Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Help Customizing Dock Icons

M

mrbaseball0909

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 15, 2007
10
0
Hey Group!

So i learned how to make icons and customize the icons for applications. I attached a picture of my new iChat icon. It's a blue mushroom from Super Mario Bros. Now also in the picture is the red badge with the number 1 indicating i have one new message. How could i change that red badge to a coin? I have the coin image and everything.

If anyone knows how to do this, will your method also work for the Mail App?

Thanks everyone!
 

Attachments

  • Screen shot 2010-09-02 at 10.41.33 AM.jpg
    Screen shot 2010-09-02 at 10.41.33 AM.jpg
    9.3 KB · Views: 306
I haven't tested this myself but all the red badge icons can be found in the resources for mail. To get to these, go to Mail in your applications, right click and select show contents. From there go to Contents->Resources. The badge files are named dragBadge followed by a number. I believe the one you're looking at is DragBadge 1-2. Replace that with your coin and it should work.

Again though, I have not tested this so I'd suggest saving a copy of the original somewhere just in case.

P.S probably already knew this but make certain your replacement has the same file name or it won't work. Unless you do the copy / paste in the info tactic.

Good luck.
 
AcesHigh87 said:
I haven't tested this myself but all the red badge icons can be found in the resources for mail. To get to these, go to Mail in your applications, right click and select show contents. From there go to Contents->Resources. The badge files are named dragBadge followed by a number. I believe the one you're looking at is DragBadge 1-2. Replace that with your coin and it should work.

Again though, I have not tested this so I'd suggest saving a copy of the original somewhere just in case.

P.S probably already knew this but make certain your replacement has the same file name or it won't work. Unless you do the copy / paste in the info tactic.

Good luck.
Click to expand...

Aces, thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately for me it did not work. I changed all the dragBadge files and it is still using the red circle badge. I quit Mail after changing the files and reopened the app. I also sent myself mail to have the numbers change to see if it would reload or refresh. No Luck. It must be pulling the image from somewhere else in the system.

Thanks for the try
 
mrbaseball0909 said:
Aces, thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately for me it did not work. I changed all the dragBadge files and it is still using the red circle badge. I quit Mail after changing the files and reopened the app. I also sent myself mail to have the numbers change to see if it would reload or refresh. No Luck. It must be pulling the image from somewhere else in the system.

Thanks for the try
Click to expand...

Odd, not sure where else it would get the images from, although like I said I hadn't actually tried. What technique did you use to replace the images?
 
So i had made the image i wanted in photoshop, the same size 26 x 26 pixels and saved it as a TIFF file.
- I then made a copy of it in my local folder under my pictures. There i renamed the files to dragBadge1-2.tiff and did that for each one.
- From there i performed cmd-C copy and cmd-V paste into the resources file under Mail.app contents.

The computer required me to authenticate the replacement of the old files.

After that all the new files show up with a preview of the coin image i made in photoshop.
 
Would you be willing to share the coin image you used? I'd love to use that on mine.

jW
 
mrbaseball0909 said:
So i had made the image i wanted in photoshop, the same size 26 x 26 pixels and saved it as a TIFF file.
- I then made a copy of it in my local folder under my pictures. There i renamed the files to dragBadge1-2.tiff and did that for each one.
- From there i performed cmd-C copy and cmd-V paste into the resources file under Mail.app contents.

The computer required me to authenticate the replacement of the old files.

After that all the new files show up with a preview of the coin image i made in photoshop.
Click to expand...

Hmm, I would only assume that would work but apparently not. I was going to suggest it if you were using the Copy / Paste in the info technique.

In any case, check through the resources and see if another file is there though, It is also possible that it can't be changed like the iCal image. Because iCal needs to change it's icon (technically) every day it can't be changed. Since the image has a number in it each time maybe, for some reason, it can't be changed either.

However, I assume that whole last paragraph is incorrect and the image SHOULD be changeable. I'll keep trying to come up with reasons though.
 
Actually, I can add one note here. OP, you replaced the Drag Badge, not the new Mail badge. The Drag badge is what hovers over the mouse cursor when you drag a message or messages to other folders. Try doing that, you'll probably see your coin icon. I don't see in the folder an icon for the new mail badge, though I'll look around and see what I can find. Many applications use that same badge, so it may be a system shared resource, but not many things like that are, so I dunno.

jW
 
Mal said:
Actually, I can add one note here. OP, you replaced the Drag Badge, not the new Mail badge. The Drag badge is what hovers over the mouse cursor when you drag a message or messages to other folders. Try doing that, you'll probably see your coin icon. I don't see in the folder an icon for the new mail badge, though I'll look around and see what I can find. Many applications use that same badge, so it may be a system shared resource, but not many things like that are, so I dunno.

jW
Click to expand...


You are absolutely right about the drag badge. It does appear when i drag items to a new folder!

I also do not see a newmail badge. I may try creating it and see if Mail will read that or not.

Do you want the bigger Photoshop/Tiff file, or the small 26x26 pixel tiff file?
 
The larger files would be great, I can think of a few places I might use them. Thanks!

Let me know if you manage to get the badges working, too. I'll keep trying on my end too.

jW
 
So this is the 500px x 500px coin that i found. I took the indentation out of it so numbers would be okay. I think i still need to play with the perspective in photoshop to get it to work better. If you google it you can find the same one with the indentation.

Will let you know if i figure it out.

Thanks for the help
 

Attachments

  • Coin_blank.tif.zip
    379.4 KB · Views: 44
Well i thank you, but i didn't do much work on the mushroom. I found one on google and just changed the color. Then make the background a transparency and turn it into an icon.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back