JAN
25
Preview Tutorial - Embed Icon into Stack Drawer
Posted by Wendy
It's Something Like This..
You Only Need Preview..
The drawer above can be easily made with only your Mac OS X Leopard little humble Preview.
How to Do That?
Download Custom Drawer [1]
Original Drawer from Optica Optima
Tweaking the color, I successfully diversify the drawer into ten different drawers.
Note : Click on drawer picture to get the full-sized image.
Place Icon on Clipboard [2]
By highlighting on of your application followed by pressing Cmd-C (Copy), you've finished this step, i.e. your application icon which is highlighted has been recorded in your clipboard.
Load Icon into Preview [3]
Next, open your Preview and then choose File ▸ New From Clipboard or Cmd-N (New). Here your icon should have been loaded in Preview.
Edit Icon with only Preview [4]
You can use several cool Preview tools available :
-
Adjust Color : Tools ▸ Adjust Color (Cmd-Option-C)
- Rotate Image : Tools ▸ Rotate Left/Right (Cmd-L or Cmd-R)
-
Flip Image : Tools ▸ Flip Horizontal/Vertical
-
Crop Image : Tools ▸ Crop (Cmd-K)
-
Instant Alpha : Select ▸ Instant Alpha
Embed Icon on top of Drawer Image [5]
Open your drawer image and then hit Cmd-V. Your icon maybe looks larger than your drawer, you can shrink it by clicking circle button on the edge of your icon. Move your icon by dragging it along with your mouse cursor. After finished, hit Cmd-C to copy all of them (the icon and the drawer) into clipboard.
Replace Folder Icon [6]
This is the last step, replace your file/folder icon by opening Get Info, click on small icon on the top-left corner of the info pane and press down Cmd-V. You will see your folder icon changed accordingly.
Stack Manipulation [7]
You should give a particular name to your folder so that it will appear on top of other files, i.e. it appears on top of stack. For example, you can give the name -Coda Drawer-.
Author : wendy{at}usingmac{dot}com
COMMENTS
Francisco
January 26th, 2008 at 12:21 AM
Great job! It looks amazing!
Chris
January 26th, 2008 at 02:05 AM
Really nice. Thanks!
Tom
January 26th, 2008 at 04:39 AM
Very nice! I have seen that leaf icon before.. can you tell what program that belongs to?
Wendy
January 26th, 2008 at 07:20 AM
That leaf icon belongs to Coda.
Leon
January 26th, 2008 at 10:38 AM
Wow, these are quite beautiful, i made some black and white ones, but yours seem perfect for the theme im working on next. Would you mind sending me those in an email please.
chys
January 29th, 2008 at 04:24 PM
It's so good! Thank you for using my icon.
Himavanth B
January 30th, 2008 at 05:02 AM
what exactly i have to do i get like that 1 keep the custom made icon in the folder-after doing that it just the icon as what it shows in finder window, even if i added the icon the info window 2 add the icon to the folder n the dock-i doesn't the folder it only shows the items in it please tell me should i do get something like this image in this window
Russell
February 13th, 2008 at 12:53 AM
I copied the drawer image into preview but it is keeping the white background and i cant get rid of it.
chris27
February 13th, 2008 at 12:35 PM
Could not get it to work... Here is what I did. 1. Clicked to get enlarged image of drawer. 2. Copied it and selected New from Clipboard in Preview 3. Then decided not to modify it and pasted it on a folder located in the Home directory. The folder icon changed, and I dragged the folder to the dock. however I did notice that the new draw folder icon does no appear on the dock nor the Coverflow window. Open to suggestions... System: PowerBook G4 1.5Ghz 800 FW and Leopard 10.5.2
Wendy
February 13th, 2008 at 01:52 PM
Russell, you need to replace the icon via Get Info Pane (Command-I).
Chris, you can try this :
1. Create a new folder
2. Put previous folder into that new folder
3. Drag and Drop the new folder into Dock
luke doerge
February 15th, 2008 at 09:37 AM
it leaves a white background for me
Tomer
March 13th, 2008 at 03:06 AM
Yes, I can't get rid of the white background as well. The folder icon (command-i) is transparent, but the -Coda Drawer- file is shown with white border in Finder. In any case, I don't really understand the use of changing the folder icon, since the whole point is to display the dock icon as Stack, and not as Folder. When it's displayed as folder, only the folder icon is shown, i.e. I get an empty drawer even when there are more files in the directory. When it's displayed as stack, I always get the drawer picture as one of the files.
Yaniv Eidelstein
March 19th, 2008 at 03:40 PM
i've been using this system for a while now, and it works great, but i have a question, maybe you know the answer... the downloads stack is only useful when it gives you easy access to your most recently downloaded files. you'll notice it can be sorted three different ways: the usual "date created" and "date modified", but also the new "date added". the drawer icon i've been using has a modification date from the year 2010 so it stays on top when i sort by date modified, but how can i get it to stay constantly on top when i sort by date added? thanks in advance....
Wendy
March 19th, 2008 at 07:20 PM
Yaniv, you can use the following AppleScript to change the date added, with following lines :
--------------------------------
on adding folder items to this_folder after receiving added_items
tell application "Finder"
do shell script "mv /Users/userName/Downloads/Icon/Users/[username]/Desktop/Icon"
do shell script "mv /Users/userName/Desktop/Icon/Users/[username]/Downloads/Icon"
end tell
end adding folder items to
--------------------------------
*change [username] with yours
I got this from comment by BTGunner on one of articles inside TUAW here.
luca
March 20th, 2008 at 07:30 AM
i cant see the things in my drawer on the desktop like in the example, how come??
Janie Barron
April 19th, 2008 at 03:06 AM
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