The Login Pane

Login Window

The item Login Window can be used to set preference values for the display of Mac OS X's login panel.

You can select between the general two display modes Name and password text fields and List of users able to use this computer. If the user list is selected you can additionally choose what types of users should be displayed in the list:

• Show local users makes sure the user accounts known by the current computer are included in the list.
• Show local administrators makes sure the list includes members of the administrator group. It can make sense to hide these user accounts to enhance system security.
• Show other users will force the system to include a button that allows to switch to name and password text fields, in addition to the standard user buttons. This way it is possible to log in with (normally hidden) system user accounts, or with network accounts not known to the local system.
• Show network users will integrate known network users to the list. This only works if this computer is configured as an Apple Open Directory client.

Depending on the list of user accounts that is found on the local system and in the Open Directory domain at startup time, the login window application may choose to ignore one or all of the above settings. This is necessary to guarantee that at least one user can successfully log in. Otherwise, it could happen that no user is displayed which would render the system unusable.

In addition to the user list, you can also modify other preference values:

• enable or disable the restart button
• enable or disable the shut down button
• enable or disable the sleep button (only available in Mac OS X 10.4.3 or later)
• enable or disable the feature to display a hint after a wrong password has been entered three times

Depending on circumstances, the login window may not accept that the restart and shut down buttons have different states. If you disable one, the other may be deactivated, too. Apple has corrected this problem in recent releases of Mac OS X.

Special Features

In the section Special Features you can enable the login window function to display additional text above the user list or name and password fields. Just enter one or more text lines into the edit field and press the button Save text. If you are working with an operating system version prior to 10.4, you can additionally set the font size for the text to display.

A built-in feature of the login window is to shutdown the graphical Aqua user interface and activate the Darwin text console of Mac OS X instead. This feature is activated by entering >console as user name. This feature can be disabled. Set the checkmark Don't allow switch to the Darwin text console via ">console" to do this.

Presentation (Mac OS X 10.4.3 or later only)

In Mac OS X 10.4.3, Apple introduced some additional options which allow to control certain aspects how the login screen is presented to the user. The login window can display status information between the headline and the input fields. By default, the computer name is displayed, and other information can be selected by clicking on the info line. TinkerTool System offers you to select a different information category for the initial display. You can choose between the following options via the pop-up button Display status information:

• the operating system default setting
• display of the computer name
• display of the operating system version number
• display of the operating system build code
• display of the computer's serial number
• display of the IP address
• status information about the network link to an Apple Open Directory server
• current date and time.

Mac OS X Tiger or later versions are using a new strategy to start-up the computer: System services are allowed to start in parallel, without the necessity to wait for each other. While the start phase may seem to look faster than before, this new strategy can cause several networking problems. Among other issues, the login window may be presented before the system actually has an online link to the directory server hosting the network user accounts. Network users that enter their credentials "too early" might be rejected although they have a valid user account.

To solve this problem, Mac OS X 10.4.3 or later can establish an additional delay before logins are accepted. Use the slider or text field at Delay before accepting login to specify a time interval between 0 and 180 seconds (3 minutes).

The lower part of the Presentation tab allows you to choose the background picture the system should use while the login screen is displayed. The controls are similar to the ones you find in the Desktop pane of System Preferences. When no background image has been specified, the system will select a default screen itself. In this case, TinkerTool System shows just a cross with the text (System default picture) in the preview area at the left. You can choose another image by selecting one of the picture families in the middle table, and then selecting one of the pictures in the right browser. After a background picture has been selected, its name and preview are shown at the left.

After selecting the option Select picture… in the list of picture families, you can select any other valid graphics file to be used as a background image. Mac OS X will accept graphics files in the formats PNG, PDF, TIFF, PICT, JPEG-JFIF, JPEG 2000, BMP, GIF, PSD, SGI, or TGA.

A TIFF file with 72 dpi and the correct screen resolution is recommended. The image is presented before a user logs in, which means that the permission settings of the image file must allow all users (including unidentified users) to read it.

You can reset the background picture for the login screen to the default by pressing the button Remove.

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