Pimp My textMate! Hack the UI of your favorite Mac apps!

I love the way Mac OS X applications work.
It’s relatively simple to crack open an app and customize its UI.

Pimp my textMate

There have been a few people on the textMate mailing-list recently that have been interested it making the drawer white text on black. I popped open the nibs to see if I could make it happen. I couldn’t. But, I did do some fun stuff.

Let me show you how to do this right quick.

Read the rest of the article to find out the thrilling conclusion!

1. Find your app
   1. /Applications/TextMate.app
2. Pop open the .app package
   1. Right-click the TextMate icon and select Show Package Contents
3. Navigate to the English.lproj folder with all the nibs in it
   1. Or, if your TextMate.app is in your Applications folder, simply click /Applications/TextMate.app/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/
4. Double-click the Document.nib file
   1. This will open in up in Interface Builder, assuming you have the Mac OS X Developer Tools installed.
5. Open up the Inspector panel
   1. Command-Shift-I or Tools => Show Inspector
6. Check the Has Texture checkbox in the Inspector panel
7. Save
8. Relaunch TextMate
9. Feel empowered by blatantly flying in the face of the Apple Human Interface Guidelines
   1. You rebellious anarchist! ;)

Repeat this process until you feel hip.

There are all kinds of other things you can modify in there.

• Convert Aqua windows to Metal
• Convert Metal windows to Aqua
• Use the Unified title/toolbar look
• change buttons, icons, fonts, sizes, etc…
• reposition elements
• add functionality
  • I added a indeterminate progress bar to the Web Preview window and bound it hidden and animate properties to the isLoading property of the webview.

It’s just insane what all you can do in there.
BTW, Interface Builder automatically makes a backup of any .nib file you change. No worries!
Of course, only a fool (or a dangerous rebellious anarchist, like you) would modify anything without making their own backup copy of the original app before making any changes.