I'd like to disable the 'stop recording' button on the menu bar during screen capture on 10.6.
I know that Quicktime X doesn't have the option of changing preferences and I've seen some codes out there that will alter certain preferences, but not this one. Does anyone have any idea how to accomplish this or where I might find the code?
Thanks!!
Mac OS X (10.6.8)
Move up to Lion and QuickTime 10.1.
It can record the entire screen or just a portion of it. The "stop recording" is no longer in the menu.
Thanks QuickTimeKirk. I'll have to upgrade 8 machines (education research), so not sure if we can afford the upgrade for all 8. That's a viable solution though. I appreciate the reply.
Lion also ships on a flash drive for $69. You can install it on as may machines that are "under your control".
Education has its own pages at the Apple Store.
I'll look into that. It might be an option. Thanks again!
Tested quickly under 10.6.8. It appears to work.
1. Copy (don't move) QuickTime Player.app to the Desktop.
2. Modify the copied app. Control click its icon. Select Show Package Contents.
A. Navigate to
/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/Localizable.strings
Open this file with a text editor such as TextWrangler. Change this line:
"Stop Recording" = "Stop Recording";
to this:
"Stop Recording" = "";
That modification removes the text from the menubar.
B. Next, the small black circle. It's located in
/Contents/Resources/RecordingControls_Stop.png
Move RecordingControls_Stop.png to the trash.
3. Test the modified app.
Notes:
--To stop a screen recording, use Cmd-Cntl-Esc or click the menubar where the Stop Recording icon used to be. (Even though there's nothing visible in the menubar, there's a vestigial reserved space that continues to function as a stop recording command.)
--There's only one RecordingControls_Stop.png for the app. It's used (at least) in both the menubar and the dialog that appears as you begin a screen recording. That black circle will no longer appear anywhere as you use the app.
--You can of course move the modified QuickTime Player.app off the Desktop to another location. If you want to put it in the Applications folder, rename it as "QuickTime Player-zirpoli.app" (or something along those lines) to keep it from overwriting the original QuickTime Player.app. The original QuickTime Player.app should be left undisturbed in the Applications folder to avoid causing future problems.
Problem solved! Thank you very much!!! Great fix.
Quick question. What are the potential future consequences of making these changes to the original QuickTime file?
Best practice is always to leave Apple's core applications untouched. Many applications rely on QT and its underlying technologies. Making a change in one can have far-reaching, unintended consequences in others. (Read the forum's weekly "I deleted QT" threads for real-life stories.) And Apple might issue a future update to Snow Leopard's QT 10.0 to address a stability or security concern. The installer could get confused or fail if it finds that the original QuickTime Player.app has been modified. Though its Apple's usual practice to overwrite the entire application, I wouldn't bet the farm on what a software update might do. I'm sure there are other unfortunate scenarios that I'm not thinking of, too.
QT 10 is a small file. I'd leave the original where it is. Reserve the tinkering for the modified version.
Thanks again mns579. I won't mess with it.
remove 'stop recording' from menu bar in Quicktime X
