Lion OS Terminal Hacks

Posted on 07/27/2011

Here are the 3 useful Terminal Hacks for Mac Lion OS.  For all the following terminal hacks, you can change “false” to “true” to reverse the effect:

1) Alternate Character when holding down a button: When you press and hold a button, a palette will show up that lets you choose an accented or alternate character. However, if you enable this feature, you can no longer press and hold keys to make something repeat… like “whaaaaaat!”

defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false

log out and log back in to see the change.

2) Windows Restoring: One of Lion’s new features will restore all the windows that were left open when you relaunch the app.  It’s very helpful for browsers for example, however, at times you are suddenly left to close all the windows that you didn’t even want to begin with.  This feature is handled per app basis.  Here are the terminal hacks for Preview and QuickTime:

defaults write com.apple.Preview NSQuitAlwaysKeepsWindows -bool false

defaults write com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX NSQuitAlwaysKeepsWindows -bool false

quit and restart the app to see the change.

3) Zoom effect on new windows:  If for whatever reason you don’t like the new Zoom Effect on Lion OS, you can turn it off:

defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSAutomaticWindowAnimationsEnabled -bool false

If you want the list of Terminal Hacks for Snow Leopard that still works on Lion, you can visit my post here: Snow Leopard Terminal Hacks