10.5: Make the DiskImageMounter icon appear in the Dock

Apr 17, '09 07:30:00AM

Contributed by: ChaChi

Personally, I can't stand double clicking a disk image file (.dmg) on the Desktop and not getting instant notification that the disk is being mounted. This is probably not as much of a problem on newer, faster Macs. However, depending on how many processes I have running at the time, it can take my iBook G4 a while before it displays the disk mounting progress dialog.

As a result, I often end up double-clicking a disk image more than once, thinking I may not have properly double-clicked it the first time. Often times, I've just resorted to highlighting the file and using Command+O to insure that the disk will mount soon.

Here's one way to make the DiskImageMounter application icon appear in the Dock while mounting a disk image. This will provide you with almost instantaneous notification that the disk mounting process has been successfully initiated, even if the dialog box is missing in action.

  1. Launch Terminal (in Applications » Utilities).
  2. Make a backup of DiskImageMounter.app's Info.plist file first:
      $ cd /System/Library/CoreServices/DiskImageMounter.app/Contents
      $ sudo cp Info.plist Info.BU.plist
    Provide your admin password at the Password: prompt.
  3. Use the defaults command to change the LSUIElement setting:
      $ sudo defaults write /System/Library/CoreServices/DiskImageMounter.app/Contents/Info LSUIElement 0
  4. Re-set the permissions on the Info.plist file:
      $ sudo chmod 644 /System/Library/CoreServices/DiskImageMounter.app/Contents/Info.plist
This hint may not be for everyone. It's just been something that has bothered me personally for some time now. The progress dialog doesn't take all that long to appear on my iBook. But, at times, it does take long enough for me to wonder what's going on. Having the icon appear in the Dock just gives me a little extra peace of mind. Plus, the icon immediately goes away once the disk mounting process has completed.

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