Plist Editor Alternatives. Plist Editor is described as 'software can open, edit and save.plist file on Windows. It is useful for people who want to customize their iPod Touch or iPhone on a PC'. There are more than 10 alternatives to plist Editor for Mac, Windows, Linux and Total Commander. The most liked alternative is i-FunBox, which is free. A PList file, like Mankoff said, is just a specially formatted XML file, so you can actually edit and create them in a program like TextEdit. Because of the specific nature of PLists to Development, however, using a special program like Xcode or Property List Editor becomes a much more fruitful endeavor.
This is a bit tricky, but not impossible and quite an easy process. First of all let’s see what with this .plist files? In the Mac OS X Cocoa, NeXTSTEP, and GNUstep programming frameworks, property list files are files that store serialized objects. Property list files use the filename extension .plist, and thus are often referred to as plist files.
Open it and inside, there should be at least one Plist file called info.plist. Right-click it and select Open WithXcode. The file will open in Xcode and you can edit the already existing rows of preferences. To add a new preference, right-click a row and select the ‘Add Row’ option or the ‘Value Type’ option. You can also remove a.
Property list files are often used to store a user’s settings. They are also used to store information about bundles and applications, a task served by the resource fork in the old Mac OS.
Ok, so how to we edit such files on Windows? Well there are two different ways. The easy short way for advanced users, and the easy long way for really curious advanced users. If you do not know what to do with them, do not fool around. You either let them be, or precisely follow various tutorials you might find.
Part I
You can install Erica’s Utilities via Cydia on your iPhone or iTouch. The package contains an app called “plutil” that will convert binary plists to xml format. Once they are converted to xml, you can copy off your device and open them with any text editor. Notepad of Wordpad will do just fine, but i really suggest you use a good word editor like notepad++.
When you SSH into your device you will find Erica’s Utills to be installed to /var/root/bin
Part II
You can also use the various web-based binary to xml plist converters. A simple search string in Google will give you tons of such web apps.
click to enlarge
This method is (probably) the fastest method you can use for different tasks that you might want to perform. ( i.e for the tutorial we wrote back in the 2.x FW days: HowTo: Modify Cracked iPhone .ipa Files To Work On Lower Firmwares )
The second method is much more efficient if you are stuck at the boot logo. A few months ago, we wrote a tutorial on how to fix iPhone stuck at Apple logo, but that was in a way too vague, and maybe not accessible to all users.
iPhones get stuck at the Apple boot logo due to what is most probably a screwed up com.apple.Springboard.plist file.This can happen for many reasons, the main one being improper installation/uninstallation of packages (main script execution failed) via Cydia.
You can fix this problem by SSHing into your iPhone, but there are some people that have SSH turned OFF or even worst , they didn’t install it in the first place. And that could be a problem.
If you’re stuck at the apple logo, connect your iPhone to your PC – itunes will recognize that “an” iPhone is connected to it, but it wont identify the iPhone as being your iPhone.If your phone is off , turn it on so that it goes back to the apple logo – before connecting it to your PC.If your phone is in restore mode – again – turn it off and turn it on – so that it goes back to the apple logo – before connecting it to your PC.
Once you’re connected to your PC, and itunes recognizes “an” iphone, you’re out of danger. i.e. you wont need to restore your phone, even though you do not have SSH installed, or, even if you shut off SSH.
Next step would be to download and install iPhoneBrowser. When you run iPhoneBrowser, the software might say that no iPhone is found. If that is the case, than disconnect and reconnect your device and iPhoneBrowser will recognize it.
Navigate to /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.SpringBoard.plist and backup com.apple.Springboard.plist to your PC.Download and install EditPadLite from EditPad Lite – Free Text Editor for Windows . Than rename com.apple.Springboard.plist to com.apple.Springboard.plist.txt
After changing the file extension form .plist to .txt, open it wit EditPadLite ( Wordpad or Notpad wont work ) and edit the file by removing the the offending key in the DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES – usually this would be the .dylib key corresponding to the last application you installed or uninstalled, and which is probably the one causing your iphone to get stuck.
EXAMPLE:
<dict>
<key>DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES</key>
<string>/Library/Frameworks/SpringBoard.framework/SpringBoard.dylib:/Library/Intelliborn/intelliScreen</string>
</dict>
Let’s say that IntelliScreen was the problematic package ( usually was ). You will want want to just delete the .dylib key relating to it, from the DYLD libraries.Each .dylib key is separated by a colon.
Once you’ve deleted the problematic key, save the file, close EditPadLite and edit the file back from .txt to .plist. Restart iPhoneBrowser and navigate back to /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.SpringBoard.plist.Delete the com.apple.Springboard.plist file on your phone and copy the one you just edited.Now turn off your iPhone and turn it back on. It should boot just fine, and you’ll have a fully functional iPhone.
There are extreme and rare cases when there are a couple of apps that caused iPhone to be stuck at boot logo. In that case you will want to delete delete all the .dylib keys and your file will look like this
<dict>
<key>DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES</key>
<string></string>
</dict>
Once all offending .dylib keys, corresponding apps and launchdemons have been deleted, disconnect iphone from your PC, and reboot. It might take a little longer than usual, but if all goes well, you will find that your iphone is back in working order.
NOTE: if anybody knows how to fix the Cyrillic fonts issues so that russians for example wont get only “???????” when they try to edit the plist file, let us know….
Plist Pad is a simple property list file editor for Windows (Linux and OSX builds coming soon!). Plist Pad is currently just an alpha build of something that I’ve hoped would materialize on the internet for some time now. As far as I know, there is no good Plist editor for Windows that looks and acts like the built-in OSX Plist file editor. Well, hopefully Plist Pad will change that!
Please note that Plist Pad is currently in a very early stage of development. I’ve tested it on a dozen or so plist files of various sizes but please assume that this application can possibly mangle your Plist files. It hopefully won’t (and shouldn’t), but if it does - don’t blame me, you were warned! I know it’s a faff, but you would be advised to save a backup of your plist file(s) before using PlistPad for the time being. Of course, if you’re using Git or Dropbox, then you should be fine - as you can just revert.
There are a few limitations with the current build of Plist Pad, the most notable are as follows:
Use the following links to download PlistPad for your system. I am currently only building for Windows x64 until I’ve got the main features that I have planned implemented. If you desperately need a build on Linux, Win32 (or OSX), you can download and build from GitHub.
Windows (x64): [Plist Pad 0.1.0 Installer (16Mb)]({% include download-link.html path='plistpad/plist-pad-x64-installer-0-1-0.exe” %} “Plist Pad 0.1.0 Installer”), [Plist Pad 0.1.0 Zipped Binary (16Mb)]({% include download-link.html path='plistpad/plist-pad-x64-0-1-0.zip” %} “Plist Pad 0.1.0 Zip”)
Apologies that it’s big, I’m using Qt and by default it wants to use icudt49.dll, which is 18Mb unzipped in itself.
Plist Pad is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.
Plist Pad was built using the Qt Widget Library and uses images from the Open Icon Library.
This software is provided “as is” and any expressed or implied warranties, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose are disclaimed. In no event shall the regents or contributors be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, exemplary or consequential damages (including, but not limited to procurement of substitute goods or services; loss of use, data or profits; or business interruption) however caused and on any theory of liability, whether in contract, strict liability or tort (including negligence or otherwise) arising in any way out of the use of this software, even if advised of the possibiltiy of such damage.