With all the excitement around the preview of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard at this year's WWDC, everyone is just a little anxious to see what will come before Steve Jobs' keynote. In fact, creating fake screenshots is all the rage these days. Wouldn't it be cool to make your very own Leopard screenshots and be featured on all the rumor sites? You're damn right it would. Here's how to do it.

What you will need:

- Apple Developer Tools (knowledge in these tools is suggested)
- Adobe Photoshop
- Mac OS X Tiger
- Creativity!

Step 1: Think things through

The first thing to do when creating fake screenshots is to think about what the end result will look like. You'll definitely want to set up a new user account so people do not see your dock full of shareware apps or desktop picture from summer vacation last year. To do this, go into the System Preferences, select "Accounts" and click the "+" button in the lower left. If you plan on showing off the Finder, name this account "Leopard" or something generic. You'll want to make it an administrator account so you don't run into problems modifying the system. Finally, think of an app or two that you would like to see revamped. You may want to check the rumor sites for some ideas.



Step 2: Realize that Photoshop isn't good enough

While Photoshop is great, you'll only want to use it for mistakes you made composing your screenshots, not for creating the entire thing. This is why you must install Apple's Developer Tools. Not only will you get authentic Mac OS X font rendering, but your screenshots will look a lot more convincing too.

Step 3: Mark your territory

Once you've thought of some changes you'd like to see in a certain app, you will be creating a fake application to showcase this. You can take two routes to do this. Route 1 is to make a copy of the application and edit the resources and the .nib files. Route 2 is to actually create your own application and copy the graphical user interface (a bit more work). We're going to take Route 2.

Open Xcode and select "New Project..." from the File menu. Select a Cocoa Application and follow the steps in the Assistant. I'm not going to explain how to use Xcode, so you'll probably want to read some documentation first if you're not comfortable. Open MainMenu.nib in the new project and edit your nib accordingly using Interface Builder. Next, completely copy the graphical user interface of the app you are improving by dragging controls into the main window. Throw in a few new buttons if you'd like, and by all means, use NSImageViews with screenshots of controls or views placed in them. (we're lazy!). Don't forget to copy menus. In my screenshot, I'm going to make it easy for myself and create what appears to be VoIP in iChat. Finally, dig around for the .icns of the app you're copying in its Package Contents (this is the app icon). Copy it over to your new project and set it to the application icon.

If you want to make a video, you'll need some Cocoa experience to add functionality to show off.

Step 4: Log in and modify

Once you've made your changes, copy this application over to your new account and log in. Put it in the dock and replace the existing app, and launch it. If all goes well, it should work/look the way you expected. But wait, there's one thing missing...

Step 5: Use Themes

Themes were probably never carried on in Mac OS X for this very reason, but there are still some third party apps that can change the appearance of Mac OS X. The most common of these is ShapeShifter ($20, not Universal), but you'll want probably to use UNO 1.3 (free, Universal) to achieve that rumored iLife '06 look. If you want, also use Panic's CandyBar to change icons. Once applied, these hacks should make things look right.

Step 6: Modify the "About This Mac" panel

Finally, you'll want to show everyone that you are indeed running the real thing. The best way to do this is by changing the about box. Navigate to System ▸ Library ▸ CoreServices and edit the file named SystemVersion.plist. Edit the key named "ProductUserVisibleVersion" and change it to "10.5 Pre-release" or similar. Save it (you'll need to change the permissions of the file) and open the about box. Voila!



Step 7: Snap & Edit

Take your screenshot using CMD-Shift-3 (full desktop screenshots are more convincing for obvious reasons). Now it is time to open this picture in Photoshop and change it to your delight. Forgot to add a button? Want to add a menu icon? (the Boot Camp icon is popular up there) A transition? It's easy with Photoshop! Also, be sure to throw in the strangest things that no one has even thought of yet. This is sure to make your screenshot more authentic. I made the Photo Booth icon blue, and made some other minor tweaks.

Clearly this screenshot is straight from the latest Leopard build.

Step 8: Submit like crazy

Submit your screenshots to all the major rumor sites as well as places like Flickr and Digg. Get people talking about them.

Congratulations. If you've followed this guide directly, you've probably fooled all the rumor sites into thinking your screenshots are the real deal. That is, at least until WWDC.

And yes, I do believe that all screenshots/videos up to this point are 100% undeniably fake.