Macintosh custom stack icons

[Ray Horsley]

My sincere thanks to Shari!  Your step-by-step help on this did the trick.
Anybody having problems getting your stacks to show up with desktop custom
icons on a Mac?  Here's how to do it.

Thanks,



Ray Horsley
Developer, LinkIt! Software





>I recently followed Shari's many notes with a lot of users regarding icons
>in Windows.  Now I'm having a similar problem on the Mac.  I've fooled with
>ResEdit and gotten document icons of my stacks to show up right, but I've
>really never understood it well.  Now for some reason my stacks are showing
>up as generic icons.  I've run Norton, rebuilt the desktop file multiple
>times, and even defragmented the whole hard disk, but nothing is bringing
>back the custom icons I originally had from my stacks.  Does anybody have
>any direction they can provide on this?
>
>Thanks!
>
>Ray Horsley

>> I've made my own stand alone using Metacard's Standalone Builder, and it
>> runs the stacks.  The stand alone (my app) shows my own custom icon, but the
>> stacks don't show theirs.
> 
> Ah... gotcha....
> 
> Only thing I forgot to ask, was WHICH flavour of Mac you are
> targeting... OSX or PPC.  The following instructions are for OSX.
> 
> You need to set the creator of the standalone, and the stacks.
> 
> Step 1:
> 
> The resource fork of the standalone, and stacks.  Firstly, the stacks
> themselves do NOT need a resource fork.  But the standalone does.  In
> the stack that will become the standalone, you should have an ic14,
> ic18, icns, ics4, and ics8 resource.  If you edit ic18, the rest
> should be edited for you automatically.  Put your standalone icon
> into resource 128 of ic18.  Put your stack icon into resource 129 and
> 130.
> 
> 
> Step 2:
> 
> When you use the Standalone Builder, there is a field "Creator" that
> has "MSTD" in it.  This is Metacard's creator code.
> 
> You'll need to use a custom code for this.  Creator codes are 4
> characters, letters or numbers, small or capital.  If you plan to
> distribute the standalone to others, you should make sure not to use
> a code already in use.  You can get creator code info at:
> 
> http://developer.apple.com/dev/cftype/faq.html
> 
> I register all mine with Apple thru this link.  And check for
> existing codes before using one, to make sure it is not already
> registered.  For Blackjack Gold I used "bJg3".
> 
> Enter this code in the "Creator" field when you build the standalone.
> 
> 
> Step 3:
> 
> You must save the icons as files, specifically ".icns" files, and put
> them into your "Resource" folder that Metacard OSX will create in the
> OSX package of your program.  Save one for the standalone, and one
> for the stacks.  Replace the Metacard .icns files with your own, and
> enter the new info into the info.plist file.
> 
> The CFBundleTypeIconFile should be your icon for the stacks, for
> Blackjack Gold, I called the stack icon "Data.icns"
> 
> <key>CFBundleTypeIconFile</key>
> <string>Data.icns</string>
> 
> The CFBundleIconFile should be your icon for the standalone, for
> Blackjack Gold, I called the standalone icon "Gold.icns"
> 
> <key>CFBundleIconFile</key>
> <string>Gold.icns</string>
> 
> The CFBundleSignature is your creator code.
> 
> <key>CFBundleSignature</key>
> <string>bJg3</string>
> 
> I've attached the actual plist file I used for Blackjack Gold, so you
> can see the other changes I made to Metacard's.
> 
> Step 4:
> 
> The pkgInfo file.
> 
> Open it, and change the text to "APPLXXXX", where XXXX is your creator code.
> 
> Step 5:
> 
> The standalone, and the stacks, should be in the MacOS folder of the package.
> 
> 
> 
> Step 5:
> 
> Open the resource for of the standalone with ResEdit or a similar
> program.  There should be a resource named your chosen creator code.
> There should be the ic** series, and each one should have 128 as the
> standalone icon, and 129-130 as the stack icon.  Except for icns,
> which you just leave alone.
> 
> Open the BNDL resource and edit 128.  The signature field should be
> your creator code.  If it isn't, enter it there.
> 
> There should be two types:  APPL and MSTK.  APPL should be your
> standalone icon, MSTK should be your stack icon.  If they aren't,
> double click to edit them.
> 
> 
> Step 6:
> 
> Set the creator code of your stacks.  To do this, save your external
> stacks with stackfiletype "XXXXMSTK" where "XXXX" is your creator
> code.
> 
> In the standalone, every place it saves a stack, set the stackFileType first:
> 
> set the stackFileType to "XXXXMSTK"
> save stack someStack
> 
> 
> Step 7:
> 
> You are done.  Hopefully I haven't left anything out!
> 
> Shari C