Hi Patrick, >I removed com.apple.Safari.plist and that did solve the problem of >restoring the original settings. however, if I wanted to add any of >the additional options that are available, print only being one of >them, I cannot figure out how to do it. > >In short, if I wanted to just use the options that are already on the >toolbar, I can. if I want to add something, I cannot figure out how >to do it. I really wanted to add the print button to my sighted >father's machine. he is 81 years old and some concepts on the >computer still allude him (smile). I get to be the mac expert in his >household (smile again). that is where the print question came from.
You can set the toolbar options by using a preference editor on the com.apple.Safari.plist file by using a property list editor like Pref Setter: http://www.nightproductions.net/prefsetter.html The options to customize the Safari toolbar (and other applications) are stored in the (.plist) files. The problem is that since OS X 10.4 many of these files have been converted to binary format and can no longer be easily viewed and edited directly in a simple text editor. This was done to speed system response. So now, although you can open a dot plist file in TextEdit, there are characters that won't be displayed, it's difficult to figure out the format, and it's not obvious how to edit the file to make changes. In the case of the com.apple.Safari.plist file the options to display Home or the Back/Forward buttons or Google search on the Safari toolbar are Boolean arguments like this: AddressBarIncludesHome Boolean True AddressBarIncludesBackForward Boolean True I just tried Pref Setter, and it seems pretty easy to use. Just copy and paste the disk image into your Applications folder to install. When you start the tool it finds a list of dot plist files on your account. You can type an argument like "Safari" in the search field, or you can type the full name like "com.apple.Safari.plist" and then search in the results. For the boolean field, I'm not sure what the best way is to change the value, but double-clicking worked. (I first tried interacting on the field). I haven't experimented very much with this, but it seems accessible, and will handle adding features. I'm not sure what the argument should be to put a print icon in the toolbar; you'll have to experiment *grin*. There is a Property List Editor (PLE) included with Apple's Developer Software that will display and edit preference options in dot plist files. I didn't install the Software Developer Tools, so I haven't tried to use this. Greg might be able to tell you whether it is accessible. DeveloperTools is one of the packages under your Applications/Installers directory and I think the PLE is in the Xcode folder. That's another alternative that is on your system. >I am still believing that drag and drop might be the enemy here (groan). Hope this helps. I'm sure you're right about drag and drop being the culprit. Cheers, Esther
