Add a Hide Others shortcut - revisited

Nov 17, '01 09:43:33PM

Contributed by: gilburns

I was trying the previously posted tip on adding a command key to the "Hide Others" menu item, but it didn't seem to work, so I did some poking around, and came up with this set of instructions.

Read the rest of this article if you'd like the 10.1 method of adding a "Hide Others" keyboard shortcut.


[Editor's note: I have not tried this myself yet...]

Fire up the Terminal, and enter these commands:

cd /System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/
cd Frameworks/HIToolbox.framework/Versions/A/Resources/English.lproj/StandardMenus.nib/
sudo cp objects.xib objects.xib.old
Enter your root password to confirm.

Next open "objects.xib" in the text editor of your choice, with root access. To find the section that needs changing, search for "Hide Others".

Add the following in the next two lines:
<string name="keyEquivalent">h</string>
<int name="keyEquivalentModifier">1179648</int>
When you are complete, the section should look like this:
<object class="IBCarbonMenuItem" id="260">
<string name="title">Hide Others</string>
<string name="keyEquivalent">h</string>
<int name="keyEquivalentModifier">1179648</int>
<ostype name="command">hido</ostype>
</object>
Save your changes, and restart your computer.

It doesn't seem to work in all applications (TextEdit, Terminal, & Preview for example), but it does work in IE, iTunes, Interarchy, and other Carbon apps. If anyone can figure out how to make it work across the board, that would be great.

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