OS X document icon missing

[Paul Dupuis]

On 10/17/2023 8:11 PM, J. Landman Gay via use-livecode wrote:
> How do I force Finder to show a custom document icon? I've created 
> .icns files for both the app and its documents. I entered a custom 
> extension in standalone settings. In a built standalone the app icon 
> appears normally but an associated stack document has only a generic 
> blank icon.
>
> I used Get Info to set the document stacks to always open with my app 
> (and it does) but the icon still does not appear. The plist does 
> contain the correct icon info and both .icns files are present in the 
> app's Contents/Resources/ folder.
>
> It looks like a Finder problem but relaunching Finder didn't fix it. 
> Ideas?
>
> LC 9.6.10.

I don't think this is related to the problem (above) you have. If you 
have identified the document extension in the Standalone setting for 
macOS and set an ics file of icons (or the appropriate sizes required by 
Apple) than documents created by that app should display the icon. I'd 
double check that the Docunmet extension and Document Type (if you're 
using Types) in the setting match what the file is actually using. I've 
had an extra character (sometime a space which is hard to see) in the 
past that took me a bit to figure it out.

Unrelated, if you ever need more than one document type, below is some 
code I run 'on standaloneSaved' to modify the plist to add additional 
document types and icon sets to my macOS app.

     put tMac64BuildFolder&tAppName&".app/Contents/Info.plist" into 
tSrcFile -- overwrite original
     --
     if there is a file tSrcFile then
       put revXMLCreateTreeFromFile(tSrcFile,true,true,false) into tTreeID
       if tTreeID begins with "xmlerr" then
         answer error "<p>Error reading XML plist file for updating 
document types during build.</p><p>"&tTreeID&"</p>"
       else
         -- list of document types <name>,<icon file><extension>,<type 
code><cr>
         put "HyperRESEARCH Study,StandaloneDoc.icns,hs2,HRs2"&cr into 
tDocTypes
         put "HyperRESEARCH Tools,StandaloneTool.icns,rwtl,RWTL"&cr 
after tDocTypes
         put "HyperRESEARCH Study Package,StandalonePackage.icns,hsz,HSZ 
"&cr after tDocTypes
         put "HyperRESEARCH Study 
Package,StandalonePackage.icns,hs4z,HS4Z" after tDocTypes
         -- XML template
         put 
"<dict>"&cr&"<key>CFBundleTypeExtensions</key>"&cr&"<array>"&cr&"<string>[[tExtension]]</string>"&cr&"</array>"&cr 
into tXMLTemplate
         put 
"<key>CFBundleTypeIconFile</key>"&cr&"<string>[[tIconFile]]</string>"&cr&"<key>CFBundleTypeName</key>"&cr 
after tXMLTemplate
         put 
"<string>[[tDocName]]</string>"&cr&"<key>CFBundleTypeOSTypes</key>"&cr&"<array>"&cr&"<string>[[tTypeCode]]</string>"&cr 
after tXMLTemplate
         put 
"</array>"&cr&"<key>CFBundleTypeRole</key>"&cr&"<string>Editor</string>"&cr&"</dict>"&cr 
after tXMLTemplate
         -- add document types under parent <plist><dict><array> at end
         repeat for each line tDocType in tDocTypes
           put item 1 of tDocType into tDocName
           put item 2 of tDocType into tIconFile
           put item 3 of tDocType into tExtension
           put item 4 of tDocType into tTypeCode
           put merge(tXMLTemplate) into tNodeContents
           revXMLAppend tTreeID, "/plist/dict/array",tNodeContents
         end repeat
         -- output updated plist
         get empty -- clear 'it' for any possible error from revXMLText 
that places the error in 'it'
         put revXMLText(tTreeID,,true) into tXMLText
         if it is not empty then
           answer error "<p>Error writing updated XML plist 
file.</p><p>"&it&"</p>"
         end if
         put uniDecode(uniEncode(tXMLText),"UTF8") into URL 
("file:"&tSrcFile)
       end if
     end if