Prefs Editor for Mac

Name: Prefs Editor
Rating: 4.5 (1 reviews)
Author: Thomas Tempelmann

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Developer’s Description

By Thomas Tempelmann

Plist file editor.

Mac OS X 10.8 introduced a caching system for app preferences ("cfprefsd"). While this probably increases performances for apps, it makes it harder for developers to manipulate preference values quickly for testing, because making changes directly to the plist files in the ~/Library/Preferences folder does not work any more with editors such as "Property List Editor.app" and the similar one in Xcode. As of now (Dec 14, 2013), the only way to edit such preferences is by using the "defaults" command, which is rather difficult to use once it comes to editing dict or array entries.Therefore, I've written a tool that works like the plist editor in Xcode but uses the CFPreferences functions to modify the values instead of editing the plist files directly.If you've worked with "Property List Editor" or Xcode, you should find yourself with my tool right at home. It supports even Copy + Paste in the same way. The only things I have not implemented (yet) are Undo and changing the type of existing elements.It even has one feature that Xcode's editor doesn't: You can delete all entries at once by Select All, then delete.Also note that due to the use of the CFPreferences API, any changes you make are immediately committed to the preferences as seen by other apps, just like when you use the "defaults" command. For the same reason, changes made to the prefs by other apps (or with the "defaults" tool) will be seen in this tool after a change, a front switch or by pressing the "Sync" button. Hence, there is no Save command - updates are instant. For that reason Undo would be quite useful. Alas, I can live without it for now.