. Rewriting the Words Mac OS X stores the text and settings of its menus, dialog boxes, and other elements in special text files called plist (for Property List) files. They sit in one of the three Library folders (in your Home folder, the System folder, or the hard drive window) | . Rewriting the Words Mac OS X stores the text and settings of its menus dialog boxes and other elements in special text files called plist for Property List files. They sit in one of the three Library folders in your Home folder the System folder or the hard drive window . The easiest way to edit them is to use Apple s Property List Editor a program that came on your Mac OS X Developer CD. Once you ve installed your developer tools as described on Section you can find Property List Editor in Developer Applications Utilities. There are hundreds of plist files so some experimentation and patience is required. Most of the cool changes you can make to your plists can be made much more easily using TinkerTool described at the beginning of this chapter. Here however is an example of a smaller change you can make this way. . Renaming the Trash It s called Trash but in Mac OS X it looks more like an office wastebasket. When inspiration on the work you re supposed to be doing runs dry consider remedying this discrepancy by changing the name of the Trash icon to something more appropriate. In PropertyList Editor choose File Open. Navigate to System Library Core Services Dock Contents Resources . Click the Root triangle to view and edit the settings as directed in Figure 17-5. Figure 17-5. Top This simple file contains the name of the Trash icon on the Dock and the name of the Eject icon that replaces it when you re dragging a disk. By double-clicking the text in the Value column you can edit these descriptions to change the corresponding names. Bottom The resulting Trash has a very different name. Once you re finished making the change choose File Save As and save your edited plist document to the desktop. Now replace the original document after making a safety copy if you like with your edited version using either of the techniques described on Section . In any case the next time you log in you see your new name on .
