14
comments
16
Sep

How To: Edit .nib Files in Snow Leopard

Posted in tutorials by Federico Viticci.


Following my previous tutorial about How To Get Vertical Tabs on Safari 4, you may have wondered how I succesfully managed to edit the browser’s .nib file using Interface Builder.

With the release of Mac OS X Snow Leopard, Apple decided to make it more difficult for advanced users to edit .nib files: that’s part of how they built SL to have a smaller footprint. Indeed, if you try to edit Safari’ Browser.nib file, Interface Builder will say that it cannot open complied .nib files.

As always, there’s a workaround for that.

And that’s pretty simple this time: all you need is to find an editable .nib file. And here comes the hard part: most of SL applications haven’t got editable .nibs, they are all already compiled.

So, how did I edit that .nib yesterday? Luck, I guess.

I found out that Hulu Desktop.app has an integrated crash reported inside its Resources and the crash reporter’s .nib isn’t compiled. As you can see from the screenshot below, an editable .nib comes with two additional files, info.nib and classes.nib, which make the file totally editable with Interface Builder.

For this reason, to edit Safari’s .nib I just made a copy of that crash reporter, opened it and replaced Hulu’s keyedobjects.nib with the Safari one. I edited it, then I re-opened UKCrashReporter.nib, copied the file and pasted it into Safari Resources.

ukcrashreporternib

resources

That’s it. I believe this workaround works with every keyedobjects.nib file, just make sure you have an editable .nib file to start with. I just found out that Hulu’s has got it.

So, download Hulu Desktop.app here, or simply download the editable .nib file (UKCrashReporter.nib) here.

Enjoy :)



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  1. #1

    That's what Mors said 11 months ago:

    Thanks for the info. I was having problems trying to modify the LoginWindowUI.nib You’re hack of replacing the UKCrashReporter.nib’s keyedobjectsfile.nib replacement will not work. As it doesn’t bring up the correct information in Interface builder. To make the LoginWindowUI.nib editable in Interface Builder do the reverse. Make a dupe of your LoginWindowUI.nib on your desktop then ctrl-click to show package contents. Do this for the UKCrashReporter.nib now copy & paste the classes.nib & info.nib into the LoginWindowUI.nib. Then open LoginWindowUI.nib in InterfaceBuilder and the it becomes an editable file.

    [Reply]

    Ticci Reply:
    September 18th, 2009

    Wow, thanks for the tip! ;)

    [Reply]


  2. #3

    That's what Paul said 11 months ago:

    @paul: “You’re hack of replacing the UKCrashReporter.nib’s keyedobjectsfile.nib replacement will not work”

    Jesus Christ, please! http://youre-vs-your.net/ !

    [Reply]


  3. #4

    That's what Mors said 11 months ago:

    which post are you responding to paul? Mine or Ticci’s? cause mine works I’ve been in every file on Mac OSX SL since I did it my way.

    [Reply]


  4. #5

    That's what Paul said 11 months ago:

    I was mocking about your usage of “you’re”, Mors.

    [Reply]


  5. #6

    That's what Francesco said 11 months ago:

    Nice tutorial! Thanks

    [Reply]


  6. #7

    That's what Josso said 10 months ago:

    I have even compiled an app for that.

    And this method have been working in a long time (at least back to Leopard).

    [Reply]


  7. #8

    That's what macdet said 8 months ago:

    Great Stuff. As an "new" osx fan I am very happy to learn this!

    [Reply]


  8. #9

    That's what war said 8 months ago:

    please contact me via email,. i have a ?’n

    [Reply]


  9. #10

    That's what Cindy said 7 months ago:

    I tried this – I copied the UKCrashReporter.nib files into a folder – then replaced the keyedobjects.nib file with the keyedobjects.nib file from my StickiesDocuments.nib > keyedobjects.nib file. But when I tried to open the [new] keyedobjects.nib file with Interface Builder, it said it could not edit compiled .nib files (I am using SL). Any ideas? Thanks – just want scroll bars on my stickies again!

    [Reply]


  10. #11

    That's what Jack said 6 months ago:

    Thanks for this man, I appreciate it :)

    [Reply]


  11. #12

    That's what flarn2006 said 1 month ago:

    Actually, you can just put these two generic files into a compiled NIB file:

    http://www.mediafire.com/?1ml7030nbe2vcub

    [Reply]


  12. #13

    That's what Evan said 3 weeks ago:

    I have made a little kit for editing .nib files, with instructions on how to do it.

    You can download it here: http://cl.ly/79002005ac403e927318

    [Reply]