Dynamic library for Mac OS X. Allow disable sharing content of "search for" field between applications.

Disclaimer

Use this library at your own risk and ONLY if you are SURE what you are doing! Some applications may just crash at launch. Tested only on Mac OS X 10.9 x86_64

This should works well for most applications but could be dangerous for global usage.

Known issues

Some applications crash at launch:

• Skype - crashes when any (even empty) library injected
• Mou - requires library compiled with -fobjc-gb but gcc does not support it any more
• iPhone Simulator - starts with black screen and do nothing (even when DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES is unset now but was set at XCode or AppCode launch time)
• something else I have no installed

Description

Many application in Mac OS X share same content for search field. So you search something in browser than switch to IDE and disclose your previous search replaced with string from browser...

And there is no preference for disabling such behaviour. So why this library was implemented.

Implemenation

Library replaces AppKit's [NSPasteboard setData:forType:] and [NSPasteboard dataForType:] with own implementation which just do nothing when called on NSFindPboard pasteboard. Library loaded at application launch with setting DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES to appropriate value.

Build

Build universal 32-bit & 64-bit library (required for running 32-bit applications on 64-bit OS which will crash at run otherswise)

gcc -arch i386 -arch x86_64 -Wno-objc-method-access \
    -framework AppKit -framework Foundation \
    -dynamiclib -o DisableSearchSharing.dylib \
    DisableSearchSharing.m

or only native (only for 32-bit OS)

gcc -Wno-objc-method-access \
    -framework AppKit -framework Foundation \
    -dynamiclib -o DisableSearchSharing.dylib \
    DisableSearchSharing.m

Run

Run specified application from terminal

DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES=/path/to/DisableSearchSharing.dylib open -a ApplicationName

Of course you can define alias

alias dss='DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES=/path/to/DisableSearchSharing.dylib open'
dss file.txt
dss -a Sublime\ Text file.txt

or use dss shell script (place library to $HOME/libs/ or edit $lib_path variable in script):

dss Mail     # run Mail with library injected
dss start    # enable global injecting for current session
dss no XCode # run XCode without library injected
dss stop     # disable global injecting

Global setting

Enable

Global setting is not as useful since you have to launch that command by hand after system reboot (do not ever try preserve variable after reboot, see warning below) and not all applications could be launched with this library. But if most does for you, you could enable it for current session with

launchctl setenv DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES /path/to/DisableSearchSharing.dylib

and launch not working applications from command line with

DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES= open -a Skype

And if something even goes wrong you could reboot at any time and got fresh new session after system start.

Disable

launchctl unsetenv DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES

WARNING!

Never try add DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES to $HOME/.launchd.conf or /etc/launchd.conf for preserving option after reboot. It could bring more problems than benefit. For example incorrect library arch or missed file will CRASH ALL APPLICATIONS at their launch! And by ALL I really mean every application, you could not even run console text editor to edit config or run launchd unsetenv to reset variable.

While you still in current session with opened terminal you have a chance to resolve some troubles with something like

export DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES=
launchctl unsetenv DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES
nano /etc/launchd.conf # and remove necessary line

But after reboot I'm afraid everything will be lost...

Even fixing current session may not be so easy. I have custom PROMPT_COMMAND with several commands like fetching current git branch, so I could run only one command per terminal window, and after that command execution I have never seen promt again.