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SIMBL and InputManagers - an explanation

Jul 27, 10:34 pm

A question I’ve been asked a few times is how to uninstall Safari plugins. This is usually a simple matter of deleting a file, but its knowing where to look. Safari plugins fall into 2 categories: InputManagers and SIMBL plugins. What follows is an explanation of what they do and where to find them.

InputManagers

InputManagers (such as Saft and Inquisitor) are plugins that are loaded at startup for all Cocoa applications – not just SafarI! They remain active, even if you’ve moved them to the trash. They can only be deactivated (and therefore emptied from the trash) when you have either logged out or restarted.

These are found in /Library/InputManagers/.

SIMBL Plugins

To get around this, Mike Solomon created SIMBL (Smart InputManager Bundle Loader pronounced like “symbol”) which allows developers to target hacks for specific Cocoa applications, based on their unique identifier (such as com.apple.Safari). This was originally created for his PithHelmet plugin, but now other plugins use this framework too, such as SafariSource and SafariStand.

These are found in Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins/.

Both techniques are hacks though, neither uses any official plugin architecture for Safari (there isn’t one!).

Posted by Jon Hicks

Comment

  1. Is it possible to get other plugins, namely SafariStand, to work with applications such as Shiira? I managed to get LiveDictionary to work with other Cocoa applications by adding their BundleIdentifiers to LD’s bundle. PithHelmet worked with Shiira without any modifications.

    Thanks in advance.
    # Steven Day 28/07/2005