OS X applications and services often contain a number of hidden settings that can be used to tweak your Mac's behavior to improve performance or provide an option that is not available by default. To manage these hidden options, you can use the "defaults" terminal command to edit the target preferences file associated with a service and manually adjust a variable's value.
Since the defaults command performs these edits in a single line in the Terminal, it is relatively easy to use and is often suggested as a way to edit property list (plist) files, which are the default format for preferences in OS X.
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The property list format is simply an XML-based arrangement of variables (called "keys") and their associated values. Programs often are coded to have a number of variables that can be set to non-default values. Often these are for debugging purposes when the program is in development, but some control the settings that users access through the program's preferences window.
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