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About property list files – Apple Mac OS X Server (Extending Your Wiki Server For Version 10.5 Leopard) User Manual

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Chapter 1

Customizing How the Wiki Looks

15

Property List Editor doesn’t show comments, so if you want to see the example
sidebars provided in the wireframe’s theme.plist, you’ll need to open the
theme.plist file in a text editor and remove the comment markers surrounding
the example sidebars.

About Property List Files

The theme.plist file is structured like an XML file. If you understand XML, editing the
theme.plist is straightforward. If not, read the following sections for basic editing
information.

About Property List Keys and Values

Every setting controlled by the theme.plist file has a key, and an associated value or an
array (a collection) of associated values. To change the setting, you change the value or
values, not the key.

For example, to halve the height of the banner image in Property List Editor, double-
click the value 99 next to bannerImageHeight and replace it with 50.

To halve the height of the banner image in a text editor, change the following lines in
the theme.plist:

bannerImageHeight
99

to:

bannerImageHeight
50

About Strings

Most of the values in the theme.plist file are character sequences called strings.

About Dictionaries

A dictionary, or dict when viewed in a text editor, is an assortment of values of different
classes. In the theme.plist file, a sidebar is represented by a dictionary.

Because a dictionary can contain several values, Property List Editor provides a
disclosure triangle that allows you to view or hide the contents of the dictionary.

About Arrays

Arrays are collections or lists of similar classes. The theme.plist file includes two types
of arrays: a list of dictionaries and a list of strings.

The sidebars array is an example of a dictionary array. Because the sidebars array is
commented out by default, you won’t be able to see it in Property List Editor without
first removing the comment markers in a text editor.

Because an array can contain several values, Property List Editor provides a disclosure
triangle that allows you to view or hide the contents of the array.