The Tips - Mac Kung Fu - page 265

Tip 241

Personalize the Mission Control Highlight

By default your Mac adds a subtle blue border around any window preview
you mouse over in Mission Control mode. Changing the color to something
brighter, such as yellow, can make for an easier-to-spot effect, which can be
especially useful if the screen brightness is set low. To switch the Mission
Control highlight color, follow the next instructions, which modify system
files. Therefore, this tip affects all users of the computer. Ensure you have
an up-to-date Time Machine backup before starting. Additionally, like all tips
that involve hacking system files, you might find your changes reverted to
the default if you install a major operating system update. The solution is
simply to repeat the steps.

1. Open Finder, hit SHIFT + COMMAND + G , and type the following before hitting

the Go button: /SYSTEM/LIBRARY/CORESERVICES/DOCK/CONTENTS/RESOURCES . This will open
a new Finder window showing files within the Dock application package.

2. Look for four files: EXPOSE-WINDOW-SELECTION-SMALL.PNG , EXPOSE-WINDOW-SELECTION-

[e-mail] , EXPOSE-WINDOW-SELECTION-BIG.PNG , and [e-mail] .
Click and drag the two files to the desktop to create copies, and then
create separate backups of them in a safe location, such as your DOCUMENTS
folder. These will serve as backups of the original files that you can restore,
should you want to do so.

3. Back on the desktop, open all four images you extracted in an image

editor of your choice and alter their color. Sadly, it's beyond the scope of
this topic to explain how to do this in every image editor. However, if you
don't have a suitable image editor, the following steps explain how to edit
the images in Preview. Read through them even if you're not using Preview
to recolor the images.

4. Open Preview, and then drag all four files onto its Dock icon. Select the

first of the files in the drawer on the left in the Preview window, and then
click Tools→Adjust Color.

5. In the window that appears, click and drag the Exposure, Contrast, Sat-

uration, Temperature, Tint, and Sepia sliders until you achieve a color
you're happy with (you'll see the image change color in the Preview
program window behind). There's not an exact science to this—just