change my computer icon in leopard

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zeroatma

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I did some searches on the forums but haven't found an answer for this yet:

I have a black macbook, and the icon in my sidebar is a white macbook. I'd like to change this to be accurate to my computer. I came up with a "fix" of sorts, but I'm looking for a better one. Here's why:

In coretypes.bundle>Contents>Resources, I see both black and white macbook icons (com.apple.macbook-black.icns and com.apple.macbook-white.icns). I backed up the white one and copied the black one over the original white one. That makes my computer icon black, but it also makes my wife's white macbook have the black icon in the shared section of the sidebar.

I changed everything back, and made sure that imac.icns is the black macbook; it was originally, but I backed it up and rewrote it by copying the black macbook icon anyway. No dice, my icon is still white.

Is there any way to make the icons accurate for both my computer and my wife's? I know it's aesthetic, but now it's become a pet peeve of mine.
 
Which particular icon do you mean zeroatma? The MacintoshHD icon?

I long ago changed my MacintoshHD icon but that's the only icon in my Finder window Sidebar that I can imagine you're referring too?
 
I'm referring to the computer icon, the icon for the first item in the sidebar, assuming you have it set to show in your Finder preferences. In Leopard it's supposed to reflect the type of Mac you're working with. Similar icons will show up in the Shared category of the sidebar, showing the type of computer on that network: the icons for macs are usually accurate, and icons for Windows PCs are CRTs with the BSOD (a cute, but slightly smug, joke that Apple put in).

I want my computer icon to be the black macbook that it should be, while still showing my wife's white macbook in the Shared category. Clearly, Apple intended this to work properly, since they put the black and white macbook icons into the system.
 
Ahh, funny enough I asked if this was a Leopard feature in my previous post, then backspaced over that question ...

As I suspected you are referring to the very icon I myself modded so long ago I almost can't remember "how to" .... I'm still using Tiger (10.4.11) and the following instructions work for me and hopefully they will work for you in Leopard too ;)


  • Perform a Get Info on the MacintoshHD icon on your Desktop and look right down the bottom to the "Ownership & Permissions" section and if I recall correctly, you'll need to change them to "read/write" by clicking the padlock to unlock it and after changing the "Owner" to your user name using the pull-down menu. Apply the Admin Username & Password.

Now you should be able to continue on to changing the MacintoshHD icon to a Black MacBook.

  • Keep the Get Info window open for the meantime and navigate to and click the Black Macbook icon and perform a Get Info on it.

  • In the Get Info window, click to highlight the small Black MB icon in the upper left of the window.

  • Press  C to copy the Black MB icon and go to the first Get Info window (where you altered the Ownership details) and highlight the little White MB icon in the upper left and press  V to paste the Black MB icon over the top of the White icon.

  • If nothing happens just repeat the last action but press a little harder or use the Edit menu in the Menubar.

  • Once the icon has been replaced to your satisfaction, please change the Ownership back to "System", lock the Padlock and close the Get Info window

  • To reverse the change you'll need to once again change the ownership for the System icon and then simply hightlight the icon by selecting it and press  X and the icon will (should) revert to the System default White MB icon.



.
 
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The directions look fine except for one little problem: when I go to permissions, it's actually now Sharing & Permissions, and there is no apparent way to specify the Owner; I can set permissions for different individuals and groups, but can't set the Owner.

Changing icons in general isn't a problem, but changing the icon for the computer doesn't work with copy & paste
 
Hello zeroatma :)

As I'm still running on Tiger and wasn't aware of any "things to watch out for in Leopard" I add the following to the above.

Have a read through this and hopefully you will be able progress with things. There is a section covering the Sharing & Permissions part and as I suspected as there is no specific way to change the "owner", to have the desired effect you would just change it for "everyone".

Please remember to change whatever you altered in the Get Info window back to the default settings before you close the window.

Here it is:

Can't add custom icon to hard drive in Leopard:

There are several possible problems:

A. The Copy/Paste function of GetInfo has had a nervous breakdown, relaunching Finder fixes this (until next time). Sometimes using Copy/Paste from the Edit menu is a better option than the keyboard shortcuts, because you can see whether Paste is available or greyed out. If it is greyed out then that could be because nothing got copied to the clipboard, or because you don't have permission to alter that item.

B. A strange permissions glitch (or new "feature") about adding an icon to the drive or various other folders that don't belong to you--hey, in order to change settings for even your very own files you have to click the lock icon at the bottom of the GetInfo window and give your password! It is possible things have gotten a bit over-zealous in this area.

C. The Finder is asleep at the switch and even though the Paste function is active and you select Paste, nothing appears to have happened. Actually it has, Finder is just not registering and displaying the change. Again, force relaunching Finder will cause it to act correctly.

What to do depends on which of the above is the cause of the problem. So, when you do a copy of the icon you want to use, can you paste it to a test folder? If you then do GetInfo on the drive, after successfully pasting the icon on a folder, is Paste available from the Edit menu?

If it isn't you should be able to make it available by clicking the lock at the bottom of the GetInfo window, give your password, then in the Sharing & Permissions section click the tiny double arrows next to "Read Only" for everyone and change it to "Read & Write" and then try again. Be sure to change it back before you close the GetInfo window.​
Click to expand...
 
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No such luck. Even after doing all this, Paste is grayed out when I have the computer icon highlighted in the Get Info window for it.

I'm guessing from this that this icon setting must somehow be unique. I have changed every other icon I want to, including hard drives, applications, etc. just not this one icon. Odd that Apple included icons for both black and white macbooks, but somehow doesn't differentiate between the two. And with the new line of MacBooks, I doubt this will ever get resolved.
 
zeroatma, do you have another user account to test whether it's possible to change the HD icon at all on your MB? It is very odd that you've had no luck with it. Maybe you should boot up from your Install DVD and run Disc Utility to repair Permissions?

I know you're probably fed up with it all but I'm fine with helping out still ;)
 
I certainly appreciate the effort ^__^

The HD icon is no problem, I got that one changed. It's the computer icon that's not working correctly.
 
Just for clarification sake, we are talking about this icon?

20081203-xu7yxhyb8pwd8xcuwkbubs6pen.png
 
I should have thought to put up a pic to begin with...

I'm talking about the icon for the computer, mine is named Radiant Garden
Picture1.png


Looking at another MacBook on the network in CoverFlow shows the big version of the icon
Picture2.png


I want my icon to be the black MacBook (com.apple.macbook-black.icns in coretypes.bundle>Contents>Resources), while leaving others' MacBooks (i.e. seen over the network) white (com.apple.macbook-white.icns)
 
OK, we are on the same track but there are obvious differences between Tiger/Leopard but at least we are talking about changing the same icon.

But ... we need to back up a little ...

There are a few previously mentioned steps that need further clarification.

  1. If you bring up the Get Info for Radiant Garden (great name BTW) and look down at the bottom section for Permissions etc, you told me you can't see any option to change the "Owner".
  2. Do you mean it's there but grayed out? Or it's no longer an available feature in Leopard?
  3. Is it possible to change the Permissions to 'Read/Write' on the Radiant Garden icon at all?
  4. Have you rebooted your MB recently, it may be something that you need to do now to see if you still aren't allowed to change the icon.
  5. Did you try booting from the Install DVD and running Disc Utilities Repair Permissions, then trying once again to see if doing so makes any difference?



I haven't mentioned this so far but there are 3rd Party solutions like CandyBar etc, for changing System icons but I prefer not to recommend them due to certain *yucky* experiences I've had in the past.

Finally, can you please post a screenie of the Ownership & Permissions section of the Get Info window?

Oh, I just remembered something I thought of earlier .... I wondered what would be the effect if you moved the white MB icon from Coretypes.bundle ~> Contents ~> Resources to your Desktop and left the black MB icon there ... if you then rebooted, would the black MB icon automatically become the default icon for Radiant Garden?

I'm just thinking out aloud ... I wouldn't like to see anything bad come out of your tweaking things and hope you have made a recent backup just in case!

But ... as the white MB icon is still sitting on your Desktop and can be safely returned to it's previous location, it might be worth consideration ....

Another idea was to boot from a bootable drive other than your Primary HD and try to change the icon that way. If you can change Radiant Garden's icon then you would reset your Primary drive as the Startup Disc in System Preferences and reboot, then check to see whether or not the change was still applied.


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I'll take a look into the suggestions you posted, see if anything works. I like the "move the white icon out temporarily" suggestion, I'll try that first ^__^

In the meantime, here's what the GetInfo pane looks like when I Get Info on Radiant Garden (thanks, wish I could take credit for the name, I got it from a video game *blush*)
Picture2-1.png


Not so useful really, but here's the Info pane for the HD
Picture1-1.png


As you can see, there is no longer an Owner option at all. It's locked, but I can unlock it, change permissions to Read&Write for everyone, and the copy/paste technique fails, because when the icon is highlighted in the Radiant Garden info pane, Paste is grayed in the Edit menu. Your suggestions in "steps" 4 and 5 may help, so I'll try them out.

BTW, at least for the Leopard version of CandyBar, there is no way to change this particular system icon anyway.

I'll report tomorrow after I have some time to try your suggestions.
 
I was also wondering if you upgraded to Leopard yourself, what type of upgrade method you employed or if you bought the MB with Leopard installed that would rule out my theory regarding the type of upgrade having something to do with this strange phenomenon.

You could try changing the "Everyone" permissions to Read & Write, then lock the padlock up and reboot then try the copy/paste trick.

Have you another user account or an admin account you can try this out in other than your account ... it's so odd because there are so many who have successfully modded their Macintosh HD icon in Leopard so it is possible, it's just that there appears to be an invisible obstacle between you and your objective ....

Please do that backup as one can never stipulate enough the need to have a fresh backup. :)

I'll keep an eye on this thread to see how things are going.
 
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