Call Me Goon

This is a tutorial post I created while in college for a class. I thought I would bring it back though because I think it is a pretty cool change that is super easy that not many people know about.

It just takes a little Photoshop work (or your favorite photo editor) to change the Dock to any color or make it almost invisible and even more reflective!

Here’s what to do:

1. Go into your HardDrive directory (usually Macintosh HD), then System/Library/CoreServices
2. Scroll down to the ‘Dock’ and right-click on it and choose “Show Package Contents”
3. Open the Contents folder, then go into the Resources folder
4. Make backup copies of the following files (IMPORTANT!! – in order to switch the Dock back to normal if you wanted to):
   1. frontline-l.png
   2. scurve-l.png
   3. scurve-m.png
   4. scurve-sm.png
   5. scurve-xlpng
5. After these files are safely backed up, open them in Photoshop (or whatever) and change them in any way you want, change the color, opacity, etc. I decreased the opacity to give it a look like it isn’t even there, but still reflects the icons, it is very cool, I recommend it!
6. After you change these files in any way you want, replace them in the Dock package contents folder you found them.
7. Finally, open Terminal and type ‘killall Dock’ (without the quotes) to reboot the dock. Now you have a new unique Dock!
8. To get it back to normal, just replace the backed-up images with the ones you made in the Dock contents folder, easy as that.

There is also a pretty neat website that allows you to download and implement all sorts of various Dock styles. I have not played with any of these because I currently really like my transparent Dock, but I am sure I will in the future.