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Customizing OS X - Part 1 of 5 |
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 Every day I get e-mailed hundreds of questions. Most of them are from women asking for just a little piece of the iKen, but I do get a lot of Mac questions as well. A good majority of these go something like this:
"Dear iKen, I wish I could be as cool as you. I know your desktop has to be super sweet. Can you bestow upon me your wisdom of customizing different aspects of OS X?
Sincerely,
Faithful 2 Guy's Visitor
P.S. My girlfriend wanted me to ask if she could get a little "something something from iKen". I don't know what she is talking about, but she said you would know."
Well, to all the faithful 2 Guy's visitors out there, I bring to you a 5 part series on customizing OS X over the next 5 days. Starting today with how to customize your dock.
Before we begin, I just want to tell you that I made a default account with admin privileges (You will need that for most of the hacks) under the name "Mike Oxbig". (because, quite frankly, it is.) So lets take a look at what we start with. Here is Mac OS X in all it's default-ness.
Now let's get started!
The dock is awesome. Not only is it extremely useful, it is also extremely pretty. But it is always cooler to have your own custom dock. The first thing you can do is change the color of it, or remove the background completely. To do that we use ClearDock. But before you go all willy-nilly and install ClearDock, you need to install something called APE Manager. No APE Manager isn't something used in the zoo to keep primates from running through the park ripping peoples arms off while throwing poop at each other. APE stands for APplication Enhancer, and it does exactly what it says. It enhances applications.
Now APE Manager itself doesn't help with the dock, but the modules you can get for it - now they can help. After you finish installing APE Manager, install ClearDock, and BAM! All of a sudden you have a clear dock (what a ingenious name!). Although it's cool to have a clear dock, let's go ahead and work with the ClearDock preferences and make the dock a neat shade of black, and change the application triangle color a pretty shade of red. To do that, just open System Preferences after installing the two programs, and click on APE Manager. There you can select ClearDock, and you are on your way.
Now the dock looks like this:
OK, now that we have a new color for our dock, lets install a nifty little program called TinkerTool. After installation, just open system preferences, and click on TinkerTool. Now, with TinkerTool, you can do all kinds slick shit. But for today we are going to focus on the "Dock" tab. Let's go ahead and put a check in "Use transparent icons for hidden icons in the Dock", and "Enable Dock shadow". You can also change the placement, and the transitions with another effect called "Suck In" which incidentally doesn't suck. So lets take a look at the dock with a transparent, hidden icon.
| All right, I know what you're saying. You're saying "the dock looks nice and all, but what about the icons?" Just hold your horses. I am getting to that. First of all, the way the dock works with application icons is really cool, but if you're anything like me, you have a poop-load of applications, and you want quick access to all of them. But you hate having all those icons in the dock. So, one easy way to have access to several applications in the dock, with out taking up a lot of space is to use folders in the dock with aliases in them. |
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This wouldn't be too great with a one button mouse, but if you have more than one button, you can right-click on the folders and select the application from the list. Thereby having quick access to all your apps, without taking up as much space. Now, we can't just have any old folder in the dock, hell no. That would look horrible. No we need custom icons. To get those, you can ether make them yourself, or head to an icon site with all kinds of kickass icons already. A couple really good icon sites are xicons.com & iconfactory.com. One of my favorite icons sets is grass icons, from xicons, I made some custom icons with the grass and added a few from the set too. Here is how that looks:
Each of the icons in the dock (with a few exceptions, one of which are folders) fit together to look like one continous entity. But for today we are going to use the MM - Quick Silver icon set, because it fits with the dock a little better. What I like to do, is make a "dock folders" folder in the root of the hard drive, or in my home folder. Then in that folder, have the dock folders with the custom icons for each category I am going to have in the dock (such as sound, image, movies, system, internet, etc.). Now, to change the icons, just control click on the custom icon, choose get info, then click on the icon in the get info window, and click edit, and choose copy. Then do the same thing with the folder, only instead of choosing copy, choose paste. Then drag all them puppies to the dock, and you can add apps right to the individual folders from the dock. Just drag the app while holding "command" (apple key) & "option" to the corresponding folder in the dock, and it will create an alias in that folder. Don't forget to get rid of all the application icons as well. Now the dock should look like this:
Wow, those folders look spiffy! But what about the finder and trash icons? Those look so plain. Well, for that we turn to a handy little app called CandyBar, and more custom icons. CandyBar will allow you to change all kinds of system icons, but for today we are going to focus on the dock section. All you have to do is drag the icon file you want to use to the corresponding icon slot.
For these icons I used "SNOW.E aqua" from xicons, and I changed the finder, and the trash empty, and trash full. I also changed the eject button, and the burn icon. After I was done it automatically re-launched the Dock, and I had my kick ass icons!
The Dock is really coming around. "But iKen," you say "When I launch an application, I still get that boring old icon in the dock!" Well, xicons to the rescue again! By using the same technique of changing the dock folder icons, we can change any application icon. For that I am going to use an icon set called Trans-Dance, it fits real well with the icons we are using.
Which changes the Safari icon:
| From this |
to this |
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Well, we have done a lot today. Our dock is looking good, but there is still plenty to do to have a customized OS. Tomorrow we will work on the Desktop. But until then, I leave a little something for the ladies, a picture of the desktop after todays festivities, and a link to part 2
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July 23 2003, 10:39 AM EDT, by
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Comments:
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| Wasabe |
7/14/03, 5:51 PM EDT |
Where in the hell is the grassundericon and grassovericon?! I can't find them to create my own grass icons :(
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| Jonahan |
7/14/03, 8:47 PM EDT |
That is sweet!
I can't believe all tha fan mail you get though - you are the man! All I've gotten was something from "Jeff" in Baltimore saying he liked my moustache...
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| iKen |
7/14/03, 8:52 PM EDT |
Wasabe, (and any one interested) my link is the grass icon set, I am also going to add the link in the story.
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| Wasabe |
7/14/03, 11:57 PM EDT |
Yes Yes Yes iKen. But Im' having trouble creating my own grass icons cause i can find the backround grass for it
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| Wasabe |
7/15/03, 1:05 AM EDT |
Okay. I got it working. Hurray! And iKen. What the hell is spongebob squarepants doing in your grass dock?
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| Wasabe |
7/15/03, 11:04 AM EDT |
New problema. I can't find where to change the finder icons info so i can make it grassy too.
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| iKen |
7/15/03, 12:22 PM EDT |
Wasabe... download candybar, you can change the finder icon in there. and BTW, sponge bob kicks ass! :)
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| Wasabe |
7/15/03, 2:10 PM EDT |
Ya. I already had candybar. I just forgot about it. So that is all fixered up now. And spongebob duse kick ass. Cept I hate the begginng of the show where the little kids go: SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS over and over and over ahhhhhh
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| Murray the K Byte |
7/15/03, 4:53 PM EDT |
Hey! Don't forget to get Hide From Dock! Ya!
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/15917
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| Rick |
7/15/03, 5:08 PM EDT |
I like the information you provide and I would gladly forward your ideas to others except for the language. How do you expect to be taken seriously by serious people when you talk like an uneducated teenager?
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| Zack |
7/21/03, 8:34 AM EDT |
Ouch, that was harsh.
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| Nazgul |
7/22/03, 12:07 PM EDT |
Hey Rick if you don't like it go *&$! yourself. Just because you use "foul language" does not mean you are uneducated.
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| Jonahan |
7/22/03, 4:36 PM EDT |
Rick, thanks for your thoughts and kind words! But us........serious!????
Shirley you must be joking. That would be like a Windows user with style. Like Steve Jobs not wearing a turtleneck. Like Gilbert Gottfried not speaking in a whiny, nasally, grinding voice. Like trying to stuff a porcupine up your......er.....nevermind that last one....
In short, I'm saying that us being serious is just not possible. Besides, would you really want to live in a world devoid of 2 Guys, A Mac, And a Website's Brand of Humor®?
(P.S. - The answer to that was supposed to be no!)
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| jonahan |
7/22/03, 4:38 PM EDT |
And Nazgul, thanks for coming to our defense there, but we have to keep it -somewhat- clean for the kiddies ;)
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This article is archived, so you may not comment on it.
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