Adding a Program Icon to the Dock 1. Navigate to the program you want to add to the Dock. Open the folder that contains the program. You can also add a. Drag the program icon to the left side of the Dock. Your Dock has a small dividing line. Programs can only go on the. Drop the file onto. You can find the Applications folder by clicking on the Finder icon in the Dock. Then typing ⌘ + ⇧ + G. In the sheet window opened type /Applications. The Finder will the Go the folder. From there, just drag it back to your Dock. If you're talking about the App Store icon: Invoke Spotlight, type App Store and then ⌘ + ⏎. To set up a Dock icon as a Login Item — without the hassle of opening the Users & Groups pane in System Preferences — just click a Dock icon and hold the mouse button down until the pop-up menu appears. Select Option and, then select the Open at Login item from the submenu. Then follow these steps to add it to the Dock: 1. Click the item you want to add to the Dock. Drag the icon out of the Finder window and onto the Dock, as shown in Figure 1. An icon for this item now appears on the Dock. Adding an app is really simple. Simply drag the app from the Applications folder, or Desktop, into the Dock. The app itself isn't the home of that app, so removing it won’t delete the app. Instead, an alias - or shortcut is created - giving you a quick, easy link to the app you want to use.
App Icon
Beautiful app icons are an important part of the user experience on all Apple platforms. A unique, memorable icon evokes your app and can help people recognize it at a glance on the desktop, in Finder, and in the Dock. Polished, expressive icons can also hint at an app’s personality and even its overall level of quality.
In macOS 11, app icons share a common set of visual attributes, including the rounded-rectangle shape, front-facing perspective, level position, and uniform drop shadow. Rooted in the macOS 11 design language, these attributes showcase the lifelike rendering style people expect in macOS while presenting a harmonious user experience. To download templates that specify the correct shape and drop shadow, see Apple Design Resources.
IMPORTANT When you update your app for macOS 11, use your new app icon design to replace the icon you designed for earlier versions. You can’t include two different app icons for one app, and the macOS 11 app icon style looks fine on a Mac running Catalina or earlier.
Design a beautiful icon that clearly represents your app. Combine an engaging design with an artistic interpretation of your app’s purpose that people can instantly understand.
Embrace simplicity. Find a concept or element that captures the essence of your app and express it in a simple, unique way, adding details only when doing so enhances meaning. Too many details can be hard to discern and can make the icon appear muddy, especially at smaller sizes.
Establish a single focus point. A single, centered point of interest captures the user’s attention and helps them recognize your app at a glance. Presenting multiple focus points can obscure the icon’s message.
To give people a familiar and consistent experience, prefer a design that works well across multiple platforms. If your app runs on other platforms, use a similar image for all app icons while rendering them in the style that’s appropriate for each platform. For example, in iOS and watchOS, the Mail app icon depicts the white envelope in a streamlined, graphical style; in macOS 11, the envelope includes depth and detail that communicate a realistic weight and texture.
macOS 11
Consider depicting a familiar tool to communicate what people use your app to do. To give context to your app’s purpose, you can use the icon background to portray the tool’s environment or the items it affects. For example, the TextEdit icon pairs a mechanical pencil with a sheet of lined paper to suggest a utilitarian writing experience. After you create a detailed, realistic image of a tool, it often works well to let it float just above the background and extend slightly past the icon boundaries. If you do this, make sure the tool remains visually unified with the background and doesn’t overwhelm the rounded-rectangle shape.
Make real objects look real. If you depict real objects in your app icon, make them look like they’re made of physical materials and have actual mass. Replicate the characteristics of substances like fabric, glass, paper, and metal to convey an object’s weight and feel. For example, the Xcode app icon features a hammer that looks like it has a steel head and polymer grip.
If text is essential for communicating your app’s purpose, consider creating a graphic abstraction of it. Actual text in an icon can be difficult to read and doesn’t support accessibility or localization. To give the impression of text without implying that people should zoom in to read it, you can create a graphic texture that suggests it.
To depict photos or parts of your app’s UI, create idealized images that emphasize the features you want people to notice. Photos are often full of details that obscure the main content when viewed at small sizes. If you want to use a photo in your icon, pick one with strongly contrasting values that make the main subject stand out. Remove unimportant details that make primary lines and shapes fuzzy or indistinct. If your app has a UI that people recognize, avoid simply replicating standard UI elements or using a screenshot in your icon. Instead, consider designing a graphic that echoes the UI and expresses the personality of your app.
Don’t use replicas of Apple hardware products. Apple products are copyrighted and can’t be reproduced in your icons or images. Avoid displaying replicas of devices, because hardware designs tend to change frequently and can make your icon look dated.
Use the drop shadow in the icon-design template. The template includes the system-defined drop shadow that helps your app icon coordinate with other macOS 11 icons.
Consider using interior shadows and highlights to add definition and realism. For example, the Mail app icon uses both shadows and highlights to give the envelope authenticity and to suggest that the flap is slightly open. Mac open app unidentfied developer. In icons that include a tool that floats above a background — such as TextEdit or Xcode — interior shadows can strengthen the perception of depth and make the tool look real. Shadows and highlights should suggest a light source that faces the icon, positioned just above center and tilted slightly downward.
Avoid defining contours that suggest a shape other than a rounded rectangle. In rare cases, you might want to fine-tune the basic app icon shape, but doing so risks creating an icon that looks like it doesn’t belong in macOS 11. If you must alter the shape, prefer subtle adjustments that continue to express a rounded rectangle silhouette.
Consider adding a slight glow just inside the edges of your icon. If your app icon includes a dark reflective surface, like glass or metal, add an inner glow to make the icon stand out and prevent it from appearing to dissolve into dark backgrounds.
Best tasks app mac. Keep primary content within the icon grid bounding box; keep all content within the outer bounding box. If an icon’s primary content extends beyond the icon grid bounding box, it tends to look out of place. If you overlay a tool on your icon, it works well to align the tool’s top edge with the outer bounding box and its bottom edge with the inner bounding box, as shown below.
In addition to the bounding boxes and suggested tool placement, the icon design template provides a grid to help you position items within an icon. You can also use the icon grid to ensure that centered inner elements like circles use a size that’s consistent with other icons in the system.
App Icon Attributes
All app icons should use the following specifications.
Attribute | Value |
---|---|
Format | PNG |
Color space | Display P3 (wide-gamut color), sRGB (color), or Gray Gamma 2.2 (grayscale) |
Layers | Flattened with transparency as appropriate |
Resolution | @1x and @2x (see Image Size and Resolution) |
Shape | Square with no rounded corners |
Don’t provide app icons in ICNS or JPEG format. The ICNS format doesn’t support features like wide color gamut or deliver the performance and efficiency you get when you use asset catalogs. JPEG doesn’t support transparency through alpha channels, and its compression can blur or distort an icon’s images. For best results, add deinterlaced PNG files to the app icon fields of your Xcode project’s asset catalog.
App Icon Sizes
Your app icon is displayed in many places, including in Finder, the Dock, Launchpad, and the App Store. To ensure that your app icon looks great everywhere people see it, provide it in the following sizes:
- 512x512 pt (512x512 px @1x, 1024x1024 px @2x)
- 256x256 pt (256x256 px @1x, 512x512 px @2x)
- 128x128 pt (128x128 px @1x, 256x256 px @2x)
- 32x32 pt (32x32 px @1x, 64x64 px @2x)
- 16x16 pt (16x16 px @1x, 32x32 px @2x)
Maintain visual consistency in all icon sizes. As icon size decreases, fine details become muddy and hard to distinguish. At the smallest sizes, it’s important to remove unnecessary features and exaggerate primary features to help the content remain clear. As you simplify icons that are visually smaller, don’t let them appear drastically different from their larger counterparts. Strive to make subtle variations that ensure the icon remains visually consistent when displayed in different environments. For example, if people drag your icon between displays with different resolutions, the icon’s appearance shouldn’t suddenly change.
The 512x512 pt Safari app icon (on the left) uses a circle of tick marks to indicate degrees; the 16x16 pt version of the icon (on the right) doesn’t include this detail.
Dock on your Mac has all the frequently used apps and other useful options like Trash, Downloads folder, Finder, etc, but have you ever wished to create a website shortcut of your most visited site and add it to the Dock on Mac? Once you do this, you can go to that site in a single click.
On top of everything, this action even launches the browser if it is not already open. So literally, it is only one click to access your favorite website once you add it to the Mac Dock. Let me show you how to do this quickly.
Create a Website Shortcut to Dock on Mac
Step #1. Launch Safari or any browser you use like Chrome, Firefox.
Step #2. Type in the website address and hit enter.
Step #3. Place your mouse pointer on the website name in the address bar of Safari. Make sure you do not click in the search bar.
Trick: If you are using Chrome or Firefox, place your mouse pointer on the padlock icon you see in the address bar.
Step #4. Now drag this to the rightmost division of Dock (adjacent to Downloads folder or Trash).
This is how you can effortlessly create a web link shortcut and add it to the Dock on your Mac for instant access. From now onwards, a single click on the world/globe icon will immediately launch your default browser and open the website.
If you would like to remove the icon, you can do so by dragging it from your Dock to the Desktop.
Why Would You Want to Add Website Shortcut to Dock on Mac?
How To Add App Icon To Mac Dock Settings
Let me give you my example – every morning when I reach office, I log in to my WordPress account in Safari and also frequently open editpad.org. Therefore to save time, I have these two website shortcuts on my Dock.
When I click on them, the default browser automatically launches, and so do these websites. You, too, can find it helpful for your office login page, homepage, or any site you visit frequently.
Some Noteworthy Points:
- You cannot place the website shortcut among apps on the Dock. It will always remain right of the faint vertical line you see dividing the Dock, however, you may switch its place with Downloads folder or any other icon that is in this part of Dock except the Trash
- Even if you have created this icon using one browser (say Safari), the link will always open in the default browser of your Mac
- Following the above steps you may also drag the link to your Mac’s desktop. However, to open the website from the desktop shortcut, it will require you to double click, while for the website shortcut on Dock you only need a single click
Drawback:
The only genuine drawback that I found is that unlike website shortcuts on iPad and iPhone, these quick web shortcuts on Mac’s Dock do not show the website icon (favicon). They only appear as a blue globe which looks okay, but if you have more than one website quick link, then it is a bit hard to differentiate.
But we have a solution for this too. Use the above steps to create the website icon on Mac’s Desktop (not Dock). Then right-click on the website shortcut and follow these simple steps to change the image. Once you are done, just drag the website shortcut from Desktop to the Dock. Voila!
Add Folder To Dock Mac
Some Interesting Related Posts For You:
What are your thoughts regarding website quick shortcuts to Dock and for which site are you going to use it? Share your ideas in the comments below.
Suraj is a digital marketing expert on the iGB's team. He contributes to the social media section along with tips and tricks for iPhone, Apple Watch. Apart from blogging, he likes to work out as much as he can in his gym and love to listening to retro music.
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