Editing Apple's menu extra icons in Leopard...

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Howdy all. I decided last night to set about changing the Display menu extra icon to look like the more modern Cinema Displays just for kicks. It seems silly that Apple still is using an icon that looks like the older ones they replaced a few years ago. Anywho, in past versions of OS X, this was pretty simple. The icon consisted of a pair of .tif graphics that were easily modified and replaced. On my Powerbook running Panther, I still have a replacement in use that resembles a Powerbook.

The problem I've run into now is that for some bizarre reason, the icon Apple now uses in Leopard for the menu extras is a PDF file. I'm a bit baffled because, firstly, I didn't think PDF was an actual graphics format, and secondly, I didn't think PDF supports transparency layers. I tried modifying it anyway in Seashore and then "printing" to a PDF format, but that just didn't work out. All replacements I tried wound up giving me a blank spot on the menu. Anyone have any notion how to properly edit or recreate these particular files?

fyi... the menu extras are found in /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras
 
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Have you got Photoshop?

You could save it as a Photoshop PDF, perhaps that might have the proper thumbnails, maybe OS X is using thumbnails or preview icons that it is not getting from a print to PDF file.

What did the default icon like like in the finder

I would be interested to see also if it is a vector or raster file, could you PM me a link to an original file so that I can figure out what type of PDF it is
 
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Unfortunately I don't have Photoshop. Loading the PDF file shows it, IIRC, as having 1 "page", though I'd expect 2. I loaded the image into Seashore by a mere copy/paste action.

I can't link the file at the moment... I'm at work and no Macs here. If you have 10.5, the file is in the display menu extra package in the path as above, though needless to say, be careful fiddling in there. I'll post it later tonight if still needed. Thanks for the input.
 
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I am still on Tiger, but have all the graphic tools to figure out exactly what type of PDF it might be.

My Tiger is still using Tiffs
 
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icons in menu bar

These icons are vector pdf files that can be made or modified in illustrator.
I'm the author of iColon. At the moment I'm trying to make iColon Leopard compatible.
My biggest problem is that the icons are always displayed greyscale, so the colorized icons just look (nearly) the same as the originals... weird.
Anyone with an idea?
 
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I know this is sort of an old thread, but i was wondering if anyone figured anything out? Also Jens, if your looking for help trying to figure it out still i would be more then happy to help.

thanks
Zack
 
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I opened the default "display.pdf" icon in the system folder in Photoshop and made some changes using icons from Candybar. You can grab them from here -

http://www.mediafire.com/file/dyrmdznytdj/Display Icons.zip

They look like this -



Unfortunately the only external display I have to connect to is a TV and its currently in use, so I haven't been able to test if they work. However opening them in Preview shows a transparent background.

All you will need to do is make a copy/backup of the default icon, then rename the new ones "display.pdf" then drop one of them into the package mentioned in the first post, which will require authenticating. I hope they work as the old monitor icon is ancient, and doesn't match the standard of most other icons in use by OS X.
 
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I had a chance to test the new menu icons, and as mentioned in Jens post above, the color Icons still come out greyscale, however the icons do work and look better than the default system version. Maybe if I understood more about the Photoshop PDF format, I could work this out.
 

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