Filed under: Cool tools, Tips and tricks, Odds and ends, Leopard
Take a CandyBar 3 video tour
If you've ever used CandyBar before, you probably already grabbed version 3 when it was released the other day. But just in case you haven't seen it in action, Ged put together this great screencast of just how easy it makes controlling the look of your icons and Dock. I especially love the icons inside the iContainers in Quick Look-- such a neat, useful touch that's only possible in Leopard.
CandyBar, I think, is one of those apps that sounds like you'll never use it when you just read the text (because how often do you change your system icons, really), but once you see just how amazing it is, you can tell it's one of those reasons we're so proud to be Mac owners. I know, I sound like an infomercial, but look at that app! CandyBar 3 is available as a free 15-day/250-icon limit trial, or for the purchase price of $29.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Patrick said 11:14AM on 11-30-2007
Alright, how does he get the gaps between apps in the dock? Is there a bogus app with a clear icon to do that? Or is there some other dock manipulation going on?
Reply
Rhywun said 11:16AM on 11-30-2007
I hate to be a party pooper, but I've never understood the utility of something that makes my computer *harder* to use. I guess it's neat to be able to replace all your icons at once, but then you waste time having to *learn* them.
Reply
Matthew Kraus said 11:34AM on 11-30-2007
Spacers can by added by some simple command lines in Terminal:
http://www.digitalmediaminute.com/article/2680/add-spacers-to-the-leopard-dock
Reply
Simon Arch said 1:00PM on 11-30-2007
"you can tell it's one of those reasons we're so proud to be Mac owners"
On, come on, it's not THAT great.
Reply
Simon Arch said 1:01PM on 11-30-2007
"Oh come on, it's not that great." We can vote on comments, but we can't edit? C'mon, TUAW...
Quix said 1:08PM on 11-30-2007
I love Panic and CandyBar looks great, but isn't $29 about 2x too expensive for something like this?
Reply
Kristian Freeman said 2:38PM on 11-30-2007
Going to try this out when I get my MBP back, I've had some problems. (hoping that link will work)
Reply
Kristian Freeman said 2:39PM on 11-30-2007
ugh, it didn't
http://www.applereporter.com/an-open-letter-to-apple-inc/
Christina Warren said 3:07PM on 11-30-2007
It's such a great app -- and the Pixadex integration is just so nice (much easier than having to either use the two open at the same time, or to try to convert/open an icontainer from one program with the other.
Reply
Neon Jebus said 3:09PM on 11-30-2007
I went for the upgrade this week. I was pretty happy with the features. I only had Candybar 2 so the upgrade was a touch on the high side. I would have been happier with it being $20. I mean sure, since I owned one of the other programs I only paid $24 but still...in the end I felt that it was worth it to me.
Reply
Louis said 3:55PM on 11-30-2007
Nice review. Thanks for posting.
I actually had my calendar marked to pick this one up but was underwhelmed after it was released (I own the previous versions of CB).
I like the Leopard icons fine and numerous other apps can change the dock from 3-d to 2-d, man of which are free. If you like to have different dock looks or really dislike Leopard's stock icon set, this may be more useful, IMO.
My dock is normally hidden anyhow and I'm only now experimenting with having it displayed. I think it would have to theme more aspects of the OS for me to upgrade anytime soon. IMO, it's a kind of nice to have but not one of those killer apps.
Reply
tc60045 said 5:37PM on 11-30-2007
I have a history of installing stuff that borks my mac -- how invasive / intrusive is this app? Is it just a pretty front end on top of the basic shell commands? Has this borked anyone's mac? Thx
Reply
Quine said 9:43PM on 11-30-2007
In my experience, all this app does is replace icons that are buried in your system folder inside bundles. For example, a ton of the icons it replaces are in the CoreTypes bundle iirc, and the dock customization is just an easy way for it to edit 4 png images for you that are in dock.app.
Thus, I think it'd be very hard to mess up your system with this app (and also very easy to just do what it does yourself, albeit a lot harder).
Quine said 9:46PM on 11-30-2007
*it's very possible, albeit harder.
Ken Whelan said 5:55PM on 11-30-2007
I would contest the statement "one of those reasons we're so proud to be Mac owners". Replacing icons seems to me to be a very Windows thing to do such as changing themes, colour schemes etc. Aren't we Mac owners happier with the well considered designs of Apple's art department and other apps designers?
Reply
Simon Arch said 4:00AM on 12-01-2007
Wow. That's amazing. You're a new Mac user, aren't you? If not, you haven't been paying attention. The Iconfactory has been pumping out the pixels for over a decade now. Kaleidoscope gave classic Mac users the ability to alter their GUI for almost as long. Heck, the scheme archive is still live over at Kaleidoscope dot net.
It's a PERSONAL computer. Make it YOURS. Altering your system in some way (even if it's just changing the hard drive icon) has been a Mac tradition for pretty much as long as there have BEEN Macs. If you don't want to mod your system, fine, nobody's telling you to. But geez...if other people want to, what do you care?
And Apple isn't exactly batting 1.000 in the design department lately, if you know what I mean.
Years ago when I got my first Mac (a Mac Classic, a machine which I am proud to say I still own and which STILL RUNS PERFECTLY) I bought a book called the Mac Bible. It had a preface which I'll have to paraphrase here because I don't have the book any longer. In essence it said that even though a computer is a tool, it should be FUN.
geochick said 6:31PM on 11-30-2007
Still miffed at the $24 upgrade sticker shock! Yeah $20 would have nice, $10 even better for us CB 2 owners. I didn't own Pixadex or care all that much about it so they should not have stiffed us for $24 just b/c this is included. I'll buy it eventually but I have 13 days left to whine about the price so I'll do that whenever CB 3 is mentioned :-) Hey Kristian sorry about your MBP woes. FYI I had my first iPhone go bad on me but they sent me a loaner (NBD) had it less than a week and a new one arrived after that (they could not fix my old iPhone) so far the new one is working just fine. If you had an issue with your iPhone you won't have to wait 2 weeks to get it back. Pretty painless except I had to drive all the way to Fedex since they arrived at my house during working hours...
LOL
Reply
Floodo1 said 12:14PM on 12-01-2007
Whats up with the haters and "i dont customize my icons, so im not going to buy this"??
NO ONE CARES that you arent going to buy it simply because you dont do this sort of thing. Here let me make an equivalent comment "I wont buy photoshop....because i dont edit pictures!!!!!"
earth shattering news eh?
I think the rest of us that DO see a use for this program, AKA making our make PRETTIER, and or, making icons represent things, version 3 is much much nicer. Integration of pixaded, as someone else commented, is a great feature.
Stop being so narrow minded and realize that EVERY person can benefit from changing their icons, even if its only in order to make folders more identifiable
Reply
nilsHaus said 11:08AM on 12-04-2007
Am I the only one who can't find the video on this guy's website? What, is he shutting out Windows users or something (firefox, by the way)?
Reply