Customizing the Dock
For Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther)
Warning: This article involves editing system files. Following these instructions is at your own risk. InterfaceLIFT and Matthew Bice are not responsible for any damage you may cause to your system.
The Finder and Trash Can icons that you see in the Dock are located inside the Dock.app application package. To change these hard-coded icons, you will need to edit the PNG files contained within Dock.app's application package.
Launch the Terminal application and enter the following command to change to the directory where Dock icons are stored:
cd /System/Library/CoreServices/Dock.app/Contents/Resources
Next, make a backup copy of all .png documents in this folder. Only perform this step the first time you follow these directions. Otherwise you risk over-writing your original icons.
sudo mkdir BACKUPS sudo cp *.png BACKUPS/
Change the permissions on the icon files so that you can edit them.
sudo chmod o+w *.png
Now open this directory in the Finder using the following terminal command:
open .
You are now free to edit any of the .png files as you normally would using tools such as Iconographer or Adobe Photoshop, for example. Below is a listing of files you may be interested in editing:
Decide which icons you would like to replace and download suitable replacements from from InterfaceLIFT. Open the new icon using the Iconographer. Then choose Edit: Copy: Icon and Mask from the menu (or type command-shift-c).
Next, you will need to allow yourself write access to the Resources folder so you can replace Apple's PNG files with your customized ones. To do this, click anywhere inside the Resources folder to select it. Do not click on one of the icons inside the folder. Now select Get Info from the File (or type command-i). Click on the disclosure triangle for Ownership & Permissions. Click on the lock button and then change the Owner of the file to yourself. Enter your password when prompted (your account must have Administrator priviledges in order for this to work).
Now you are free to replace the existing PNG icons with your own customized versions. I strongly recommend that you save backup copies of the originals so that you can change back to them at a later date. Please do not email me asking for these original files. I cannot send them to you.
Once you have replaced the appropriate resources, you should change the permission back to their original state. Set the Owner of the Resources folder back to 'system'.
Before the new Dock resources will take effect you need to delete the Dock preferences. From the finder select Go To Folder... from the Go menu (or type command-shift-g) and enter the following path:
/Library/Caches/
Delete the file named 'com.apple.dock.iconcache.[yourusername]' and then restart the Dock. This can be done simply by logging out and logging back into your account. If you are comfortable with the Terminal, you could also send a kill signal to the Dock process and let it automatically relaunch.
The icons you altered should now be reflected in the Dock. As you may have noticed, there are additional resources inside of Dock.app that are worth changing, notably the Dock poof. Additional customizations are left as an exercise for the reader.
Written by Matthew Bice for InterfaceLIFT.com. Edited and expanded by InterfaceLIFT.