DESKTOP ICONS: Customizing the icon preview transparency

Remove border/background icon preview:
I'm a designer and I need to know what images are transparent by looking at the icon. However, the new icon preview in Leopard shows a white background to my transparent gifs as well as a border. Not to happy when I have to open each file to find the right one. I wish the preview would show exactly what it is.
That said, is there any way to make it like it was in Tiger?

have you tried viewing them in the Coverflow mode? My transparent pngs display correctly in coverflow but do show the white border in all other modes.
You Got Pwnd wrote:
Bump please.
(I'd also like the top menu to not do that transparency thing with the desktop picture.)
whatever you mean by this? please explain.
Message was edited by: You Got Pwnd

Similar Messages

How do I DISABLE icon previews of PDF's on the Desktop only? Windows 7

Acrobat Pro XI
Windows 7 Professional
My desktop icons USED to show only the standard PDF icons, now I have a MIX of them - some are previews (which I dislike) and some are standard.
I've searched for hours and had zero success. I tried changing just the desktop folder view, as suggested in another thread. However, this is a global thing (Microsoft told me), so that one is washed out.
I really dislike the previews and would prefer the icons but only on the desktop!
Is there some way of doing this without having to follow some 15-step process or downloading some third-party program?
I do NOT have, nor would I want to, have reader on my system (as some had suggested in another thread), since I use the full version.
Any ideas??

Thanks Thom,
Apparently this is an issue with the Chrome browser. When I switched to Firefox (using Adobe X) I was able to view the PDF as I am accustomed - without the extra download box appearing.
Whether the file is technically downloaded or not is not so much the issue as the work flow and dislplay.
To be clear, when using Chrome browser and Adobe X - when I click a PDF link the file downloads at bottom of screen prompting me to save or discard. Then another click to view. Also, my downloads get filled up with a huge repetitive list and also chewing up memory. Apparently Chrome does this for security reasons.
When using Chrome (perhaps an older version) and Adobe 9, when I would click a PDF link it would display immediately in the browser - No download box - no extra click - and since the PDFs did not appear on my download list I assumed they were not downloading. Again, whether the technically are or not is not my concern. I have to view hundreds of data sheets per week and a one click - immediate view - no cluttering of download list is what I'm trying to achieve as I'd had before.
Now, when using Adobe X on Firefox, it works as it used to - one click - immediate browser display. So that's why I said it must due to Chrome's way of handling the PDFs via Adobe's reader.
On a side note, after reading some security bulletins I see that Adobe 9 is now considered a significant risk for malware writers so I'm going to have to keep X. Personally I'm not thrilled with the layout of X - the floating ghost toolbar and no trace of the traditional layout. Why they see fit to compulsively change the look I haven't a clue. IMO the older one was much more sensible and easy to navigate. I'll take function over features.
Thanks again.

Custom ADMX Template to change the Windows Desktop Icons Font colour

Hi,
I am wondering if anyone has a readymade ADMX template to chane the Windows Desktop Icons colours. It would be a great help if you could provide me a script as per your earliest convenience? Thanks much in advance.
Regards
Nitin Lal

Hi,
Based on my test, we can modify the desktop icon font color from white to black.
For details:
1.
User Configurations -> Preferences -> Registry
2.
Right click Registry, point New registry Item, choose Update Action.
3.
Modify the Background color: HKCU/Control Panel/Colors/Background
4.
Modify the key:0 0 0
Hope this helps!
Best Regards
Elytis Cheng
Please remember to click “Mark as Answer” on the post that helps you, and to click “Unmark as Answer” if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Thunar doesn't preview desktop icons

I'm not sure if I am the only one having this problem, but for me Thunar refuses to generate previews for files sitting on my desktop. I can see previews just fine when I open Thunar as a windowed application, but not when it is managing the desktop:
Does anybody have this problem? Is there a solution?
Also, as a side question, is there any way to create a custom thumbnailer for arbitrary file types?
Last edited by Blender (2011-12-22 16:46:55)

Desktop icons are managed by xfdesktop, not thunar; and it's unable to to display thumbnails. There's a patch out there -- I have not tried it yet -- see XFCE bug 4344.

How do I make the clickpad cause the size of my desktop icons to change?

As I work through the day, something I do to the clickpad seems to cause my desktop icons to suddenly grow larger, or shrink smaller. I have noticed that the icon change happens as I sweep my regular clickpad finger across the clickpad. I'm not sure what I'm doing with the other hand at the same time, but I seem to be touching the clickpad's left button area at least part of the time. The sudden increase in size of icons causes them to rearrange themselves into an unfamiliar pattern, i.e. a mess. So I then must take time to rearrange about 40 icons, thereby becoming vastly less efficient with a computer than I would be if using pencil and paper. I am not able to reproduce this action at will; it only happens while I'm working normally well, concentrating on other things.
If any of you know exactly how this occurs, and what the feature is called, please tell me the name and, much more importantly, please tell me how I can stop this from occurring. I've searched HP's instructions for the clickpad, searched for a newer driver, and searched the forums to no avail. The notebook computer is a Pavilion DV7-4280us (a quick-ship model). The offending clickpad is, apparently, being beta tested on unsuspecting consumers who, choose to believe the HP tech support and sales folks instead of the numerous previous consumers who have complained about these clickpads in customer reviews. Overall, this computer really is terrific; but I sure could use some help to prevent these undesirable scramblings of my desktop icons that suddenly outgrow the space allocated to them. Thanks in advance for your help.

Firefox now always stores the old session which you can access by going to the History menu and selecting "Restore Previous Session".
If you always open the last set of tabs, an alternative approach is this:
# In the Firefox menu select Preferences to open the Preferences window
# Go to the General panel
# Change the setting "When Firefox starts" to "Show my windows and tabs from last time"
If you have it set to the above but it is not remembering the tabs, the file that stores details of sessions may be corrupt.
# Open your profile folder, for details of how to find it see https://support.mozilla.com/kb/Profiles
# Close Firefox
# In the profile folder delete sessionstore.js
That file will be recreated when you next start Firefox

Pdf icon preview randomly not showing on desktop

I have no idea why this has been happening, but for some reason, the pdf preview icon on my desktop shows the preview of some pdf's in the icon, and at random, only shows the generic icon on others. Quick Look works fine.
This phenomenon is constantly changing among pdf files every time I reboot my computer. Any help would be very much appreciated!

I have this problem in the stacks. One time it displays the icon right and some minutes later wrong. It's very annoying.

Can I get rid of the white frame on Finder icon preview?

This is another one of those things that Leopard has done that makes me wonder what the heck they were thinking! (Don't even get me started on the Windoze95 sidebar!) Why the heck take a wonderful thing like the Finder icon previews in Tiger, and make them solid white squares, with a nasty white border? These are stupid, ugly, and a massive step backward in interface design. I am assuming this is all done for the sake of "cover flow?" With decent Finder Icon previews, who needs it?
But please, please, if you MUST 'fix' things for me, give me the ability to opt out! SO until Apple remembers what GOOD GUI design is, does anyone know how to get rid of the border & white background?
Thanks!

To each his or her own, but I find the frames & white backgrounds, if not particularly attractive, fairly useful for a quick visual reference of the images' proportions (like tall & skinny vs. nearly square). This is pretty hard to see if transparency is enabled & large parts of the image are transparent.
When I do want to see the transparency, I find Cover Flow (& Quickview) very useful, although Cover Flow doesn't always seem to show alpha channels while QuickView always does. Plus, both versions of the technology allow much larger previews than in conventional icon Finder windows & support scroll wheels, making it easy to review large numbers of image files quickly at high resolution literally at the flick of a finger.
FWIW, at first I thought this was just a gimmick with little practical value. Now that I have started using it, particularly in conjunction with smart searches, I think it is a great addition to the OS, one that is so intuitive & efficient that it makes the old icon view look like an antiquated relic from a time when computers were not powerful enough to manage more than tiny thumbnails.
I'm not trying to convince you about this as you seem adamant about not liking it, but I do think it is the logic progression for browsing through ever larger numbers of ever higher resolution images, & is only going to get better at this as it becomes more refined. Perhaps someday a future version will meet your needs.

Custom ipod desktop icon?

Is it possible for me to give my ipod (new 160g classic) a custom desktop icon when I plug it in to my computer? Or am I stuck forever with it showing up as a black ipod?
For instance, if I named my ipod Spiderman, is there some way I can grab a jpg of Spiderman and assign it to my ipod so that jpg pops on my desktop as opposed to the good ol' ipod icon?

The Mac OS X operating system queries the iPod for it's style, as far as I know it will only show the default icon for that iPod and no real way to change the appearance.
Therefore the icon you see is the one that resembles your iPod, which must be a black classic. As my silver classic shows up as that, and my orange nano is equally the equivilant of the device.
Unfortunatley I'm not sure how or where it gets them. Etiher OS X is storing it, or its on the device and the OS X Operating system and iTunes query it.
Not quite the answer you were looking for, but thought I'd add this.

Upgrade to Reader DC and the icons preview inside teh folders stop working...

On a win7 32 desktop I upgrade the new reader.
I have also installed Adobe Acrobat 9 standard Italian Rel. 9.5.5
After the upgrade for the Reader DC the preview disappeared, I remove the reader but the problem remain...

Dear Mr. Mohd Amish,
I'm glad that the preview works with Acrobat XI but where can I find the download of the program? If I search for the adobe reader on the company website he offers me only Reader DC ... just the software that cause me the problem and that I immediately uninstalled leaving only Adobe Acrobat 9 standard Italian Rel. 9.5.5 but losing the icons and folders preview.
Thank You for an answere
Best Regards

Icon preview in the Finder won't work anymore.

After doing a 10.5.6 "Archive and Install", all the iWork '09 icon previews disappeared. The files were saved with the "Include preview in document" selected. No luck with "Show View Options". Any ideas?

shark1 wrote:
In iWorks applications Preferences>General you have to select "Save new documents as packages". Hmmm...I wonder how an "Archive and Install" of 10.5.6 could have done this.
(a) there is no "iWorks applications Preferences" because there is no "iWorks" product
(b) it seems that the "Archive and Install" process doesn't took care of your old preferences file so the apps rebuilt a new preferences filke which defaults wirh the "Save new documents as packages" unchecked.
I will wait a few days hoping that some other user confirm that the "Archive…" process really dro the preferences file. If i get confirmation, I will file a bug report because the process is supposed to keep these preferences.
I can't check by myself because my disk running 10.5 is already set to 10.5.7.
It would be useful to know how behaves the process when updating to 10.5.6 and when updating to 10.5.7.
Maybe the possible bug is already corrected.
Dropping them is really annoying because the file contains the table of autosubstitution couples and the table of custom keyboard shortcuts.
Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE jeudi 18 juin 2009 15:13:23)

Icon Preview on desktop keeps needing to be restarted

Hello,
I have a MacBook Pro of only 3 weeks. I have a lot of files showing on my desktop, and I wish to have the icon preview active, otherwise I just see generic file icons for each one.
So I go to view options and choose Show Icon Preview. Everything is fine. But now, EVERY single time I turn my Mac off and back on, the icon preview no longer works. The Show Icon Preview box is ticked - and I have to untick and tick it again to get the preview to work again. This was rare on my old Mac, whose data is now all on this new one, but now it is happening EVERY single time. Restarting Finder and fixing the view options only works once, and needs to be done over and over again when the Mac starts up.
Does anyone have a fix or explanation? This is becoming incredibly frustrating, considering how expensive this Mac was, and how new it is. I don't understand why it keeps doing this.
Thanks,
Andrew C

The logs are here:
About This Mac (under the Apple logo in the menu bar) > More Info > System Report > Logs (quite a way down, under Software)

Showing desktop icons as picture previews

I've done this before, but I can't remember how...
Does anyone know how to convert all the picture icons on the desktop screen (as well as Finder folders) into a mini "preview" picture?
Sometimes when I upload a lot of pictures from my camera to my iMac's desktop there's so much that it takes hours to select the pictures I want to keep.
Thanks for the help in advance.

Hi, vin78.
To display a preview icon for picture files on the desktop:
1. Click the desktop.
2. Either press Command-J or select Finder > View > Show View Options.
3. In the resulting info window for the desktop, select Show Icon Preview.
4. Close the info window for the desktop.
This does not change the icon of the picture files to a preview, but merely causes finder to display a preview instead of the standard image-type icon.
You can try tools like Pic2Icon or use the super shareware utility Graphic Converter\ to change the icon of an image file to an image preview.
Folders do not show preview icons of their contents. To change the icon of a folder, see "Mac OS X 10.4 Help: Changing the icon of a file or folder.”.
Good luck!
Dr. Smoke
Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X

How do I change the desktop Icon for an external hard drive? I have gone to "Get Info" and tried dragging and dropping several formats of pictures and the icon changes to the generic image of that file type.

how can I change the desktop icon for an external hard drive. Using LaCies and Dimple hard drives.

One of the things I've found with OS X (at least with Snow Leopard, which is my first excursion into OS X), is that all too often the thumbnail displayed on a file, whether a file created or one downloaded, is a false thumbnail. That is, when you do a Get Info on the file the icon in the upper left is the generic icon for that file type, rather than the thumbnail displayed in Finder. Makes it a bit difficult to copy.
Apparently Finder uses Preview in the background to generate the displayed thumbnail without actually creating one.
What I've resorted to doing, particularly with graphic images, is to process them with GraphicConverter - I have its prefs set to automatially add thumbnails and previews. With an individual file this means opening it in GC and doing a Save As. However, a much easier and faster way is when there are two or more such files; I put them in a common folder and drop the folder onto GC. GC then opens them in a catalog view, in the process adding real thumbnails and previews to each automatically. Doesn't take long to do several hundred files that way.

I am using Firefox v 8.0 on Vista. Lately it is opening really slowly until I get so frustrated I keep clicking on the desktop icon, Then it finally opens 3 times! How can I correct his?

Question
I am using Firefox v 8.0 on Vista. Lately it is opening really slowly until I get so frustrated I keep clicking on the desktop icon, Then it finally opens 3 times! How can I correct this? e

This is a user to user forum.
I have noted herein a number for Apple Customer Relations for you to try.
Apple Computer Customer Relations: (800) 767-2775
Avoid the rude language when dealing with them. It will get you better results.
Good luck!

I deleted my desktop icon - now I can't save things to the desktop!

After a complete meltdown of my computer (and thank GOD I backed everything up!!) ... I'm transferring everything back to my iMac from an external drive ... BUT, I deleted the little "desktop" icon from my finder folder - or more like, I dragged a desktop folder from the external hard drive and "replaced" the desktop icon.
Now I can't save anything to the desktop. When I drag something to the desktop it says "The item cannot be moved because the 'desktop' cannot be modified."
Is there a way to get this back???

No ...
Under "Ownership & Permission" is says "You can - Read & Write", so that's not the issue.
What I did was:
When you open the finder window, there are several icons that appear in the window - usually the Desktop icon, the Home icon, the Applications icon, the Documents icon, the Movies icon, the Music icon and the Pictures icon.
What I did was, I dragged a "Desktop FOLDER" over from an external hard drive and it asked me if I wanted to replace the Desktop. I said "Yes" and now I no longer have the DESKTOP ICON on the left side of the finder window and I can no longer drag and drop things to the desktop.
The desktop icon no longer exists, so I can't access my desktop VIA the finder window.
Does this make sense?

DESKTOP ICONS: Customizing the icon preview transparency

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for