Making an app invisible?

[thatkeith]

I'd like to make an app that runs on my Mac but doesn't add its icon to the Dock. I did this years ago using ResEdit in Mac OS 9 (told you it was years ago!), and I've found a couple of prompts for doing this in Mac OS X by editing an app's info.plist file and adding a couple of lines, but when I try either of these the app just bounces in the Dock and never launches. Both claimed plist methods are shown below - not that they helped me.

<key>LSBackgroundOnly</key>
<true/>

<key>LSUIElement</key>
<string>1</string>

Any ideas?

Keith

[thatkeith]

Ah. Um.
It's rather embarrassing to have to admit it, but I had screwed up editing the .plist file. I'd put the new data between a key and its associated string, which broke it, making the app never finish launching.

It turns out that both those .plist additions work, although it's worth noting that the LSBackgroundOnly property blocks any user interaction whatsoever; the app won't go into the foreground even when clicked. Interesting. I think LSUIElement is more useful for my experiment.

k

[Klaus]

Glad we could help!