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Hardcoded Folder Icons in macOS

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Re: Hardcoded Folder Icons in macOS

#111

Post by gattilorenz »

whalesalad wrote: post #75
st3fan wrote: post #70

Wait until they find out you can simply paste a new icon on any folder! Some great old skool ones at https://freeware.iconfactory.com/icons Just look at those .. so good .. https://i.imgur.com/0fMNFFX.png

For a period I was replacing my vscode icon with a dark one, but every app update (which is fairly frequent) would clobber it. https://github.com/dhanishgajjar/vscode-icons

Years ago I needed to run from time to time a very old version of XCode (2.X while the current one was 3.X). I opened the original icon of the old app in Gimp, turned the blueprint to a red hue, and replaced it. Easy to tell what you have open in the dock!

Re: Hardcoded Folder Icons in macOS

#112

Post by alephaleph »

unfunco wrote: post #33
rahoulb wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be hard to believe now, but there was a time when iTunes was a great piece of software. It used to have two jobs - play your music and manage your music - and it had a good UI for both tasks. iTunes had a "brushed metal" interface - the Apple HIG said brushed metal was for apps that represent "devices", as opposed to standard "Aqua" (or "Platinum" if you go back far enough) for apps which represent "documents"…

I used to use Disco, the website is still alive: https://discoapp.com When a CD was burning, smoke would emanate from the app, and if you blew on your microphone the smoke would disperse.

is the website still alive? getting a bad certificate and if I push past it I get a "Coming Soon"

Re: Hardcoded Folder Icons in macOS

#113

Post by jeroenhd »

jameshart wrote: post #53
jeroenhd wrote: post #42

This reminds me of the "magical" CLSID folder names you can use in Windows to embed special folders in your filesystem. This can be quite useful as some of the hidden functionality includes an overview of many conntrol panel settings usually hidden deep within the directory structure. Plus, applications can register their own special panes if they wish, allowing you to use Windows Explorer as a front-end for your app…

Pasting (or dragging) icons into the folder info window is the UI for it.

Is it? Following the macOS paradigm, I'd expect dragging a file to the folder icon to place the file inside that folder.

Re: Hardcoded Folder Icons in macOS

#114

Post by whalesalad »

behnamoh wrote: post #94
whalesalad wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a period I was replacing my vscode icon with a dark one, but every app update (which is fairly frequent) would clobber it. https://github.com/dhanishgajjar/vscode-icons

I wrote a script and aliased it so that after each vsc update I just run the script to replace its icon. vscode’s icon is so bland and boring, it’s also hard to distinguish from other apps cause nowadays lots of apps use blue colored icons.

way too many macOS icons are set on a rounded white rectangle which definitely reduces your ability to quickly identify an app. miss the old days of unique app icon silhouettes because it definitely helps with quickly identifying the app.

Re: Hardcoded Folder Icons in macOS

#115

Post by frosted-flakes »

jeroenhd wrote: post #113
jameshart wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pasting (or dragging) icons into the folder info window is the UI for it.

Is it? Following the macOS paradigm, I'd expect dragging a file to the folder icon to place the file inside that folder.

Paste it into the Get Info (Properties) window, not the folder itself.

Windows method isn't much better, with that miniscule non-resizable horizontally-scrolling icon picker that doesn't scroll with the scroll wheel, so you have to click the scrollbar arrows like a caveman. I like to use the briefcase folder icon for my Projects folder (I think it's located inside C:\Windows\system32\imageres.dll).

Re: Hardcoded Folder Icons in macOS

#117

Post by mthoms »

kitsunesoba wrote: post #107
dhosek wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn’t even have to be an icon. For my digital copies of DVDs, I change the icon to the cover of the DVD by copying the image to the clipboard, doing cmd-I on the file, selecting the icon in the upper left corner and pasting the image in place of the icon. The default view for the folder with all the DVD rips has large icons and black text on a black background to hide the file names (for aesthetics). I miss the…

I don't remember their names, but there used to be apps that would take a raw cover image and place it in a nicely rendered CD/DVD cover template to produce a pseudophotorealistic cover icon which you could then paste on rips. The Mac customization scene used to be a pretty vibrant place… you can still see traces of it but it's dwindled over the years.

There's an app called "image2icon" which does this quite well. It's part of Setapp. It also does folders, etc.

Re: Hardcoded Folder Icons in macOS

#118

Post by kridsdale1 »

raldi wrote: post #56
xattt wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please stop describing something I remember experiencing like yesterday the same way they talk about ox ploughs at a pioneer village museum.

Now, we’re didn’t have Bluetooth back then like you do today, so we used to plug our headphones in through that little hole you see on the side of every computer. I bet you've always wondered what that hole was for! We used to have them on our phones, too, only back then they didn't have wifi and we called them iPods...

I was having an awful time yesterday using a white noise file to drown out office sounds. My Bluetooth connection kept dropping for a few ms and the white noise would cut to silence. So I rooted around and found the proper analog cable for my Bose to plug in to the MacBook Pro.

No hole.

Re: Hardcoded Folder Icons in macOS

#119

Post by kridsdale1 »

shaunsingh0207 wrote: post #86
rahoulb wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blowing the smoke away is a great touch. I miss that kind of thing - the closest we get nowadays is when things bounce or shake a little bit as you interact with them. I guess this is what Gruber was talking about recently - stuff that wouldn't go on a spreadsheet of features but make you want to use the app just because it does stuff like this.

Another similar example, blowing into the microphone would spin the title name around on 3ds games (and poking/blowing at random things in game would sometimes do fun stuff too!) Those tiny details and fun little things here and there are what people remember in 10-20 years. I wish developers did them more

I suspect these things happened because of waterfall development style. If you finish the product with time before the launch date, you can add in some fun.

Now, everyone uses Agile-ish, and software is NEVER finished. You always have a backlog. Those are always going to be more important to your PM than an Easter Egg.

Re: Hardcoded Folder Icons in macOS

#120

Post by raldi »

kridsdale1 wrote: post #118
raldi wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now, we’re didn’t have Bluetooth back then like you do today, so we used to plug our headphones in through that little hole you see on the side of every computer. I bet you've always wondered what that hole was for! We used to have them on our phones, too, only back then they didn't have wifi and we called them iPods...

I was having an awful time yesterday using a white noise file to drown out office sounds. My Bluetooth connection kept dropping for a few ms and the white noise would cut to silence. So I rooted around and found the proper analog cable for my Bose to plug in to the MacBook Pro. No hole.

How did you plug it in without a hole?
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