Start

Using the domain overview

PrefEdit uses a domain overview window to display all preference domains available in your current user session. To learn more about preference domains and domain intersections, please see the introductory chapter.

The domain overview gives you access to the memory copy of the Mac OS X preferences database. This means it does not directly work with preference files or other property list files. Nevertheless you can use the overview window to edit all preference settings you are permitted to have access to.

PrefEdit allows only one copy of the domain overview window to be open at the same time. The window is automatically displayed after you have launched the application without a document. If you don't see the window, you can open it by selecting the menu item Window > Show Domain Overview or by pressing ⌘+1.

The table in the lower half of the window shows the preference domains currently found. The pop-up button in the upper left controls the user-based domain aspect, the one in the upper right the computer-based selection. By default, the most commonly used domain view, the combination “current user - any computer” will be displayed in the window. Each line in the table hereby represents the application-oriented domain aspect. The total number of application domains currently available in this domain intersection is shown at the bottom of the window.

• To show the system-wide preference domains, switch the left pop-up button to System-wide settings, the right button to specifc for this computer.
• To display all available preference domains, switch the left pop-up button to User-specific and system-wide settings, the right button to for any and this computer.

The table lists the names of the preference domains as they are found on your system. Domains which belong to a user application also show the icon of that application at the left side. Note that not all domains have icons, because they may store preference settings for background services or other programs without a graphical user interface, so no icon is available. A checkmark in the column System-wide indicates a domain intersection which applies to all users of the current computer. A checkmark in the column Any computer indicates that the domain intersection does not apply to a specific computer only, but to any computer in the local network.

By default, the table is sorted by the computer-based domain aspect, the user-based domain aspect, and then alphabetically by domain names. You can change this sort order by clicking on the respective header fields of the table.

Preference domains which are read-only in your user session will be display in gray. In this case your current permissions only allow to read the preference settings but not to change them. The built-in registration domain will never be displayed in the domain window because it does not exist in the preferences database and is application-specific.

Finding and inspecting domains

If your home folder has been in use for some time, there will usually be several hundred preference domains. To quickly find a specific domain, you can enter some part of its name into the search field Filtered by domain. PrefEdit will immediately reduce the number of entries in the table and will only list domains which match the name part you entered. To quickly go to the search field, you can select the menu item Edit > Filter by Search Field, or press ⌘+⌥+F.

Some applications may not follow the rules for domain names, and sometimes it may be difficult to identify the correct domain name for a given application. In this case, you can have PrefEdit find out the correct domain name for you: Just select the application in the Finder, then drag the application's icon into the field or application of the domain window. The domain window will then automatically switch to the correct filter which will display the preference domain for the application in question.

Before working with the actual preference settings, you can also use an overview window, the Domain Inspector to show some details about the preferences domain. Just press one of the Info buttons in the respective table line. The picture below gives an example.

The following information can be found:

• the clear-text name of the associated application and its icon (if available)
• the selected domain intersection
• information if a preference manifest for that domain is available on your system
• the number of top-level preference settings
• the full POSIX path of the preference file which is associated with that domain intersection of the preferences database
• date and time when one of the preference settings of that domain has changed and this change has been synchronized with persistent storage

Deleting domains

You can delete a preference domain which means that all preference settings for that domain will be removed from the database. The next time the application which is associated with this domain is being started, it will be reset to “factory defaults”, creating a new domain with “fresh” settings. You can also use this feature to clean up old unused preference domains for applications which have been removed from your computer.

1. Select one or more preference domains you like to delete in the table.
2. Press the button [-] below the table or select the menu item Edit > Delete.
3. Confirm that you really like to delete the selected domain(s).

Note: In certain cases, especially when you are deleting domains outside the domain intersection “current user - any computer”, PrefEdit may still display a domain entry for a domain after you have successfully deleted it. This is a known restriction of Mac OS X's preferences subsystem and the correct behavior of PrefEdit. Although the domain is still listed in the table, it will in fact be empty after deletion, so it will no longer contain any preference settings.

Searching for preference settings

If you like to check if the preferences database contains an entry with a certain value, or if you want to know whether a preference setting with a certain name exists on your system, you can let PrefEdit search for all occurrences of an item in all domains. This is done with the feature Find in Preferences.

1. Make sure the correct domain intersection is selected by the pop-up buttons at the top of the domain overview window. If you like to search in all domains, switch them to User-specific and system-wide settings for any and this computer.
2. Select the menu item Edit > Find in Preferences… or press the key combination ⌘+⇧+F.
3. Enter the text part you like to find into the field Find.
4. Select if you like to search among the Keys (the names of the preference settings or keys used in nested dictionaries), among the preference Values or Both.
5. Check whether the text should be compared in a case-sensitive way and set the Ignore Case checkmark accordingly.
6. The pop-up button at the right of the Find panel can be used to specify if the entered text should be searched everywhere (Contains) or if the search should be restricted to keys/values that begin with this text (Starts with).
7. Click the button Find or press the key ⏎.

The search will begin and all found entries will be listed in the lower half of the panel. There can be multiple matches per domain, and the entries can be nested, so the Find panel will display the matches as a hierarchy. Use the disclosure triangles to navigate through the nested items. Double-clicking an entry in the table will open a new window with all preference settings for that domain. The found entry will automatically be preselected in the window.

You can cancel a running search operation any time by pressing the Find button again (now titled Cancel Search).