10.5: Change the 'active app' dock indicators
Nov 06, '07 07:30:07AM
Contributed by: meckardt
If you don't like the new golwing blobs under a running application's icon you might want to change this sooner or later. Choose Finder » Go » Go to Folder, type the following, and click Go or press Return:
/System/Library/CoreServices/Dock.app/Contents/Resources/
This will navigate you right into the resources of the Dock. We are interested in these files:
- indicator_large.png
- indicator_medium_simple.png
- indicator_medium.png
- indicator_small_simple.png
- indicator_small.png
Here's what to do:
- Copy these files to your Desktop or any folder you have access to.
- Make an backup of the original files by compressing all five of them.
- Open these PNG graphics in Photoshop or any other graphics editor capable of handling transparency.
- Change the color as you like it, or change both the form and color. You should not change the pixel size of the images. How about yellow arrows or red squares?
- Save the changes back as PNG with transparency on.
- Copy all the edited graphics back into the Resources folder you opened earlier. You will be asked to enter the administrator's password before you are allowed replace the originals with your versions.
- In the Terminal application, enter the command killall Dock to restart the Dock in order to make your changes visible.
[robg adds: If you're using the 2D dock everywhere, you only need to change the "_simple" indicators. I would also suggest running Disk Utility's Repair Permissions when you're done, as your modified files will have different settings than the defaults. It's not necessary, though, as the Dock will work just fine without doing so.]
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