The Arctic Mac

Modifications of strings in iTunes 4 (may apply to others as well)

Keep in mind that these procedures modify the iTunes application, so you should ALWAYS work on a backup copy, just in case. I am NOT responsible for any damage you do to yourself or your computer.

The "Printed with iTunes" string

A request for this string is what prompted me to research this mod in the first place. Basically, iTunes has various strings in various languages available to it for use in various places. The string that it draws on CD inserts it makes is an example of one of these.

For starters pop the file "/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/Localized.rsrc" open in a resource editor. I still use ResEdit, which means flipping the forks first, but really, it's up to you what you want to use. I recommend NOT using a basic HEX editor, because it means you have to use "Find" to get around in the file, since it doesn't read resources as individual parts... however... it's up to you. If you don't know how to get to the file listed above, it's easy. The Finder's "Go To..." command can take you to the "English.lproj" folder; just copy the location without the tailing "Localized.rsrc" and paste it into the GoTo window.

Now, I was talking about all those strings, right? well, they are all in various places. Most of the useful ones are kept in the "iST#" resources. The particular one we want is in iST# id 9100. Pop it open.

Now, scroll down a little way. You want something that looks like this (except yours won't have the red and green):

Changing it involves two steps:

  1. First, use the ASCII text, over on the right, to change the words "Printed with iTunes"(highlighted in green) to whatever you like. I changed it to "Printed without iTunes". Count the number of characters it takes... spaces too. The original was 19, but yours can have however many you like.
  2. NOW, so that iTunes doesn't crash, you have to enter the appropriate number in the length byte (highlighted in red). This must be done in the hex side of the editor, not the ASCII side. This means you must enter the number in Hexadecimal. 1=01, 2=02... 10=0a, 11=0b, 12=0c, 13=0d, 14=0e, 15=0f, 16=10, and so on. In my example, the new string was 22 characters, so I entered "16" in the length byte.

My completed edit is shown below:

I saved, and, in my case, flipped the forks back (you may or may not need to), and then ran iTunes... Here's what it printed now:

You can complete your own edits on various other strings stored in the iST# resources. For example, the text that is the title of the main iTunes window is the first string in iST# resource id 163. The strings that show on the LCD for Elapsed time, Time remaining, and time remaining are in iST# resource 170. Various strings by the iTunes visualizer are in 4000-4006. and so on and so forth.

Don't make me look up what you want to mod... search for it yourself. Some resource editors can search the entire file, or just the iST# resources for the string you want. If your resource editor can't do this, you can download the Resorcerer Demo which will let you do all the normal stuff but save, copy, paste, etc. Therefore, you can use it to search for what you want, then do the mod in a different resource editor. I've got a little template for editing the iST# resources, but it requires something more advanced than ResEdit... like ResFool or Resorcerer... anyhow if you want a copy, email me. In the meantime...

Happy moding. And don't forget to back up...