Change yer Dock font!

[StormSilver]

First of all, this ain\\\'t exactly a task for the weak of heart (but then, if you\\\'re weak of heart, why are you using a beta operating system?) As with any hack where you\\\'re doing anything potentially dangerous, <b>back up the file you\\\'re working on</b>. Also, you might need to login as root to do this one, since you\\\'ll be accessing things in the CoreServices folder and, unless you\\\'ve changed the permissions, you don\\\'t have access to that as a regular ol\\\' user/admin.

Anyway, first things first, pop up the terminal application. Type in:
cd /system/library/coreservices
That takes you to where the dock app is stored. Next you need to break into the dock:
mv dock.app dock
That changes the application bundle into a folder. Open up TextEdit and open file:
System:library:coreservices:dock:contents:macos:dock
Oh my! Tons of garbage that means nothing! Fear not. Hit cmd-f to open the find panel. Type in \\\'lucida\\\' which will take you to where the font setting is in the file. BTW, the default font for the dock is Lucida Grande. Okay, the really really insanely important thing here is that whatever you do, <b>you cannot exceed 17 characters, and you must add up to 17 characters</b>. That\\\'s uberimportant. That whole part that says, \\\"LucidaGrande-Bold\\\" is 17 characters. Say, for example, the font you\\\'re changing to is Sand. Sand happens to be a mere four characters. Hopefully you haven\\\'t changed anything in the file yet. Select the character right after LucidaGrande-Bold. It looks like a space, but it\\\'s actually an \\\'unprintable character\\\'. Copy that, you\\\'ll need it in a moment. Select LucidaGrand-Bold. Type in Sand. Now, by my count, we\\\'ve currently got four characters and we\\\'re shooting for seventeen. Paste that unprintable character that you just copied in there thirteen times. Make sure to count. If you\\\'re off by even one character, your Dock will no longer boot and you\\\'ll have to use that backup that I told you to make (You did make it, right?). So now you\\\'ve got Sand and a bunch of spaces. That\\\'s it. Save that file and close it. Head back on into terminal (hopefully you haven\\\'t closed it, if you have, you\\\'ll have to go back to the folder entitled \\\'coreservices\\\') We need now to tell the system to begin recognizing this bundle as an application again. Type in:
mv dock Dock.app
I\\\'m not sure if capitalizing \\\'Dock.app\\\' is important, but I do it anyway. Voila. The hard part is done. Open up Process Viewer. Find Dock in there somewhere, and look at it\\\'s process ID. That\\\'s down toward the bottom of the window. If you don\\\'t see the process ID number, you\\\'ll need to click the tab that says \\\'More information\\\' (or thereabouts, I\\\'m doing this from memory). Now that you\\\'ve got the three digit process ID, go back into terminal and type:
kill ###
Where ### is the process ID. Dock will quit, and then reopen. If it doesn\\\'t reopen, that means you messed up somewhere in the process (probably either too many or two few unprintable characters). So now you should be looking at a dock with Sand as the font. Amazing!

If you want to make it bold, you can add -bold to the end of Sand. So you have Sand-Bold and eight unprintable characters after it. Let\\\'s see... I don\\\'t think I\\\'ve forgotten to mention anything... that should be it.

[StormSilver]

Hey guys, sorry about that up there. For some reason, it put /// before all the apostrophes. That is really annoying, but I cannot do anything about it, so please just bear with it.

[Agnt_Mulder]

Dude it\'s the Messageboard code. It does the same damn thing to everyone

\"en quota\"

Thanks for the post though, I\'ll try it when I work up the nerve again (I just crashed my system, lol).

Always looking for ways to customize this damn beta cause the real thing won\'t be out for years...

-Agnt_M.

[StormSilver]

BTW, it's easiest to do this logged in as root. Otherwise, you'll have to get messy and move stuff about in Terminal while su'd. Also, certain fonts you can't make bold (Sand, for example. I found that out today). And, I believe if you're logged in as root, the Dock won't automatically open again, which means that you'll have to type into Terminal:
open /system/library/coreservices/dock.app
And that'll open it. If it doesn't open then, you've messed up. I had to reinstall the essential system software because I didn't make that backup I stressed so much, <b>so just make the friggin' backup</b> and save yourself some trouble later on if you mess up.