OSX Desktop Icon Max-Size Hack
So let’s say that you’ve downloaded Huxley King’s amazing Buggy Boo Icon & Desktop Set, and now you’re wanting those beautiful icons to be as big as possible on your desktop. What now? Well, first you’ll want to see if the default maximum icon size in OSX is good enough for you.
Under View in the menu at the top of the screen (while looking at your desktop), select Show View Options.
You should now be looking at a slim little window titled Desktop. Just slide the little slider under Icon size all the way to the right, and you’ll see your desktop icons grow to a respectable size of 128 pixels.
This may be plenty big for you, but if not, there’s a way to change that 128 pixel maximum icon size ceiling. It’ll take a little bravado on your part, but it’s SOOO worth it.
The minor hack we are about to perform was originally found on Mac OSX Hints, and, while it’s a nice write-up, it is missing some important information for those frustrated folks who aren’t familiar with text editors outside of Word or Apple’s little TextEdit app. So, first things first, let’s go download a text editor that has the feature we’ll need (TextEdit won’t do, and don’t even think about trying it in Word.) Barebones Software has a free text editor we can use called TextWrangler. Click on the link to go to the download page. Once you’ve got it downloaded, go on and install it. You can remove it later, if you want.
Now then, it’s time to do the hack. You’re going to need to copy this string of text (it’s a file location path):
/System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/ViewOptions.nib/objects.xib
Make sure you get everything from /System to objects.xib when you copy. That’s Command + C, in case you’re way behind. The Command key has the little apple on it, m’kay?
Now, open up TextWrangler and in the menu under File, select Open File By Name.
That’s going to give you the window you need to paste the path into. So, click inside the empty text box and hit Command + V to paste.
Hit enter or click Open, and the file should open, showing you some code that probably looks like gibberish to you (and me.)
Fortunately, we only need to edit one little thing, but to do that, we need to find the area we need to edit. So, hit Command + F to bring up the Find and Replace window. In the empty text box, paste the following text (all of it) and hit enter (or click Find):
<int name=”maximumValue”>
That should put you right where you wanna be, which is beside the number 128, which you are now going to edit to say something large, like 300. Could be bigger if you want. Just change the 128 to whatever you want your maximum size to be, then save and close TextWrangler.
Now, after you restart your computer, your View Options icon size setting will top-out at the new setting!
May 19, 2009 at 7:55 pm | icons | 1 comment
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