hands on 2002
Customise Mac OS X
Michael Vallance

Not just a pretty face.

In the first of a series of eight, Michael Vallance of the Mac Users Group of Singapore shows you how to customise the Mac OS X.
February 06, 2002

Apple's Aqua interface in Mac OS X, gorgeous as it is, can still be customised to your needs. And here's how you can do it.
The starting point is the System Preferences, accessible from the Apple menu.

Concentrating on the Personal preferences, begin by clicking Desktop.
To change your desktop background, simply drag any Jpeg image into the well or choose from an available collection. Desktop images are available online at www.theapplecollection.com

Next is the Dock. Clicking the Dock icon displays a number of customisable options such as size, automatic hide and show, and even positioning the Dock at the bottom or to the side of your screen.
Currently Apple offers the Genie and Scaled effect but these animations tend to be jerky on older Macs such as my G3 PowerBook but the effect looks dead cool on a G4 though.

From top: Choose from System Preferences, Desktop options and sumptuous icons to suit your taste.

You can hold down the Shift key when minimising and the effect will be in slow motion.

The General system pre-ference allows you to select either a blue or graphite appearance. Selected texts can be highlighted in a colour of your choice. You can also modify the scroll bars.

The International icon leads you to a group of options such as keyboard, time format and others.

Most useful here though, is the Languages option. When my Japanese wife uses my PowerBook, she drags the Japanese language text to the top of the list so she can type Japanese in AppleWorks, Word, Hotmail and so on. She has to log out of my user account, and then log back in before the Japanese fonts are active. English, Chinese scripts and many others are also available.

The Login portion allows you to select applications to automatically open when starting your Mac. Simply click the Add button.

The Screen Saver option is just that. I prefer Basic and I have set my Energy Saver to the lowest setting under Activation. You may find a use for Hot Corners.
If you want to change your alert sounds then click the Sound preference button. OS X icons are gorgeous but when enlarged, they are sumptuous. Double click your hard disk and select the View menu and Show View Options. You can now change the icon size and the background colour.

Drag your favourite applications to the toolbar at the top of a folder. Open a folder then select the View menu and Customize Toolbar. The Show Status option displays how much disk space you have left.
You can also locate the trashcan at the top of the window. Open the trash can. Click the small trashcan icon, press the Shift key and simultaneously drag the icon to the top of the open window. Now you don't have to drag unwanted files all the way across your desktop anymore.

Michael Vallance is from the Mac Users Group of Singapore. Its website is at www.macuser.org.sg