Murphy Mac

In a previous screencast we used Photoshop to make an image suitable for a folder icon in Leopard. Now we’ll turn that Photoshop file into an icon and apply it to the Finder folder.

It’s probably more steps than you might have guessed, but it’s very straight-forward once you have all the tools in place. Murphy installed the Developer Tools from the Leopard install DVD which include a utility called Icon Composer. The first step is to drag the Photoshop file we created earlier into Icon Composer. The icon is created in various sizes appropriate for Leopard and we export to an icns file.

The catch is that the icns file doesn’t use its own icon content as its icon. That sounds confusing, but when you see the file you’ll know it’s not right. The background isn’t transparent. But that’s no problem. Just drop the icns file onto an application called IconDroplet. A new file will be created that uses the icns file’s content as the icon.

From there, the process may be familiar. Open the Get Info panel for the file created with IconDroplet. Select the tiny icon in the top left corner and hit Command-C on the keyboard to make a copy. Then open the Get Info Panel for a the folder or file that needs a new icon. Select its tiny icon and hit Command-V to paste it in. That’s it.

If you’re confused Murphy slapped a screencast together. For a general look at changing icons on files there’s an old post on the subject too. But keep in mind, using an icns file is the way to go for best results in different Finder views, like Cover Flow.

The folders in Leopard definitely have a certain look and feel. Just open your home folder in Cover Flow or Icon view and the style jumps out at you. We’re going to show you how to make a folder with the same look, based on your own image.

Murphy downloaded a template posted by guifa on the Mac Rumors forums. You can download the template when you’re ready to get started.

The template includes two layers that look like a Finder folder. The top folder layer is masked by the layer below it. When you add content to the mask that content is etched into the top folder layer. If you’re good with Photoshop you’ll probably do better than Murphy did. You can even add a subdued bit of color if that’s what you’re after.

Guifa knows his way around Photoshop. He used an unsharp mask because hard edges work best in the mask layer. He also applied some blur effects to kill artifacts in the image. If you’re not a Photoshop wizard you can still probably come up with something decent. Your image will end up small on your folders, so you won’t notice every imperfection you spot while editing in Photoshop.

In the tutorial Murphy shows how the mask layer and a folder layer are combined in Photoshop, clipping the contents of the folder layer. Then he takes a VMware Fusion logo and selects it. (Murphy wants a custom folder for storing his virtual machines) With that selection active he clicks on the mask layer and starts painting - black with the brush tool. The mask layer has shadow effects applied to it, as well as lowered opacity. The end result is a custom image that matches up well with the folders that ship in Leopard.

When your image is ready check out this post and apply it to a file or folder.

Note: This isn’t Murphy’s normal screencast layout. We’re trying something new. We suggest you right-click and download the Quicktime file rather than playing it in your web browser. The navigation doesn’t seem to work quite right in a browser.

The Get Info panel in Leopard’s Finder has some exciting new features. If you wanted to transfer an icon from one file to another in Tiger you had to open a Get Info panel for each file and copy-paste it. Now you can just drag the file to the destination file’s Get Info panel.

The panel also has a proxy icon in its title bar, so you can make a move, copy, or make an alias, right from the panel. Do you think that’s one of the 300 features?

The image for this post is one of the old, lame Get Info panels from Tiger. Notice the total lack of proxy icon.

Did you know you can drag files to the Preview icon in the panel too? You can add files to a folder by dragging them into the folder’s preview in the Finder Get Info panel.

Haven’t upgraded yet? I bet you will after seeing the screencast.

Your Mac has thousands of files tucked inside. Which files are taking up tons of space? It’s not always obvious as you peruse your home folder in the Finder.

You could make a Smart Folder and tell it to show you files over a certain size. Or you could open the Inspector and click all over the place looking for a folder stuffed with nine hundred raw image files. But there’s another way.

Donation-ware Disk Inventory X is a handy little application for quickly spotting the space hogs on your Mac. The program creates a graphical representation - called a treemap - of your disk (disks) with larger files displayed as large color-coded blocks. Large folders are also readily apparent, with their contents shown as tiny little blocks.

The interface is well-designed - making it easy to hop around the large occupants on your drives. A path is displayed showing the location of a selected block. A floating window can provide detailed information about each file. Disk Inventory X also has options to reveal files in Finder or delete them through a handy control-click menu.

It’s not the only way to manage your disk space - but it’s fast and well-designed. If you need to find some quick candidates for deletion Disk Inventory X could be the tool you’re looking for.

This was Murphy’s second entry in the Macinstruct tutorial contest. Murphy didn’t win anything. Maybe next year. If you want to check out the winning entries follow this link and take a look at numbers 26, 6, and 18. They’re the winners. Congrats!

We posted something like this last year, but this screencast does things just a little bit differently. Instead of showing hidden files in Finder to set the background image Murphy uses the ln command in Terminal to create a soft link to the image file. One advantage is that you don’t have to go back and turn off the display of hidden files when you’re done.

Murphy thinks this is a great way to send someone files - if you know the recipient is using a Mac. Using your company logo as a background can give your materials that extra touch that sets them apart.

Click here to see Murphy’s original custom dmg post.

NOTE:  This isn’t working the same way in Leopard.  I don’t have a solution yet.