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Mac How To : Hide Everything
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Hide Menu Bar and Dock
We're now introducing you the trick to hide your Mac menu bar. It's useful when you're trying to mimic the way Windows users do to their menu bar. But for real, by hiding (getting rid of) your menu bar, you can get extra 20 pixels for your display.
And after your hardwork in tweaking, you don't need to care about what's the most suitable color for your menu bar; Invisible is the most suitable color.
Before starting, I'd like to tell you that you will need to have a free application so called Property List Editor. This application is already packed inside your Mac. In case you've deleted it, get it back now.
Here is the basic idea, you tweak the Info.plist file of certain application. This application, when launched, will hide the menu bar for you. It's also named as Full Screen Presentation Mode by Apple developers.
Enough of the explanation, I think. Let's jump to details:
- Choose your Application. If you wonder, can you choose Finder as your preferred Application. I could say yes. (Location of Finder : Your HD ▸ System ▸ Library ▸ CoreServices ▸ Finder)
- Control Click on it and choose Show Package Contents
- Go inside Contents folder and open up Info.plist
- You can see expandable list with the Root as, well, main root. Expand it.
- Highlight Click on Root and create New Child by clicking on the button nearby. It's so big up there, I know you could find it.
- New Property List name will be LSUIPresentationMode, with class Number and value 4
- Save the file and relaunch the Application. After the change takes effect, you will have your Dock and menu bar automatically hidden
Source : How to Hide the Menu Bar and Dock [MacWorld.com].
For the menu bar, it's not completely out. You can move your mouse up and there you go, the menu bar pop out again, just like what you see in Windows. Unfortunately, you can't get your Spotlight to work when your menu bar is in this stealth mode. It doesn't matter for me, does it matter for you?
Hide All Files
This is one of my favorite Terminal command line, especially when I need to capture the screen of my Mac. Whenever I need to hide all my cluttered files on the Desktop, I will just execute the following Terminal command lines: chflags hidden ~/Desktop/*
And it works like a charm, all my files stored in the path ~ ▸ Desktop are hidden. To reveal them back, simply change hidden with nohidden.
You can always refer back to 5 Most Useful Terminal Command Utilities [UsingMac.com]. These command lines I use in everyday of my Mac life.
Hide Your Screen
It's just a funny idea that I get from an image taken by owner of Hongkiat.com.
Following this idea, I tried to Google and Flickr around. And discover this amazing slideshow on Flickr: w00kie's slideshow.
That's all about hiding your Mac screen, folks. And thus, you will get the transparent screen. Until now, I'm still amazed on how creative those people are.
Those still images make me amazed enough. How about this video?
Hide Crash Reports
Crash reports are rarely seen in Mac. However, when they appear, they destroy my mood. So before it happens, I usually turn them off with command line defaults write com.apple.CrashReporter DialogType none. Crash Reports? Be gone!
I use these two browsers intensively, so it would be rationally true that these two got the best chance of crashing. And got the most chance of being screen captured.
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17 Comments
Leonardo
Nice one!
Win
Why do we need to copy Windows?
shogo
I guess this doesn't work on old mac v 10.4 huh. Can't find the click on root bit.
Alex
AHAHAHAHA thank you! I've always wanted to auto-hide the menu bar.. (and in fact thank you for explaining it clearly... I saw this in other 2 sites but I didn't understand a thing)
viv
Couldn't make it work at all with VLC, and a little bit with Firefox (only for some time). Any ideas? (macbook pro running 10.5.8)
gordeaoux
viv - I'm guessing that it won't work well with programs that hide the menu bar themselves - i.e. vlc in fullscreen mode or Firefox with fullscreen flash.
Hebb
Running MacBook 10.6.2 Can't find 'main root' or 'root' in Property List Editor. Noticing that others are having the same problem. Any chance I could get an email explaining where to find it?
thomas sabo
Honestly, I've always been more of a fan of just putting the monitor to sleep than screen savers. Sure they look pretty awesome, but if you're sitting at your computer, are you really doing so with the screen saver on?Good luck for the dates. It has been some times since we last heard about the next tour. I hope they can run it accordingly now.cvD25lAOoRKVMkCn
headphones
Honestly, I've always been more of a fan of just putting the monitor to sleep than screen savers. Sure they look pretty awesome, but if you're sitting at your computer, are you really doing so with the screen saver on?Good luck for the dates. It has been some times since we last heard about the next tour. I hope they can run it accordingly now.V2wTzaxPExlBYiJk
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Sam
hahaha! Good article. I don't understand one thing, why Apple guys don't make a short cut key for hiding everything - something similar to Windows win+d short cut key. Sam from Web Design Company
Genius
Good article. I don't understand one thing, why Apple guys don't make a short cut key for hiding everything - something similar to Windows win+d short cut key. Forex Robots
Poko
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one jay
i created a New Child and copy pasted "LSUIPresentationMode" and went to value and changed it to "content suppressed" now i cant open my finder i get the error "The application Finder can't be opened. -10810" i googled and tried most of the solutions given, but they havent work. is there something i changed in the info.plist that i can change back? btw i have tried dis utility to repair
Andrea Bandac
Actually the screen seems bigger if you hide the menu bar.I one had a antivirus software who could make this without making so many changes in options.Anyway, i love my mac and if i can make him to look and work even better, it's a great thing.
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