Changing Icons on the Mac

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26th November 2001

CHANGING ICONS ON THE MAC

Ken Ross

petlibrary@bigfoot.com

There are two methods to do it - it's down to personal choice as to which suits you best .

CHEAP & CHEERFUL METHOD

In System 7, (and above), you can change the icon for any disk, file or folder. Select the item whose icon you want to change and choose Get Info from the File menu. The item's icon will appear in the upper-left corner of the Get Info window. Click on it and a box will appear around it. At that point you can paste in a new icon. (You can also copy the icon onto the Clipboard, if you want to paste it somewhere else).

You can paste any graphic for the icon and the Mac will automatically resize it to normal icon size. (For this reason, large graphics usually do not make good icons--they become ugly blobs when they are shrunk way down). The icons will only change in Icon view and Small Icon view, not in list views.

You can also change an item's icon to a generic one for that item's type, a blank folder, document, etc., by selecting the existing icon and hitting [command] [x].

USING RESEDIT TO CHANGE / CREATE ICONS
(a more thorough method)

Start ResEdit. Using the file menu open the item whose icon you want to change. There should be an item listed as "Icon" in there somewhere. Opening some items will ask if they should open it as it'll add a resource fork as they've not got one (yes - if you want icons!). From the Resource menu select Create New Resource. It then offers you an option list of resources available.

(Editor: as someone without a Mac the above paragraph is complete double Dutch to me. Hopefully Mac users will have a chance at what is meant. In the meantime I am expecting an English translation in the New Year).

The icon resources available either way are:

ICON	-	32-by-32-bit icon used in dialogs, alerts, and menus.
SICN	-	16-by-16-bit small icon lists used in menus and some applications.
ICN#	-	32-by-32-bit icon the Finder uses on the desktop. Includes a shadow-like mask.
cicn	-	Colour icon. Size can vary, (from 8-by-8 to 64-by-64 bit). Can include a black and white version used when colour isn't available.

icl4	-	32-by-32-bit icon, 16 colours.
icl8	-	32-by-32-bit icon, 256 colours.
ics#	-	16-by-16-bit icon. Black-and-white, includes a mask.
ics4	-	16-by-16-bit icon, 16 colours.
ics8	-	16-by-16-bit icon, 256 colours.

To handle all these icon types, ResEdit has five editors. Each of the first four icon types listed has its own editor. The last five icon types are related, so you can edit them all in one editor. This is the icon family editor, which is a basic paint program. Just click on the icl icon itself to get it.
(icl8 is my personal preference to start with).

After satisfactorily creating in the work area your masterpiece, just drag it onto the other icon squares on the right hand side of the window. Finally, close and save.

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