Change Icons (Advanced)

[i.shaun]

for NetNewsWire, I want to see if I can have 2 icons for it to use. The main application icon is easy to swap, with the usual "get info" method.

The other icon is eluding me. When there are new or updated feeds, I have it set to badge the icon. When it does this, I get the default icon with a little number displaying the amount of unread articles.

Is there a way to replace that as well, so I can have 2 icons that it switches between when it is either inactive or has news/updates?



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I managed to change Adium's animated icons via navigating to Adium>"show package contents">Contents>Resources>Dock Icons. Inside there are adium icon packages.

Copy or Duplicate one of them to work with, "show package contents" and replace every image in there with a custom *.png image. Make sure the file names all match what the original images were, you're just replacing them.

After you have the new icon images in, simply open the *.Plist file, and find (on one of the first few lines) where it says name, give it a custom name. Go back out and edit the name of the duplicate icon package to a new name, but keep the *.AdiumIcon extension.

There you have it, without any programming (writing a new plist file) you have a Custom Adium Icon. I set mine to Domo Kun:

edit: you have to change the icon in Adium preferences to the new one you created.

 

[BlueRevolution]

I'm not sure about NetNewsWire, but did you know there's already a Domo-kun xtra for Adium?

 

[i.shaun]

I'm not sure about NetNewsWire, but did you know there's already a Domo-kun xtra for Adium?

haha no I didn't. That could have saved me some work. .

Oh well, it's not a bad thing to know how to make a custom pack, in case I later want an icon not already available as a pack.

 

[sammich]

I don't have NNW, but there must be a blank icon sitting inside Resources in the app (show package contents). iCal has an icon called App-empty.icns which iCal obviously uses to add the current date to.

 

[i.shaun]

Success!


Sorry, there was no blank icon like iCal uses, but thanks for that info -- it may prove useful for other apps such as. . iCal lol I just don't have an icon that would fit ical better than the default.



What I did was cross referenced every image in an image viewer, and found 2 that were the same. One was a PNG extension, and the other was ICNS.

I copied the icns file to the new custom icon I have (which is an RSS icon with the dot, and 2 bars extending from it like a wireless signal). I then replaced the png image with the other custom file (which is the same but without the 2 bars, as if a low or inactive wireless signal).



Now It animated as I wanted it to. A single bar for nothing, and when there is updates, the signal increases.


Thanks for the help, it may prove useful with other icons like Transmission, iCal, Mail, anything with dynamic icons.

 

[i.shaun]

This is what I have done so far, but I wish I could make the RSS smoother. I don't have the proper image editing software so I am incapable of doing much.

The RSS icon shown is full with the badge on it, the inactive or generic icon is the same but without the 2 bars, just the orange dot. When new updates come, it switches to the full 2 bars (or 3 bars if you count the dot).


Mail, and iCal are also a little different, what looks like iDVD is actually Handbrake. I wanted something that resembled a DVD and that's all I could find for now. . Adium is mr domo, and that's about it. I used a program to change Finder to the shiny apple logo, as my attempt at manually doing it before didn't turn out very well.


Edit:

Alright I found a free program called LiveQuarts which was actually linked to in the macrumor guides. It's basically what I wanted Core Image Fun House to be. It allows me to apply core image effects like color change, or distortion of images (with any supported effect, some of which are in photobooth). That's not what makes the program cool though, what sets it apart from the coreimagefunhouse found in the Developer Tools (from OS X Install DVD) is the fact that it allows me to do basic painting, and also erase the background of images.

I found the original RSS image I wanted, and re-did it with LiveQuartz. Now it is much smoother, and I also have Green, Purple, and Blue versions of the icon available.

It's not Perfect, but it looks a lot better than the one in the dock picture above.