Modify the analog clock's face

Sep 13, '05 09:20:00AM

Contributed by: imageworx

Thanks to a recent hint from murat, I have now found (by digging deeper from his starting point) where the OS X analog clock face tiffs reside. Navigate to /System -> Library -> CoreServices -> Menu Extras -> Clock.menu. Control-click on Clock.menu and choose Show Package Contents, then open Contents -> Resources, control-click on WindowClock and choose Show Package Contents. Finally, navigate into Contents -> Resources within the package. Here you will see a tiff file named Clock02.tif; this is the background for the analog clock's face. Remember: make a backup before working with this file -- drag a copy to a safe location, then drag another to your Desktop that you'll modify, for example.

In Photoshop or Graphic Converter, you can customize this clock face file. Remember that the face is transparent outside the circle. If you cut/paste artwork and flatten, this will be a problem. Instead, when I used Photoshop, I merged visible of the layer with the bottom one (the original Clock02.tif). Voila! I had my custom clockface back. I saved the file on the desktop, (Photoshop would not allow a system-level save). Then I replaced the (you did back it up, right!?) original Clock02.tif with the modified file (keep the name the same, obviously) after it asked for authentication. I logged out and back, and there was my clock. Hope this helps...

[robg adds: I played around with this, and it works -- though my lack of Photoshop skills probably meant it took more time than it should have!]

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