Preferences: An Introduction


OS X is dominated by the 'preferences' system.

While there are secret key combinations that reveal secret persistent features of OS X, these features cannot rely on keyboard activity alone. Their persistence is dependent on use of the preferences system, for clearly, no patching of executables can be involved, and the secret settings must be picked up at runtime.

It's all a matter of knowing what and where these secret 'back doors' are, and of exploiting them.

The preferences idea comes from NeXTSTEP. It is XML-based, and usually results in physical files on disk in XML format with the extension 'plist', and these files are almost always found in one of the 'Preferences' directories on disk.

The preferences format allows data storage in many different formats. Use of CLIX does not require understanding of XML, but a basic understanding of the NeXTSTEP command 'defaults' can be to an advantage.

defaults

The 'man page' for this NeXTSTEP command says it all: 'defaults' is a way to both read and write preferences.

DEFAULTS(1)    System General Commands Manual    DEFAULTS(1)

NAME
     defaults - access the OS X user defaults system

DESCRIPTION
Defaults allows users to read, write, and delete Mac OS X user defaults from a command-line shell. Mac OS X applications and other programs use the defaults system to record user preferences and other information that must be maintained when the applications aren't running (such as default font for new documents, or the position of an Info panel). Much of this information is accessible through an application's Preferences panel, but some of it isn't, such as the position of the Info panel. You can access this information with defaults.

If you study the contents of the CLIX command databases, or if you only browse through it all, you will quickly notice that the great majority of 'secret settings' for the system and for applications are little more than 'defaults' commands. On their own, they cover 80% or more of what apps such as TinkerTool, OnyX, Cocktail, and Term's Little Helper have to offer.


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