or Small. (The smallest icon size can’t be used if you’ve added a

Command-key shortcut to the selected command, too.) Now, click the New

button. You’ll see a simple icon-editing window. All you have to do is paste in

a graphic from another program, or draw one from scratch. (To doctor up

an existing icon, select it and click the Edit button.) When you’re finished,


Figure 21-7The Choose Icon command lets you create icons and stick them next

to any menu command.

close the editing window and double-click your new icon to apply it (see

Figure 21-8).

Customizing separator linesYou can select any separator line that appears in a menu and, using the pop-

up color palette, change its color. To completely eliminate a separator, select it

and click the Text radio button without typing anything in the text field.

Here’s another neat variation: Select a separator line, click the Text radio but-

ton, and then type in a string of characters — dashes, bullets, asterisks, or what-

ever — to make a custom separator. You can assign these characters a color and

style to create some interesting effects, as shown in Figure 21-9. In this example,

a standard separator line was replaced with a string of tiny circular degree char-

acters (produced by pressing Option-Shift-8). The condensed font style and a

custom color were applied to give the separator its unique look. (Type a left

parenthesis somewhere in the string, however, if you want to make this com-

mand unselectable.)


Figure 21-9Creating custom separator lines.

Figure 21-8A TeachText edit menudressed up with a set ofcustom icons and onerenamed menucommand.

Combining all these techniques, you can also create some wild-looking

reversed-color menus, as shown in Figure 21-10. Choose a dark color, or

black, for the background, and set the menu text to white or a light color.

Adding a keyboard equivalent in Finder 7The Finder doesn’t have a MENU resource. Instead, information about

menu items is stored in the fmnu resource, which is a bit harder to edit.

Nevertheless, you can still add keyboard commands to Finder menus by

inserting information into the fmnu resources. Here are some tricks worth

trying.

Adding an Empty Trash keyboard equivalentPerhaps to protect the novice, there’s no keyboard equivalent for the Empty

Trash command. But, suppose you want one.

Open a copy of the Finder (not the one in the active System Folder) using

ResEdit. Double-click the fmnu resource icon. You see a long list of numbered

resources. Near the top of the window, the resources numbered 1252 though

1256 contain information about the contents of the Finder menus, according

to the following scheme:

Resource ID number Finder menu

#1252 File

#1253 Edit

#1254 View

#1255 Special

#1256 Labels

Open the resource corresponding to the menu you want to edit — in this

case, 1255 for the Special menu. Use the Find ASCII command (Ô-G), type

Empty Trash (capitals count), and press Return to find

that text in the narrow column of text on the right side of

the window. Or, you can just scroll down until you find

the words “Empty Trash” in the column (it’s split over two

lines).

Just before the phrase “Empty Trash,” you see four box-

like characters (which we’ve heard called both hex bits

and nybbles). Select the second hex bit character on the

line, exactly as shown in Figure 21-11, and change it to

whichever letter you want to use as the Ô-key shortcut

(T, for Trash, is the logical choice).


Figure 21-11Adding an Empty Trash keyboard shortcut in fmnu

resource 1255.

Figure 21-10A reversed-color menu.

When you insert the T character as shown, choose Save, and quit ResEdit.

Now drag the Finder you just modified into the System Folder, so that it

replaces the active Finder. When you restart the Mac, you’ll see that Ô-T has

been added next to the Empty Trash command on the Special menu (see

Figure 21-12).

Using this same method, you can add a keyboard equivalent to almost any

Finder command that doesn’t already have one. Always add the character in

the third space before the name of the command, replacing the hex bit charac-

ter that appears in that spot.

Adding a Shut Down shortcutThe method just described doesn’t apply to the Shut Down command in the

Special menu. Of course, with System 7.5.1 or later, you already have a built-in

keyboard shortcut for the Shut Down command — just press the power key on

your keyboard. But, if your Mac doesn’t support

shutting down with the power key, here’s how

you can add a Shut Down keyboard command

of your own. Open resource 1255 and find the

word shut (not Shut Down) in the second-to-last

line of the rightmost column. Change the third

character after the word shut to an S, or any

other character you want to use, to add the key-

board equivalent (see Figure 21-13).

Customizing dialog boxesYou can customize dialog and alert boxes in any program by editing the pro-

gram’s DLOG, ALRT, and DITL resources. Opening a DLOG or ALRT

resource enables you to change the size, window type, position, and color of a

dialog or alert box. The DITL resources contain the actual contents of the dia-

log boxes — buttons, text, and icons, all of which can be edited or replaced.

Suppose you want to customize the dialog box that appears when you cre-

ate a new folder from within a Save File dialog box in System 7.5, as shown in

Figure 21-14. This involves resizing the

dialog box, as well as resizing, moving,

and renaming the two buttons.

Open a copy of the System file

using ResEdit. Double-click the

DLOG resource icon; then double-

click resource number -6046. You see

the dialog editing window (see Figure


Figure 21-13A closeup of resource 1255, where you can add a keyboard equivalentto the Shut Down command.

Figure 21-14A typical dialog box, before and after ResEdit hacking.

Figure 21-12The Special menu, with anadded Empty Trashkeyboard shortcut.

Change this character to an S or other letter to add akeyboard equivalent to the Shut Down command.

21-15), which displays a shrunken-down version of the “create new folder”

dialog box against a mini-Mac screen.

Here’s a guide to the dialog-editing controls that appear in this window:

A Click one of the icons across the top to change the window type. You can

put the dialog box in a window with or without a zoom box, resize box,

title bar, drop shadow, and so on. To preview your choice, use the Show

Dialog at Full Size command from the DLOG menu.

B To change the color of a dialog box, select the Custom radio button, and

then use the pop-up color palettes to pick a new color for the title text,

frame, and highlighting.

C Drag the whole dialog box across the miniscreen to change the location

where it will appear on the real screen. (You can see how the dialog will

look on the actual screen by using the Show Dialog at Full Size command

from the DLOG menu.) Double-clicking anywhere on the minidialog box

automatically opens the corresponding DITL resource, which contains

information about each button, text string, field, and icon in the dialog

box.

D Resize the dialog box as you would any window, by dragging the handle at

the lower-right corner.


Figure 21-15The DLOG editing window.

A

B

C D

Editing individual dialog-box elementsAfter you adjust the size, color, and type of the dialog box, double-click it to

open DITL resource -6046. The DITL resource allows you to edit any element

within the dialog box.

To move a button, text string, or icon, simply

drag it to a new location within the dialog box

window. To resize a button, select it and then drag

the handle in the lower-right corner (see Figure

21-16).

To give the button a new name, or to change

the static (unchanging) text that appears in the

dialog box, double-click the text or button. Then

type in a new name or text string in the text field

that appears (see Figure 21-17).

After you edit the DLOG and DITL

resources, choose the Save command,

quit ResEdit, and restart your Mac

using the modified System Folder.

Now then: the Secrets. We’ve tried all

of these with ResEdit 2.1.3 and per-

formed our surgeries with various

incarnations of System 7; some may not

work in System 6 or 7.6.

RESEDIT SECRETS

Getting rid of the jack-in-the-box once and for all

We guarantee the first thing you’ll want to do after you start using ResEdit isget rid of its irritating splash screen, which features an insipid jack-in-the-box.Fortunately, this doesn’t require any hacking. Choose Preferences fromResEdit’s File menu and deselect the check box next to Show Splash Screen.You’ll be glad you did.

ResEdit navigation shortcuts

You can use a number of keyboard shortcuts to locate resources quickly inResEdit, rather than scrolling through lengthy windows to find a particular


Figure 21-16Drag the resize handle of a button tochange its size.

Figure 21-17Editing text in the DITL editing window.

Speed Tip

item. Many ResEdit hacks can be accomplished without a single mouse-click.Here’s the rundown:

■ As in Finder windows, you can jump to any resource icon simply by typingits name, or just the first letter of its name. If you open the System file andwant to select the ppat resource, for example, type pp.

■ Use the arrow keys to highlight any resource icon in a window.

■ Pressing the Tab key moves you to the first icon at the top of a window.

■ Instead of double-clicking a selected resource icon, you can open it bypressing Return or Enter.

■ After you open a resource icon, you can navigate through the variousresources listed using the up-arrow and down-arrow keys. Open a num-bered resource by again pressing Return.

■ Pressing Ô-up arrow or Ô-down arrow jumps you to the top or bottom ofthe window.

Quicker window picker-upper

As you’ll no doubt soon discover, working in ResEdit means poking through aseries of windows within windows. Fortunately, you needn’t spend theremainder of your adult years chasing down successive close boxes. Just closethe outermost window; all windows you’ve opened from it close automa-tically.

ResEdit painting shortcuts

There’s a hidden Change Color command in ResEdit’s painting tools, whichappear whenever you edit an icon or a pattern (such as the Desktop or scrollbar patterns).

Press Ô and select a color from the colors palette. Instantly, all pixels of thecurrent foreground (or background) color change to match the color you justselected.

Eliminating the “alias” suffix

When you make an alias of a file, System 7.5/7.6 automatically appends theword alias to the end of the file’s name — and most normal people promptlyhack it off.You can teach the Finder to stop adding the suffix in the first place.

After opening a copy of the Finder with ResEdit, find the STR# resourceicon. Open it, and then open resource number 20500. This resource windowcontains a series of fields filled with pieces of text (text strings) used by theFinder (see Figure 21-18).


Worth

Learning

The first field contains the text string that gets addedto alias file names: the word alias itself. All you have to dois replace the word alias with a single blank space, closethe resource, save the change, and quit ResEdit.

Restart your Mac using the modified Finder. Now, whenyou create a new alias, only the one blank space is addedto the file’s name — not the word alias.

Give the Finder more memory

The Finder’s memory is supposed to be self-adjusting,grabbing as much RAM as it needs, at startup, to be readyfor its hard day of work. Sometimes, though, it under-guesses; at some point in your work, you get a messagesaying,“There is not enough memory to keep this windowopen.”

You can’t allocate more memory using the Finder’s GetInfo window, as you would any normal program; its GetInfo box doesn’t have any memory-size boxes. However,you can give it more memory — with ResEdit.

Open a copy of the Finder with ResEdit, double-clickthe SIZE resource icon. You’ll see a resource called ID -1.Open it and scroll down to the bottom of the window.You’ll see two fields — Size and Min size. The Size fieldshows the amount of memory currently allocated to theFinder (in bytes, not kilobytes). In System 7.5.5, the numberis 189440 (that is, 185K). To increase the memory alloca-tion, just type in a higher number. (Typing in 512000, forexample, would give the Finder a memory allocation of500K.) When you’re finished, save the changes, thenrestart your Mac using the altered Finder.


Figure 21-18Get rid of the “alias” suffix on newly created aliases by editing the first textstring in STR# resource 20500.

Worth

Learning

TRUE FACT

HOW WE WROTE THIS

CHAPTER

We’ll be honest — we’vewritten and revised this chapterthrough four editions of thisbook and it just about drives uscrazy every time. To test all ofour Secrets, you see, we have todoctor up one System or Finderfile after another, swap it intothe System Folder, and thenrestart, again and again andagain.

To ease the pain, however, westart by putting copies of ourpristine, non-hacked System andFinder files into separate folderson the Desktop. Then, every timewe want to test another secret,we just Option-drag one of thesefiles to the Desktop and startoperating. This way, we alwayshave a clean, ready-to-useSystem or Finder available,without having to repeatedlydig into the System Folder.

We also begin our testingsessions by visiting theExtensions Manager controlpanel and turning off all but themost essential control panelsand extensions, dramaticallyspeeding up the Mac’s startupsequence. We suggest you dothe same.

Make a program Stationery-stupid

In Chapter 16, we mentioned that “Stationery-savvy” programs can createStationery documents that, when double-clicked, produce an untitled docu-ment on the screen, a copy of the original.

We actually prefer the approach of nonsavvy programs, whose Stationerydocuments prompt you for a name and folder for the document copy. Here’show to make a program that does Stationery the correct way behave asthough it doesn’t, so you’ll always be prompted for a name and folder locationwhen you double-click a Stationery document.

Open the application in ResEdit. Open its SIZE resource, and double-clickthe item labeled -1. Scroll down until you see the Stationery Aware option. Ifthe 1 radio button is selected, the program handles Stationery “correctly”(thatis, it doesn’t ask you for a file name when you double-click a Stationery docu-ment). Just click the 0 button. The program is now Stationery “unsavvy.” Saveand quit. (However, you can’t make an older program Stationery-aware byselecting 1 if the 0 button is selected when you first open it. That’s up to itsprogrammers.)

The Keyboard menu revealed

Have you ever seen the Finder’s Keyboard menu? It’s right there in the Finder,nestled between the Balloon Help and Application menu icons, but most Macusers never spot it. That’s because the Keyboard menu appears only if you’veinstalled a WorldScript foreign-language script system on your Mac. A scriptsystem modifies your Mac so that it can handle text according to the rules of aspecific language. If you install the Japanese script system, for example, yourexisting Mac keyboard is mapped to the Japanese character set.The Keyboardmenu lets you easily toggle between the various international keyboard lay-outs.

With the help of ResEdit, you can reveal the hidden Keyboard menu onyour Mac — without buying and installing the Swiss German WorldScript kit.Here’s how:

Open a copy of the System File — System 7.1 or later — and open the itlcresource icon. It contains only one resource, with an ID of 0. Open it. Scrolldown until you see an option called “Always Show Keybd. Icon”listed with tworadio buttons. Change the radio button setting from 0 to 1 to make yourKeyboard menu spring to life. Save and close the file, and then restart usingthe altered System file.

When the Finder appears on your screen, you’ll see a tiny American flag iconnext to the Application menu on the menu bar. That’s the Keyboard menu. Ifyou have any other international keyboard layouts installed in your System file,


they’ll appear under the Keyboard menu, each withits own flag icon (see Figure 21-19).

You, the owner of this book, do have an alternatekeyboard layout, the Dvorak keyboard (seeChapter 34 for details). Drop this Dvorak keyboardonto your System Folder and you’ll be able to usethe Keyboard menu to switch between the stan-dard U.S. keyboard layout and the Dvorak layoutwhenever you want.

Changing the system’s default font

The Mac’s default system font, 12-point Chicago,shows up just about everywhere you look in theMacintosh interface: menu titles, menu commands,title bars, dialog boxes, and so on. If you’re not crazyabout Chicago (or if you just feel it’s time to changethe font you’ve been staring at since 1984), you canchange this default to any other font in the systemby following these steps.

If you’re using System 7.0, open a copy of theSystem file with ResEdit. Open the FOND resourceicon. In the FOND window, you see each of the fontslisted by name, size, and resource ID number (seeFigure 21-20). In System 7.1 or later, you use ResEditto open the suitcase of the actual font you want toturn into the default font. Double-click the FOND

resource icon to see the list of fonts.Your first task is to learn the Res ID number

of the font you want to designate as the newdefault system font. Scroll to your font ofchoice — let’s use Palatino in this example —and open the resource. Scroll down a bit andyou’ll find a series of fields set off by asterisks,as shown in Figure 21-21.

These fields show the Res ID and stylecodes for each size of the font. In our exam-ple, we want to use 12-point Palatino, whichhas a Res ID number of 6339. Remember thatnumber and close up the Palatino FONDresource.


Figure 21-19The international Keyboardmenu appears on the menubar once activated via ResEdit.

Figure 21-20The FOND resource lists all available fonts.

Figure 21-21The Palatino FOND resource, showing the style and Res ID number for eachfont size.

Figure 21-24A redesigned Launcher with

category labels in 16-pointHelvetica and Launcher buttons

in 12-point Palatino.

Now open a copy of the System file withResEdit. Double-click the FOND resourceicon in the System and open the FONDresource for Chicago from the list of fonts.Scroll down to the Font Size, Font Style, andRes ID fields, and find the Res ID number for12-point Chicago.

As you can see in Figure 21-22, this num-ber is 12. Simply replace that number with6339 (Palatino’s Res ID number) and you’redone. (The exact Res ID numbers may vary,depending on which version of the systemsoftware you’re using. At any rate, justreplace Chicago’s ID number with the IDnumber of the font you want to make thedefault and this will work.) Don’t change the12 in the Font Size field, even if the fontyou’re using is a different size. Save thechanges, quit ResEdit, and restart with themodified system.

Your Mac may not take graciously to thiskind of surgery at first. On restarting, youmay be greeted with a blinking questionmark or experience an immediate crash. Notto worry; just restart again and you’ll find theMac has come to accept this fundamentalchange to its system (see Figure 21-23).

One other point: If the new font youchoose doesn’t have a Ô-key character in itsfont set, the Ô character will be missing nextto menu items that have Ô-key shortcuts.Don’t worry, though; the shortcuts still workjust fine.

Changing the Launcher’s font

If you don’t feel brave enough to alter theMac’s default system font, you might want toat least change the font in the Launcher; itlooks much better when you replace thehumdrum Geneva font (see Figure 21-24).


Figure 21-22Replace the Chicago font’s Res ID number with that of another font to pick a

new default system font.

Figure 21-23A typical dialog box, after you’ve changed the default system font from

Chicago to Palatino.

Open a copy of the Launcher with ResEdit, and double-click the fninresource icon to open it. Open resource -4033. As you scroll through theresource, you’ll see ten Font Name fields containing the name Geneva, and tenFont fields containing the number 3. The first set of fields controls the fontused in topic buttons (at the top of the Launcher window; see Chapter 4).Thenext nine are the fonts used for Launcher buttons in various sizes, to corre-spond with the three different-sized Launcher buttons you can create.

Simply replace the word “Geneva” with name of the font you want to useand replace the 3 with the corresponding appropriate font number. To figureout a font’s number ID, open that font’s suitcase with ResEdit, open the FONDresource, and note the ID number associated with the font in the resource list.(Don’t use the Res ID number that appears in the Res ID field when you actu-ally open a FOND resource.) Type a point size in the Size fields to set a size foreach font.

Changing sample font text

By now you’ve probably learned you can view a sample of any TrueType fontor screen font in System 7. You just double-click its icon in the System Folder

or Fonts folder and examine the oddsentence in the sample window: Howrazorback-jumping frogs can level sixpiqued gymnasts.

You can change the text to anythingyou want. In System 7.5, the sampletext string is an STR# resource, withthe ID number 14516. Just open theSTR# resource icon, find number14516, open it, and edit the text in thefirst field (see Figure 21-25).

In earlier System 7 versions, thissample text string is buried in a differ-ent location; it’s an STR resource, withthe ID number 14512. Once you openthe STR icon and open resource14512, you can edit the text in thesame way described earlier.

If you insist on replacing Apple’ssentence with another that uses every

letter of the alphabet, you’ll have to come up with a fitting alternative, such asWe heard five obnoxious jet-black lizards quietly gulping milk. Or, our favorite, asshown in Figure 21-25.


Figure 21-25The STR# resource in which System 7.5’s sample font string is located, and theresulting sample as seen when you double-click a font file.

Change the Shut Down message

This Secret is only for compact Macs, LC I-II-IIIs, or 610/6100-class machines. Ifthat message you get before shutting down — “It is now safe to switch offyour Macintosh.” — strikes you as stale, not to mention ungrammatical, youcan replace it with a message of your choice, provided that the message isexactly 44 characters long.

Here’s the method: Open a copy of the System file, find the DSAT resourceicon, and open it up.

You’ll find two resource files listed. Open the one with the ID of 2. Use theFind ASCII command (Ô-G) to search for safe in the narrow column of text onthe right side.When you find it, close the Find ASCII window.

The Shut Down message appears twice in this column of text.You want thefirst occurrence of the message. Drag over the message to select it and thentype in the message you want to replace it with (see Figure 21-26).

Your message must fill in the exact 44 spaces taken up by the old message.(You can always pad your message with spaces.) After you type in the fullmessage, choose Save, quit ResEdit, and restart your Mac using the modifiedsystem. Your new message appears in place of the old message when youshut down your Mac.

Return of the secret game

System 7.5 had one secret About Box that everyone loved; if you typed thewords secret about box in the Note Pad, then selected those words anddragged them to the Desktop, an actual game of Breakout appeared on


Figure 21-26Drag carefully over the old message (left).Type in a more poetic replacement (right).

screen (see Chapter 6).You could use the mouse to drag the paddle back andforth, causing the ball to break through layers of bricks, each bearing thename of a System 7.5 developer. In all, three new screens full of programmernames would appear.

In 7.5.1, this secret About Box disappeared. Fortunately, it’s not gone —only its trigger was removed, and we know a way to resurrect the secret gameso that you can access it whenever you want. Follow these instructions.

Make a copy of the Calculator — that’s right, the Calculator — and renameit something like “Secret Game.” Don’t use the original Calculator file; this trickwill disable all the Calculator features. Make a copy and then open the copywith ResEdit.

Next, open a copy of your System file with ResEdit, too. Open theSystem’s timd resource icon. If there’s a resource with the ID of 12, dou-ble-click to open it. Then select all the hexadecimal code in theresource (by pressing Ô-A) and copy it (using Ô-C). (If there isn’t onewith an ID of 12, your experiment has just derailed; we can’t figure outwhy some system files lack this ID.You can still enjoy the secret game,however; read the final paragraph of this Secret.)

Switch over to the Calculator file, still open in ResEdit. Open theCalculator’s DRVR resource icon and highlight (don’t double-click)resource ID 12. From the Resource menu, choose Open Using HexEditor (see Figure 21-27).

A window of hex code opens. Select all the code (again using Ô-A)and choose Paste. You’ve just moved all the game-related code from theSystem file into what used to be the Calculator (see Figure 21-28). That’s allyou need to do. Now just save the file and quit ResEdit.


Figure 21-27The Open Using Hex Editorcommand is required to access the code contained in the DRVRresource.

Figure 21-28Copy and paste all the code from the System’s timd resource to the Calculator’s DRVR resource to unlock System 7.5’ssecret game.

Exclusive

On the CD

What once was the Calculator is now a double-clickable version of theBreakout game. (For those of you squeamish about hacking files with ResEdit,we’ve included the finished product on the SECRETS CD-ROM. See Chapter 34for details.) Techie note: You can do this same trick with any desk accessory —the Chooser, the •Shut Down DA, and so on — but if there isn’t a DRVRresource with the ID of 12, you’ll have to create one (use the Create NewResource command to create it, and the Get Resource Info command tochange the ID). You’ll also have to delete any DRVR resources whose ID num-bers aren’t 12.

Rename the Trash

If you ever tried assigning a new name to theTrash icon on the Desktop, you probablynoticed that you can’t. You can rename theTrash, however, using ResEdit. Open a copy ofthe Finder; open its STR# resource icon. Openresource number 11750. In the first field inthe resource window you see the word Trash(see Figure 21-29). Just replace that with anew name, save the change, and quit ResEdit.

How to change the Trash icon

The Trash is represented on the Desktop bytwo different icons.When you drag items intothe Trash, the standard Trash icon is automat-ically switched to the bulging Trash icon.

Both Trash icons are stored as ICN# resources in the System file.We person-ally can’t resist editing the bulging Trash icon so that when our Trash is full, itoverflows with all kinds of hideous-looking garbage. We even added brownsludge streaming down the can and collecting in a puddle below.

We’re confident that you’ll want to do this, too. So, here’s how: Double-clickthe ICN# resource icon in the System file and open resource number -3984,the bulging Trash icon (see Figure 21-30). Use the editing tools provided in thewindow to draw in food scraps and other refuse of your choice.

To the immediate right of the drawing area, you see eight icons. These arethe icons the Mac uses in black-and-white, 16-color, and 256-color views; atthe bottom is the mask, which is the “icon” used to lend opacity to the actualicon. Any area of the actual icon that’s not “backed up” by some black portionof the mask won’t show up on your Desktop.


Figure 21-29Renaming the Trash.

To the right of these icons are smaller versions of the same thing; these arethe icons that appear, for example, if you list the Trash in your Apple menu orotherwise view it as a small icon.

Fortunately, you’re not compelled to draw every one of these eight iconsindividually. Just draw one color one (or, on a black-and-white Mac, even skipthat).Then you can transfer your work into another icon “slot” just by draggingone of these eight icons on top of another. For example, you can drag the full-color Trash icon on top of the Mask, and the Mask immediately takes theshape of the icon. Likewise, you can drag a large icon onto the smaller one,and ResEdit automatically generates the small icon for you.

Using the method described here, you can turn your Trash into just aboutanything you want. But as the owner of this book, you have some really first-class Trash design options waiting for you. Check out the Zonkers Sampler, partof the Mac SECRETS software collection, for some irresistible Trash makeovers.

Change the “Copying files” message, and more

Here’s an easy one. Open a copy of the Finder. Open the STR# resource. Scrolldown to the one called 8750 and double-click it.

In the resulting window, you’ll find a number of pieces of text that you canchange, such as the various messages the Finder displays when it’s copyingfiles (Copying, Writing, Verifying, and so on). Change these to your heart’s con-tent! Then put the Finder into the System Folder and restart.

Customize your Desktop patterns

System 7.5/7.6’s Desktop Patterns control panel lets you choose from 64 dif-ferent jumbo-size patterns to decorate your Desktop. Adding to those pat-terns is easy enough — you just paste new graphics into the Desktop Patterns


Figure 21-30The new, improved Trash can icon.

On the CD

control panel (see Chapter 3 for details) — but ResEdit also lets you actuallyedit the patterns themselves, changing the colors, adding new design ele-ments, and so on.

To do this, open the DesktopPatterns application (in your ControlPanels folder) with ResEdit, double-click the ppat resource icon. A win-dow opens revealing the 64standard patterns that come withSystem 7.5. To edit one of the pat-terns, double-click it. This opensResEdit’s built-in pattern editor —actually, a tiny paint program untoitself (see Figure 21-31). Select acolor palette from the Color menu;flip selected portions of your patternhorizontally and vertically using theTransform menu.You can also nudgea selected part of your pattern up,down, or sideways by pressing thearrow keys or by using commands on the Transform menu.You can even paste in a picture from the Clipboard. (If it’s toobig, you’ll only paste the upper-left corner. If you select theentire pattern area [press Ô-A] before pasting, on the otherhand, ResEdit will scale the pasted image to fit the selectedarea.)

You can preview how your new pattern will look on theactual Mac Desktop by choosing Try Pattern from the ppatmenu. When you’re finished, choose Save, and quit ResEdit.Your new designs will appear the next time you launchDesktop Patterns.

If you have System 7.1 or an earlier system, you can still beefup your Desktop patterns and break beyond the 8-by-8-pixellimit for patterns. Open a copy of the System file using ResEdit,open the ppat resource and open resource 16. You’ll be in theeditor window as described earlier. If you want to create a pat-tern larger than 8-by-8 pixels, choose Pattern Size from theppat menu. A window opens, presenting you with a choice of16 pattern sizes ranging from 8-by-8 to 64-by-64 pixels (seeFigure 21-32). Select a pattern size and click the Resize button(or press Return).

When you’re finished editing, choose Save, quit ResEdit, and restart yourMac using your newly modified System file. (On pre-System 7.5 Macs, this trick


Figure 21-31ResEdit’s built-in pattern editor features all the standard paint tools and a 256-color

palette to create custom Desktop patterns.

Figure 21-32ResEdit’s built-in pattern editor features all thestandard paint tools and a 256-color palette to

create custom Desktop patterns.

messes up the pattern editors in your General Controls panel, which can’t han-dle large patterns.To restore it, reinstall a clean copy of your System file.)

Change the boring Alert icon

All the icons displayed in the Mac’s standard dia-log and alert boxes are stored in the System fileas ICON resources.You can edit or replace theseicons to spice up run-of-the mill alert messages.For example, you can replace the plain triangu-lar-framed exclamation point that typicallyadorns an alert box with something more eye-grabbing, such as the wild rabbit icon hidden inthe AppleShare PDS file (see Figure 21-33).

To make such a switch, use ResEdit to open the copy of the System file.Open its ICON resource. Select the icon you want to change and open it up toreveal the editing window. Then either doctor it up with the painting tools orpaste in a graphic you copied from another program.

Replace the Mac OS splash screen

Starting with System 7.5.1, the traditional “Welcome to Macintosh” messageyou see when you start up your Mac is immediately followed by a splashscreen featuring Apple’s new Picasso-esque Mac OS logo. Because this splash

screen is simply a PICT graphic buried in theSystem file (or in the System 7.5 Update file, if youhave System 7.5.1), it’s easy to replace it with anyother picture you like.

To swap your own graphic in for the Mac OS pic-ture, open a copy of the System file (or System 7.5Update file) with ResEdit. Open the PICT resourceicon. You’ll see that there are actually six separatePICT images of the Mac OS logo stored there —one for monitors set to show full color, one for 4-bit color, another in grayscale, and so on.The PICTsare in resources 16501 through 16506.

Double-click one of the resources to open it.Copy a graphic from another program, and thenpaste it into the opened PICT resource, replacingthe Mac OS picture with your own (see Fig. 21-34). Ifyou want your picture to appear no matter whatmonitor color depth, paste your picture into all six


Figure 21-34Just replace the Mac OS graphic with any other PICT file to get acustom splash screen at startup.

Figure 21-33A dialog box in which the standard alert icon has been replaced.

Exclusive

of the resources, replacing all of the original logo art.When you’re finished, saveyour work and quit ResEdit.

When you restart, just after the “Welcome to Macintosh”message, you’ll seeyour new picture at center screen.

Opening and playing sound resources

If you use ResEdit to open any program containing digitized sounds — includ-ing the System file — you’ll find the program’s sound resources by openingthe snd icon.

When you select a sound resource, a new menu appears in ResEdit’smenu bar — the snd menu (see Figure 21-35). To listen to a sound,select the sound (don’t actually open it) and choose the Try Soundcommand, or just press Ô-T. The sound will play once. The Try ScaleWith Sound command lets you hear the sound played on each of thedifferent pitches in a C Major scale. The Try as HyperCard Sound com-mand lets you hear how the sound would play if converted intoHyperCard’s sound format.

If you find a sound you like, you can select it and copy it using the Copycommand. You can then paste the sound into the Sound control panel (andmake it the default alert sound for your Mac), or paste it into the Scrapbook forfuture use.

To illustrate:The pre-System 7.5 Puzzle desk accessory containsone digitized sound, a metallic, deadpan “Ta-da,” which plays onlywhen you successfully complete the puzzle. Suppose you want tograb this “Ta-da” and make it your system beep. Here’s what youdo. Open the Puzzle using ResEdit and open the snd resourceicon. You see one sound, ID number -16000, listed in the window,as shown in Figure 21-36.

With this sound’s ID number and Size still selected, press Ô-Cor use the Copy command in the Edit window. Then close thePuzzle and quit ResEdit. Open the Sound control panel andchoose Paste. A dialog appears, asking you to name the sound.After giving the sound a name, click OK and the sound from thePuzzle is added to your collection of system sounds.

Replacing a sound resource by pasting

Anyone who’s ever logged on to America Online is familiar with the hearty“Welcome!” you hear when you connect successfully. But, suppose you wantto replace that “Welcome” with something a little more dramatic.You can eas-ily alter that sound, or almost any other sound in any program, with ResEdit.


Figure 21-35ResEdit’s snd menu.

Figure 21-36The single snd resource in the Puzzle desk

accessory.

Worth

Learning

Actually, there are two ways to replace a sound resource in an application.You can paste in a sound from another source using standard Cut and Pastecommands. Or, you can record a new sound using ResEdit’s built-in recordingfeatures.

Copy a sound from the Scrapbook or another application using themethod described in the previous Secret. Then use ResEdit to open the appli-cation containing the sound you want to replace. After opening the applica-tion’s snd resource icon, choose the Paste command. Your new sound isinstalled into the application.

The next step is to figure out which of the application’s sounds you want toreplace. Use the Try Sound command to determine which sound is which.When you find the one you want to replace, make note of its ID number listedin the window. Then delete the sound by choosing the Clear command(unless you think you’ll want to restore the sound someday, in which case youshould copy it to the Scrapbook before deleting it).

Then select the new sound you just pasted in and choose Get ResourceInfo from the Resource menu (or press Ô-I). In the ID field, type in the exact IDnumber of the sound you just deleted and click OK. Choose Save and quitResEdit.

The application now plays your pasted-in sound in place of the one youdeleted.

Replace a sound by recording directly into ResEdit

If your Mac has a microphone, you can record new sounds directly into anapplication.

Suppose you want to replace America Online’s “Welcome” announcementwith a digitized recording of your own voice, saying “I’m back!” In AmericaOnline 3, the sound is embedded in the program itself, just as you’d expect; in2.7 and earlier, it’s in the Online Sounds file, which is kept in the Online Filesfolder (within your America Online folder).

Open the appropriate file (America Online or Online Sounds). Double-clickits snd resource.You see the list of the familiar America Online sounds, such as“You’ve got mail!”and “Goodbye!”

Choose Record New Sound from the snd menu. Arecording control panel appears,as shown in Figure 21-37.Record your new sound using the controls provided.Then follow the same steps outlined in the previousSecret. That is, note the ID of the sound you want toreplace (the “Welcome!” message is number 256).Delete the old sound, and assign its ID number (256) tothe sound you just recorded.


Figure 21-37ResEdit has its own recording controls for adding newsounds to an application.

Now, whenever America Online has the impulse to shout “Welcome!”, you’llhear your own voice instead.

Creating a minicalculator

Virtually everyone we know operates the Calculator desk accessory using thenumeric keypad and not by clicking the on-screen buttons. So, we figured,why not just eliminate the buttons — and the title bar and close box, for thatmatter — to create a tiny, but fully functional calculator that takes up muchless space on your monitor?

Here’s how we did it. Open the Calculator using ResEdit and open the WINDicon. This contains only one resource, number -16000. Open it and you see awindow such as the one in Figure 21-38.This controls the size and type of theCalculator window and its location on the screen.

After this window is open, you can change the appearance of theCalculator window. Change the window type by clicking one of the iconsacross the top of the window. In this example, we picked the plain rectangularshadowed window that lacks a close box and title bar.

Then, by dragging the handle at the bottom right of the window thatappears on the miniscreen, resize the calculator window. It takes a little trialand error to size the window properly, so that the readout screen is visible butthe buttons aren’t. Move the entire window to the location on the screen thatyou want the Calculator to appear whenever you open it (see Figure 21-39).

Choose Save and close all the windows. Before quitting ResEdit, try open-ing the Calculator. If you sized the window properly, it should look as it does inFigure 21-39.


Figure 21-38The Calculator’s WIND resource.

Strange

But True

If you haven’t framed the Calculator properly, it’s no problem; ResEdit is stillrunning. Just Quit the Calculator, open it again using ResEdit, and make what-ever adjustments are necessary, saving the results each time.

Your new minicalculator will work just as it did at full size. You can still per-form all four standard mathematical functions by pressing the /, *, +, and —keys on the numeric keypad, and you can still clear the display using the Clearbutton. And you can still copy and paste to and from the Calculator.

Color Calculator

If stripping down your Calculator seems a bit radical, consider justcolorizing it. Just open the Calculator using ResEdit and open theppat icon. Open the only resource listed, number -15999. Using thebasic editing tools provided, change the color and pattern thatappear as the background (see Figure 21-40).

Changing the creator of system snapshots

When you take screen snapshots using System 7’s Ô-Shift-3 key-stroke, the resulting graphic files are saved on disk as SimpleTextdocuments. If you make a practice of editing these screen shots, itgets annoying that you can’t simply double-click one to edit it. (Adouble-click launches SimpleText.)


Figure 21-39The modified Calculator resource.

Figure 21-40Editing the Calculator’s background.

It’s much more convenient if you teach the System to save the files auto-matically in the format of your graphics program instead. This way, when youdouble-click a Picture 0 or Picture 1 file, it opens your graphics program(Photoshop, Color It, or ClarisWorks, for example) and you’re ready to edit.ResEdit makes this easy.

The first thing you must do is find out the four-letter creator code of yourgraphics program. To do this, open the graphics application file with ResEditand choose Get Info from ResEdit’s File menu. In the Creator field, note thefour-letter code. In the example shown in Figure 21-41, the application isCanvas 3.0 and the code is DAD2. (Codes are case-sensitive, by the way; youmust use DAD2 and not dad2.) To besure you use the proper code, selectthe four characters in the Creator fieldand copy them using Ô-C. (SeeChapter 16 for details on Type andCreator codes.)

Then, open a copy of the System file.Open the FKEY resource icon. It con-tains only one resource (with the num-ber 3). Open this resource. You see adialog box informing you that this is acompressed file and asking if you wantto open it anyway. Click Yes (or just typeY).

To find the string you need to edit inthis window, press Ô-G to bring up theFind ASCII window.Type PICT (all caps)into the text field and press Return. Then close the FindASCII window. On the line just below the word PICT (whichwill be selected as a result of the Find command), you seethe four-letter code for Simple Text (or TeachText) — ttxt.

Select these four characters and replace them with thecreator code for your graphics program, either by typing thecode or by pasting it in (if you copied the code from the cre-ator field). So, in our example, “ttxt” becomes “DAD2” (seeFigure 21-42).

Use the Save command to save the changes and quitResEdit.After you restart,using the modified System file,yourÔ-Shift-3 screen shots will always be saved in the format ofCanvas (in this example) — and not SimpleText documents.


Figure 21-41A peek into any file using ResEdit’s Get Info command reveals its four-letter

creator code.

Figure 21-42Select the four-letter code for TeachText and replace

it with the creator code of your favorite graphicsprogram.

Worth

Learning

Changing modification and creation dates

Here’s a fascinating, though somewhat disturbing, ResEdit hack:You can easilychange the creation and modification dates of any file! What’s more, you canpost date the creation of a file. That’s right: You can create a Word memo andchange its creation date to sometime next week.

To do this, launch ResEdit. Choose Get File/Folder Info from the File menuand select the file whose dates you want to change. In the Info window thatappears, you see the creation and modification dates (see Figure 21-43). Editthe dates (and times) as you please, and then choose the Save commandbefore closing the Info window.The new dates are reflected in the Finder.

With this knowledge, you knowhow to turn in a report late, but canpoint to the last modification date andprove that you actually finished thework on time. Of course, you shouldrealize that a computer’s time stampwill never hold up in court, or even in adebate. Your ability to tinker with thetime/space continuum in this way isactually a bit sobering.

Meet rANdY and Maura

Three Finder menus have iconsinstead of names: the Apple menu,Help menu, and Application menu. Butthe latter two menus actually do havenames, as you can see by opening

them in ResEdit; they’re just not displayed in the Finder. The Help menu iscalled rANdY and the Application menu is named Maura, as seen in Figure 21-44. You can see them for yourself by opening a copy of the System file withResEdit, then double-clicking the MENU resource icon.

And while we’re on the subject of Maura, check out the next Secret, whichinvolves the menu bearing her name.

Hide and show programs with a keystroke

Earlier in this chapter, we showed you how to add a keyboard shortcut to anymenu command. Here’s a really practical application of that advice: Add key-strokes to the Application menu’s Hide and Show commands. That way, whenyou want to hide all the applications you have running in the background,you’ll be able to do it with a single keystroke.


Figure 21-43You can tamper with a file’s creation and modification dates in the Get Info window.

Strange

But True

Worth

Learning

To add the commands, open a copy of the System file with ResEdit. (If youhave System 7.5.1, open the System 7.5 Update file instead.) Open the MENUresource icon and open the menu resource called Maura — the secret name ofthe Application menu, as revealed in the previous Secret. Now, following thedirections given earlier in this chapter,select each item on the menu and type acharacter in the Cmd-Key field (seeFigure 21-45). You can assign onekeystroke to hide the current appli-cation (the top command), one tohide all other programs, and one toshow all other programs. Whileyou’re at it, after you select thecommand you want to edit, chooseRemove Icon from the Menu menu(if it’s not dimmed out).

When you’re finished addingthe keystrokes to the menu, savethe file and restart with your doc-tored-up System.


Figure 21-44The hidden names of graphic menus.

Figure 21-45Type a character into the Cmd-Key field to assign a keyboard shortcut to each command on

the Application menu.

Remapping your keyboard

The System’s KCHR resource controls keyboard mapping — in other words, itdetermines which key on the keyboard produces which character on thescreen. For the most part, you want to keep your keyboard mapped as origi-


Mac programmers are notorious for leaving hidden messages buried inside programresources. These messages — some cryptic, some funny, some just plain bizarre — gounseen by most people. But equipped with ResEdit, you have the tools you need to huntdown these little surprises and see them for yourself. Here are a few worth tracking down:

■ Open a copy of Find File with ResEdit; double-click the DATA resource icon. Inside, you’llfind just one resource, ID #0. Open it and scroll through the hexadecimal code to find theprogrammer’s secret message in the right-hand column: “I liked vacuum tubes better.”

■ In System 7.5, open the System file’s STR resources. In resources -16569 and -6580, you’llfind out what parts of the operating system programmer Jim Reekes refers to as the“spatula” and the “fridge.”

■ Also among the System file’s STR resources is ID -16579. Open it for a detailed descriptionof the audio data converter’s capabilities, which evidently include dicing and slicing.

■ Open the System file (7.5 or later) and double-click the ICON resource. Have a gander atresource numbers -16561, -16560, -16557. What is Apple’s thing about kitchenappliances?!

■ Use ResEdit to open the AppleShare file in your Extensions folder. Open the STR#resource icon and double-click ID -2003.“Oh, most heinous!”

■ Open the System file’s timd resource icon. Double-click ID 30 and scroll to the bottom forthis intriguing tip:“Secrets lurk in ROM.” Free book to Erik Hjelle.

■ Open a copy of the Stickies program (it’s in the Apple Menu Items folder), and check outthe program’s solitary WDEF resource. The programmers have left us the followingmysterious message: DEAD BEEF.

■ Open any of the ntrb resources in the System file. These are in hexadecimal code, but payheed to the first word in each string of code in the ASCII text column on the right. Appleprogrammers obviously love their work.

■ Use Using ResEdit, open Eric’s Solitaire Sample, the game demo that comes Apple Extras folderon most Macs.Open the STR# resource icon and double-click the one with the name “reallysecret stuff.”You’ll find out what Eric really thinks of himself. (Free book to Thornblow.)

■ In the System 7.5.5 System file, open the left icon, if you have one. Open resource ID 0 toexamine the hex code: Lefty’s Magic Gibbly-Duplicating Resource.

■ Here’s one that requires System 7.1 or earlier: Open the System file using ResEdit anddouble-click the STR# resource icon. Open the resource with the ID number -16415 andyou’ll see that Apple’s programmers really do have your best interests at heart. Sad tosay, this hidden benediction is not a part of System 7.5.

MACINTOSH SECRET

A HIDDEN-MESSAGE TREASURE HUNT

Contest

Winner

Contest

Winner

nally programmed — so that pressing the A key produces an A on screen,pressing B produces a B, and so on.

But sometimes remapping the keys makes great sense. Here’s a classicexample: In its default configuration, the Mac’s keyboard produces the > and< characters on screen when you press the period and comma keys with theShift key down.This often results in typos such as P>O>Box 1568 or 3:45 P>M>,with the > inserted where a period was intended. (We’ll pretend, for themoment, that you don’t have SmartKeys, included with this book, whichsolves that problem much more easily.)

You can head off such problems by remapping the standard U.S. keyboard.You can make the period and comma keys produce periods and commaswhether or not the Shift key is pressed.

Open a copy of the System file using ResEdit. Find the KCHR resource iconand open it. In the list of keyboard layouts, find the standard U.S. keyboard lay-out. Open this resource to open the full keyboard display.

The bottom portion of the keyboard display window represents the actualkeyboard; press any of the modifier keys (such as Shift or Option) and you’llsee the characters on the keys change accordingly. The upper portion of thewindow is a palette of every character that can be displayed on screen. Youcan map keys to characters by dragging a character from thepalette on top to a key on the bottom (see Figure 21-46).

To change the > to a period, press Shift to display the >character on the keyboard display. Then drag the periodcharacter from the top portion of the window down anddrop it on the > key, as shown in Figure 21-46.

Follow the same procedure to replace the < with thecomma; drag the comma character down and drop it on the< sign.

When you’ve replaced the characters, choose Save andquit ResEdit.You’ll have to restart your Mac with the modifiedSystem file to see the results of the remapping.

Using this same method, consider remapping your little-or never-used bracket keys, [ and ], to create parentheses orcurly quotes.

Ripping out stuff you don’t really need

ResEdit is a great tool for stripping applications of unnecessary heft so thatthey take up less room on your hard drive. Many programs include elaborategraphics or sound effects that are completely dispensable — so why not getrid of them?


Figure 21-46The KCHR display window.The lower portion

represents the keyboard, while the upper portionprovides a palette of all available characters. Drag

the period character from the upper portion of thewindow and drop it on the > sign to replace it.

On the CD

Exclusive

A good example is the Finder itself, which con-tains several PICT resources you don’t really need(see Figure 21-47). You know all those FinderShortcut screens you can access from the BalloonHelp window in System 7.0 through 7.1? Each one isa separate PICT resource. You can find them byopening the Finder with ResEdit and opening thePICT resource icon. To clean out the unneeded PICTresources, select each one and choose Clear fromthe Edit menu. When you’re through, you’ll have aFinder that’s leaner — by 12K.

Here’s another reason to master this PICT-removal technique: Ever use an application thathas a really irritating splash screen, one that you’reforced to stare at every time you launch the pro-gram? Chances are, that splash screen is a PICTresource. Rip it out and you’ll never have to look atit again! In fact, some programs that came withthis book may be rigged with promotional splashscreens. Well, you now have the knowledge toeliminate such built-in sales pitches forever.Enough said.

Create a secret, personalizedhelp screen

We just had a great idea: You can usethe information from the last Secret toreplace the Finder help screens.

Go to your favorite graphics pro-gram. Create a screen of your own thatcontains, for example, your long-dis-tance phone card, credit card, and fre-quent phone numbers. (Nobodywould ever think to look under theHelp menu for this information!)

Then open a copy of the Finder.Double-click the PICT resource. Scrolldown to the one with ID number 2778(that’s the first of the Finder help

screens). Double-click it. The window opens up. Paste the copied new graphicinto the window (see Figure 21-48).


Figure 21-47The Finder Shortcut screens are PICT resources that can bepainlessly deleted to conserve space.

Figure 21-48The new Finder Help screen. Design your screen to avoid the area indicated by thecircle, where the Finder overlays its artistically designed folder drawing/logo. (Look atthe existing Finder Help screen to see what we mean.)

Put the modified Finder back into the System Folder to replace the old oneand restart. To see your handiwork, choose Finder Shortcuts from the Guide(question-mark) menu.

On second thought, perhaps the more secure method of storing yourcredit-card numbers is to replace the About the Finder PICT graphic, asdescribed in the next Secret. That way, nobody can stumble onto those num-bers of yours, because you have to press the Option key when you choose thefirst command in the Ú menu to get the About the Finder command.

Change the About the Finder picture

By now, you’ve probably discovered the famousAbout the Finder command hidden in the Úmenu; it appears if you hold down the Option keywhile pulling down the Apple menu.

Not surprisingly, you can replace that mountainlandscape with any picture you want. Open a copyof the Finder with ResEdit and then open the PICTresource icon. Scroll down until you find the Aboutthe Finder mountain picture — it’s PICT resourcenumber 5066 (see Figure 21-49). To replace it withanother graphic, select the picture, and thenchoose the Paste command to paste in any pictureyou copied to the Clipboard.

If you want to edit the picture — add colors to it or draw a house on themountaintop — select the picture and copy and paste it into a graphics pro-gram. Then, when you’re finished editing, paste it back in right over the origi-nal picture.

While you’re at it, you may want to change the name of the About theFinder menu command to match your picture. For example, if you replacedthe mountain picture with a scanned photo of your mother-in-law, you canrename the menu command My Mother-in-Law. To do this, open the Finder’sSTR# resource icon; then open resource number 5000, where you’ll find thetwo fields (numbered 56 and 57) containing the text strings for the About thisMacintosh and About the Finder menu items. Type in new command namesand save your results.

Changing the scroll bar pattern

Yes, you can change the scroll bar pattern that appears in every window onyour Mac’s screen by probing into the System’s PAT resources. Don’t theseSecrets just make life worth living?


Figure 21-49The About the Finder mountain, which you can edit or replace as

you see fit.

Strange

But True

Open a copy of the System file using ResEdit. Afteropening the PAT resource icon, find the resource withID number 17 and open it (see Figure 21-50).

After you open resource 17, you can use the basicpainting tools to change the scroll bar pattern.When you come up with a pattern you like, chooseSave and quit ResEdit.

As always, replace the old System Folder with yourmodified one, and then restart the Mac.

Mix-and-match icon sizes

In the Finder’s icon views, you have exactly two size choices — large andsmall.You can switch between these options using the Views menu, of course,but you can’t combine the two sizes in a single window — unless you knowthis secret.

Using ResEdit, open a file that you would like to endow with a permanentsmall icon. Open the file’s ics8 resources (the set of smaller-sized icons used bythe program), then double-click the first ics8 resource in the window (the onecontaining the icon that represents the application itself ).

The small icon opens in an editing window. Press Ô-A to select the wholepicture, choose Copy, then close the resource. Next, open the file’s icl8resources (the large icons), and again open the first icon so you can edit it.

Press Ô-A again to select thewhole picture, then press Delete.Now choose Paste from the Editmenu, placing the small icon youcopied from the ics8 window intothe large icon’s window. Use theSelection tool to drag the smallicon to the bottom of the window.Then, deselect the icon (by click-ing anywhere in the white spacewithin the window) and press Ô-Aagain, this time to select the tinyicon and all the white spacearound it (see Figure 21-51).Choose Copy, then close the file,without saving any of the changesyou made.

Return to the Finder, select the program icon you want to “shrink,” andchoose Get Info from the File menu. Click the program’s icon in the upper-leftportion of the window to select it, then choose Paste. Then full-size icon willbe replaced with the small-icon version.


Exclusive

Figure 21-50The System’s PAT resources.

Figure 21-51Paste a small icon into the large icon resource window, then select the whole thing to createa permanent small icon view.

Now, no matter what icon view you pick in the Finder, the file will alwaysdisplay the small icon. With this trick, you can actually put small icons on theDesktop.

Changing the default number of copies

When you use the Print command, your printer driver always plugs a “1” intothe Copies field of the Print dialog box, assuming you want only one copy ofwhat you are about to print.You can, of course, type any number into this fieldto output multiple copies of yourprint job. But suppose you alwayswant your jobs printed in triplicate.You can change this default, so thatthe Print dialog box always comesup with a “3”in the Copies field.

Here’s how: Use ResEdit to open acopy of your printer driver. This isthe file in your Extensions folderthat bears the name of the icon youselect when choosing a printer inthe Chooser (LaserWriter, StyleWriter II, and so on). Open the DITL icon andthen open resource -8191, which contains the Print dialog box layout (seeFigure 21-52). (This is true for the LaserWriter 7.1.2 and LaserWriter 8,StyleWriter II and StyleWriter 1200 dri-vers. You may have to poke around forthe right DITL resource in other ver-sions.)

Double-click the Copies field.This willopen a window in which you can editthe number that appears in that field(See Figure 21-53). Just type in a 3 — orany number you want to use as adefault. Then close it all up and save thefile.

Build a better beachball

Every program has a series of animated cursor icons that get displayed when-ever you’re waiting for the Mac to do something. There’s the standard wrist-watch icon you see in the Finder, of course, but some programs use “countingfingers,”and others, like America Online, use the “spinning beachball.”


Figure 21-52A DITL resource in the LaserWriter 7 printer driver.

Figure 21-53Any number you plug in the Text field will show up as the Copies default in the

Print dialog.

Speed Tip

Contest

Winner

Since you must stare at these animated icons, waiting forthe Mac to finish its business, free book winner GermanVelasquez thinks you might as well make them look inter-esting.You can change them to whatever you want by edit-ing a program’s CURS resources using ResEdit.

To illustrate: Here’s how you can jazz up the AOL beach-ball: Open a copy of the American Online program withResEdit, then double-click the CURS resource icon. You’llsee the four resources, numbered 128 through 131, thatmake up the beachball animation. Double-click each oneto edit it, drawing or pasting in a replacement icon (seeFigure 21-54). Of course, if you want an animated look, yourreplacement icons should be designed in such a way thatthey create the effect of motion when played back insequence.

Put your mouse on steroids

If the fastest mouse-tracking setting in the Mouse control panel doesn’t movethe mouse fast enough for your taste, you can turbocharge your mouse’stracking speed with a simple ResEdit hack:

Open a copy of the System file using ResEdit and then open the mckyresource. Find the mcky resource with ID 6 and open it up. Now change theeight Threshold fields to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 15. (These numbers correspond to theeight Control Panel speed settings. They control how far and fast you have tomove the mouse before it starts speeding up.) Now save your work and restartyour Mac with your newly edited System file installed. Bump your mousetracking up to the highest setting and see what you think. If the speed doesn’t

feel right, you’ll have to do some experimentation. Repeat thesteps outlined earlier, but try different numbers in theThreshold fields.

Putting ResEdit in pig-mode

Those wacky ResEdit programmers have buried a wonderful,offbeat little surprise for you in the About ResEdit dialog box.

To uncover the surprise, hold down the Ô, Option, and Shiftkeys while selecting About ResEdit from the Apple menu. YourMac will start oinking — yes, oinking — and you’ll see a dialogbox asking if you want to “start pig-mode.”If you click OK and trythis again,you’ll once again hear the oink and see the dialog boxshown in Figure 21-55.


Figure 21-54Designing a custom cursor in AOL. After creating anew cursor, be sure to drag the small picture of theicon to the right of the editing window onto the maskicon, so that the mask matches the icon.

Figure 21-55The dialog boxes that signal the starting andstopping of pig-mode in ResEdit.

Speed Tip

Pig-mode, as it turns out, actually does have a function. It puts ResEdit into aspecial mode in which it constantly purges memory and compacts resources.However, it makes the program run slower and is designed primarily forprogrammers who are testing custom editors. So, we recommend keepingResEdit in its no-Oink mode at all times.

The oink, however, is delightful, and we heartily recommend using ResEditon itself to copy this sound out of the program so you can add it to your col-lection of system alert sounds. (See “Opening and playing sound resources,”earlier in this chapter, for instructions.)

TOP TEN RESEDIT PRANKSYou can’t spend more than a few minutes working with ResEdit without at

least thinking about the havoc you can wreak by editing program resources in

sick, twisted ways. At least we can’t.

Of course, we are in no way suggesting that you actually pull any of the fol-

lowing pranks — but we won’t tell anyone if you do.

1. Switch the empty and bulging Trash icons, so that the Trash looks empty

when it contains files and bulges when empty.

2. Edit the Balloon Help text strings (most of them are in easy-to-access

STR# resources) so that pointing to a window’s Close box produces a help

balloon that says “Clicking this box will cause irreparable damage to the

motherboard.”

3. Edit the MENU resource to turn a separator line in a menu into an alluring

new menu command (like “Double Processing Speed”) that doesn’t work.

4. Alter dialog boxes (using the DITL resource

editor) so that the Cancel and OK buttons in a

standard dialog box instead say Purge Data

and Erase Hard Disk (see Figure 21-56).

5. Use ResEdit’s MENU editor to change all text

in menus to white, rendering the commands

completely invisible. (They will still work, if

you can find them.)

6. Replace the standard alert box icon with the System Bomb icon.

7. Remap the keyboard so that pressing any key produces a semicolon.


Figure 21-56Imagine your coworker’s expression when he tries to empty the

Trash and sees this dialog box.

8. Change the names of an application’s menus so that the File menu con-

tains the Format commands and vice versa.

9. Install a Desktop pattern consisting entirely of Trash can icons.

10. Create a startup screen that features a realistic System bomb message,

urging the user to restart the Mac immediately.


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