Changing system icons on Big Sur

[allan.nyholm]

Hmm, is Apple reading these forums? I just updated to Big Sur beta 4 and LiteIcon can no longer launch if the SystemVersionCompat.plist string is altered from 10.16 to 10.15. It did under BSb3.

So that now just leaves the 'old classic way' to change App and Drive icons one at a time and my suggested method for modifying the Assets.car file inside the IconsetResources.bundle file to change the look of the system-wide generic/template folder.

I have a suspicion that they, Apple, do read these forums. I'm not a tinfoil-hat kind of guy, but I think "why wouldn't they look through what is out there on the forums"

Any one remember anything about the story surrounding the Apple Genius Bar and Application Enhancer Framework at the time of OS Tiger? How they apparently got a whole lot of Mac users coming in because 10.4.10 or 10.4.11 caused their Mac not to boot to the Desktop because of the old APE framework needing updating? I think that the owner? of the website of Unsanity products lingers over on Neowin - I might ask him what happened during that time if I have the guts to.
I can't locate any real information regarding that - in my mind I think that is what could have gotten Apple to think about doing something to lock down macOS down the line - I think this is that line. We're not even at the end of the line sadly.

 

[SweetCakeCraft]

I have a suspicion that they, Apple, do read these forums. I'm not a tinfoil-hat kind of guy, but I think "why wouldn't they look through what is out there on the forums"

Any one remember anything about the story surrounding the Apple Genius Bar and Application Enhancer Framework at the time of OS Tiger? How they apparently got a whole lot of Mac users coming in because 10.4.10 or 10.4.11 caused their Mac not to boot to the Desktop because of the old APE framework needing updating? I think that the owner? of the website of Unsanity products lingers over on Neowin - I might ask him what happened during that time if I have the guts to.
I can't locate any real information regarding that - in my mind I think that is what could have gotten Apple to think about doing something to lock down macOS down the line - I think this is that line. We're not even at the end of the line sadly.

In that case, if we login in as a root user, we can access to the resources folder of programs, right? Because then we can replace the icon files (after making a backup, obviously) without needing Litecon or whatever program of the kind.

 

[allan.nyholm]

In that case, if we login in as a root user, we can access to the resources folder of programs, right? Because then we can replace the icon files (after making a backup, obviously) without needing Litecon or whatever program of the kind.

One might try that - seems plausible if root means anything anymore

 

[borp99]

***Change Big Sur System Folder Icons***

[UPDATE, including August 2 2020 amendment and August 12 2020 further update]

NB. LiteIcon 4.1 can now only change individual app and drive icons on BS. No global change to System folder icons [is now] possible. LiteIcon will only launch on BS if you alter the SystemVersionCompat.plist string from 10.16 to 10.15, which isn’t ideal - so maybe just customise some icons via the Get Info ‘paste or drop image’ [old classic way] method.

However, just worked out @ July 31 2020, you ‘can’ globally change the system folder look to a customised one. Read on...

Big Sur does not use the /S/L/CS/Coretypes.bundle folder icons anymore to display the various System Folder icons. Instead, it uses a [generic] template folder icon (a PNG image in various pixel sizes, locked inside /S/L/CS/IconsetResources.bundle) and adds various font glyphs on top of it to denote the different types of System folder, or leaves the folder blank in the middle for new/basic folders, like the look of the old GenericFolderIcon.icns file. You can change the look of this background folder but the light blue font glyph (eg. for Applications, Library, Utilities, Home etc.) will remain being displayed in the centre of the folder, so that aspect of customising isn’t currently possible (see footnotes).

This method assumes that you have Big Sur installed on one drive or drive partition and Mojave or Catalina on a different drive or drive partition (High Sierra 10.13 may be OK too). Unless you have Big Sur installed on one of Apple’s supported machines, you should have read up on how to install this new OS on an unsupported machine - either as a sealed or preferably unsealed OS. If in doubt, go to https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-11-big-sur-on-unsupported-macs-thread.2242172/

In order to alter Big Sur system files, you need to first disable SIP in Recovery mode using the Terminal (eg. using a USB installer): ‘csrutil disable’ and also ‘csrutil authenticated-root disable’. Only if all else fails later on, also do: nvram boot-args="-no_compat_check amfi_get_out_of_my_way=1" (including the quote marks).

1. Boot normally into Big Sur and grab a copy of ‘Assets.car’ from ‘/Volumes/11.0/System/Library/CoreServices/IconsetResources.bundle/Contents/Resources/’ and save it to the Big Sur User’s Desktop or, preferably to the 10.14 or 10.15 Desktop folder. [NB/1. replace 11.0 with the name of your BS system volume]
[NB/2. you have to do this from Big Sur because, if you haven’t ‘unsealed’ that OS when it was installed, the Big Sur system volume will be encrypted and won’t show up or mount under 10.14 or 10.15, only the BS user Data volume will.]

2a. If you are going to edit on 10.14, download the original ‘ThemeEngine.app’ from: https://github.com/alexzielenski/ThemeEngine/releases/tag/1.0.0(111). This version doesn’t work on Big Sur or Catalina.

2b. If you are going to edit on 10.15, download a newly built version for Catalina (great thanks to Allan Nyholm/macrumors member #65816) from: https://jumpshare.com/v/W1PDjzxfzLXDWIbNyeis. This version doesn’t work on Big Sur or Mojave.

- then boot into whichever macOS your ThemeEngine.app will run on and open the Assets.car file [where-ever it was saved to / if on Big Sur it will be at: /Volumes/11.0 - Data/Users/your_name/Desktop/] with that App.

3a. Modify ‘Folder’ and ‘FolderDark’ items (from the left side list). There are 10 icons to replace in each category (sizes are 16x16.png, 16x16x2x.png, 32x32.png, 32x32x2x.png, 128x128.png, 128x128x2x.png, 256x256.png, 256x256x2x.png, 512x512.png, 512x512x2x.png). You 'may' be able to use the same icons for each category if the regular 'Light' mode ones aren't too bright looking in the OS's 'Dark' mode.

#Method 1 (built in - requires Adobe PhotoShop running on 10.14 or 10.15):
- select one of the 10 icons (NB. take note of the particular size (of the selected icon) showing in the top right corner (as the set is ‘not’ displayed in size order), so that [if appropriate] you copy and paste ‘like for like’ sized icons. Replace the full set of 10 sizes.
- press Cmd+UpArrow to send the selected icon to PhotoShop.
- (in PhotoShop) change icon as required using PS's tools (or replace it with an imported image - don’t worry about image type differences as ThemeEngine will convert it into a PNG after returning from PhotoShop. However, the imported image must fit within the original icon's transparent alpha mask).
- ‘Save’ the change, then move from the PhotoShop window back to the ThemeEngine window.
- (the selected icon you were changing should still be highlighted) press Cmd+DownArrow to paste the modified icon over the top of the original one.
- continue to do this for each of the other Folder and FolderDark icons.

#Method 2 (using any other image editor... Create a set of correctly sized PNG files based on your own 'master' image. If you don't wish to create the 10-20 variants one at a time, there are apps or on-line websites which can take your base 1-2 image(s), regardless of size or resolution (although it should ideally be at least 1024x1024x72ppi), and produce the set for you. A good app is Image2Icon - available for free from the AppStore (the paid advanced features aren’t required). Export to ‘Iconset’. Just make sure that your source image for the generic folder template has an alpha layer added. For me, I replaced each icon with images from 10.9’s CoreTypes.bundle ’GenericFolderIcon.icns’ file, using TIFF's for each size dragged to the desktop out of Preview’s left pane):

- select one of the 10 icons, taking note of the particular size (of the selected icon) showing in the top right corner (as the set is ‘not’ displayed in size order).
- drag and drop a ‘like for like’ sized PNG icon on top of the selected icon.
- continue to do this for each of the other Folder and FolderDark icons.

3b. Finally (after either Method used), use ‘Save As…’ to save the modified Assets.car file (change its name slightly eg. Assets2.car) to another location/folder, different to where the unmodified original Assets.car file is.

4. If you have installed Big Sur as an unsealed OS, you can now boot into either 10.14, 10.15 or 11.0. If you installed Big Sur as ‘sealed’ then you can only do the next step from 11.0. Now, run from the terminal:
- diskutil mount /Volumes/11.0 (as above, replace 11.0 with the name of your BS system volume)
- sudo mount -uw /
- then either:
#Method 1: Rename the modified file back to Assets.car. With the Finder, open the ‘/Volumes/11.0/System/Library/CoreServices/IconsetResources.bundle/Contents/Resources’ folder and drag the modified Assets.car into it to overwrite the original file. Authorise with your password.
#or Method 2: Rename the modified file back to Assets.car, then: sudo mv(leave a space)/**full location of file, or drag the file onto the Terminal window**/(leave a space)/Volumes/11.0/System/Library/CoreServices/IconsetResources.bundle/Contents/Resources/Assets.car [also adjust 11.0 to suit]
- diskutil mount /Volumes/11.0 (needs to be done again for some reason)
- sudo mount -uw /
- sudo find /Volumes/11.0/private/var/folders/ -name 'com.apple.dock.iconcache' -exec rm {} \;
- sudo rm -r /Volumes/11.0/Library/Caches/com.apple.iconservices.store

#If your Big Sur volume (whether unsealed or sealed) is running from a ‘Snapshot’, you now probably need to do the following:
- sudo kmutil install --volume-root /Volumes/11.0 --update-all --force
- sudo /Volumes/11.0/usr/sbin/kcditto
(- sudo tmutil localsnapshot <- not sure if this is required. Try without it first)
- sudo bless --folder /Volumes/11.0/System/Library/CoreServices --bootefi --create-snapshot
- reboot

#Otherwise (if your Big Sur system volume is unsealed with all Snapshots deleted), just log out and back in again to see the folder changes.
———————————
Font glyph footnotes:
The light blue font glyphs arbitrarily dumped in the middle of the background folder template are held in several places. Many reports around the internet are that they are located in SF Symbols.ttf but this font, as far as I can see, isn’t even included in the Beta 3 package, so is missing. It can be downloaded as an installer App from Apple’s developer site as V.1 and V.2 beta but, even once installed, the Symbols.ttf variant doesn’t appear to then show up. I found most of the folder glyphs in SF Pro.ttf [UPDATE: For BS beta1-4, this font is in the /Library/Fonts folder, not the /System/Library/Fonts folder. For BS Public Preview 1, Apple have emptied the /Library/Fonts folder, so the glyphs have been moved or buried somewhere else, TBA ...maybe now in a system bundle file] as follows (each character with a ‘uni’ prefix and with 3 suffix versions: .small, .medium and .large)(I used FontLab 7 to view the contents of the font file(s)):

Applications folder glyph #100424, Utilities #10090B, Library #100929, Home #10039F, Documents #100237, Desktop #1008F0, Movies #1003B6, Music #100469 and Pictures #1003C5.

Strangely, the Users folder glyph isn’t in the SF Pro font. I found it in the SF Display Regular font (#10026E). The Downloads folder glyph isn’t in the Pro font either - and I still haven’t found it in any other font yet (I almost went blind looking through dozens of fonts). The System folder glyph (‘macOS’) isn’t in a font either, as far as I could see, but I did find it in the file: /System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources/Assets.car under ‘macOSText’. Whether, editing any of the above-mentioned font glyphs with a font editor will change the light blue imprints to something else is maybe for someone else to try. The system is already changing all of them from greyscale source images to blue in colour. At least I’ve now managed to take back control over the look of the primary folder template in Big Sur (and on any other mounted volumes).

I just noticed that I can drag and drop each of the 10 different sized PNG folder images directly on to the original Assets.car ones, size for size, so there's absolutely no need to send them one at a time to PhotoShop to edit or replace and transfer them back again (unless you do want to do the primary graphics editing just in that application). As PhotoShop is expensive to buy or pay for its annual subscription, just use a free or cheap image editor and then use an app (like Image2Icon) to create an Iconset from just one generic/master folder image.

I've updated my previous instruction posting.

 

[allan.nyholm]

I just noticed that I can drag and drop each of the 10 different sized PNG folder images directly on to the original Assets.car ones, size for size, so there's absolutely no need to send them one at a time to PhotoShop to edit or replace and transfer them back again (unless you do want to do the primary graphics editing just in that application). As PhotoShop is expensive to buy or pay for its annual subscription, just use a free or cheap image editor and then use an app (like Image2Icon) to create an Iconset from just one generic/master folder image.

I've updated my previous instruction posting.

Thank you for keeping us updated with this. I built ThemeEngine on Big Sur from latest available source - I got the main ThemeEngine window(with all the assets) to open but eventually ThemeEngine would crash with an NSException error. I think it all comes down to the enumeration of assets - that's what I understand at least. I can't get a hold of Alex Z. currently.

The only Xcode I had available was the one from Catalina and I didn't have any Xcode developer edition for Big Sur. I have since returned to macOS Catalina and as I am typing this I want to try Big Sur again.

 

[borp99]

Thank you for keeping us updated with this. I built ThemeEngine on Big Sur from latest available source - I got the main ThemeEngine window(with all the assets) to open but eventually ThemeEngine would crash with an NSException error. I think it all comes down to the enumeration of assets - that's what I understand at least. I can't get a hold of Alex Z. currently.

The only Xcode I had available was the one from Catalina and I didn't have any Xcode developer edition for Big Sur. I have since returned to macOS Catalina and as I am typing this I want to try Big Sur again.

I downloaded Xcode 12beta for Big Sur and opened the TE source code. It spat out about 50 errors - mainly deprecated routines which need to be replaced with alternative strings (some with a 'Fix' button, and many actually provided by Xcode - but they were too cryptic for me to understand) or different target or source locations. I fear that the ThemeEngine code may need rewriting from the ground up for BS. I'm no developer and have never written a line of code myself - even AppleScript baffles me at times. Maybe Apple provides re-compilers or some 3rd party does. There are bound to be many apps in the same boat. I just read on the Parallels Desktop's blog that they need to put in the equivalent of 25 years of staff hours to properly rewrite it for BigSur (may be a gross exaggeration but an effective way to describe the uphill battle ahead). And then AppleSilicon will twist the road to Oz just that much more. It keeps the brain from atrophying!

 

[emoopo]

macOS Big Sur is the biggest **** Apple has produced for a long time.
Theming is dead or so cumbersome, also replacing icons of the system is extremely cumbersome.
But the biggest crap about this system is for me I'm not master of my Mac system anymore and therefore it will definitely not be installed on my iMac and MacBook Pro.
Dock is already available as update cDock 4 but Liteicon is already writing the appendix.
greetings

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

 

[allan.nyholm]

macOS Big Sur is the biggest **** Apple has produced for a long time.
Theming is dead or so cumbersome, also replacing icons of the system is extremely cumbersome.
But the biggest crap about this system is for me I'm not master of my Mac system anymore and therefore it will definitely not be installed on my iMac and MacBook Pro.
Dock is already available as update cDock 4 but Liteicon is already writing the appendix.
greetings

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Yup, it's a whole different beast this macOS 11.

Searching for .car files using EasyFind reveals many, many car files that's also at the same time telling a story about how Apple is really locking this macOS release down. I found so many .car files that had the name "faux" in them for all sorts of appearances. I thought this was great until I realized all the different protections put in place with Big Sur.

The SystemAppearance.bundle is almost cut in half for the amount of .car files opposite the 10.15 side of things.

I'm still appreciative of the information in this thread about changing icons - and my hope is that instead of an actual application handling all the changing of theme files and icons, that a script could be now handling this. It's my understanding that scripting can powerful. The theme installation script that @redheeler made is very good. I'm not certain that I can use it though - as I don't want to rip him of his property. In essence - a script like his but for macOS 11.

 

[emoopo]

Hello Allan, we have had contact before. It would be nice if such a script would be available once Big Sur is official. But to create the theme itself according to your own ideas is the other thing and the theme also includes icons that fit at least in my opinion. But if 10.15 is already cumbersome MacOS 11 gets even worse then you should think about switching to linux or Gnome. Let's see how this develops in my opinion Apple only wants standard users who just like Apple's design or look for something else.

 

[allan.nyholm]

Hello Allan, we have had contact before. It would be nice if such a script would be available once Big Sur is official. But to create the theme itself according to your own ideas is the other thing and the theme also includes icons that fit at least in my opinion. But if 10.15 is already cumbersome MacOS 11 gets even worse then you should think about switching to linux or Gnome. Let's see how this develops in my opinion Apple only wants standard users who just like Apple's design or look for something else.

I'm already exploring my options - now that Ubuntu finally has fractional scaling I can now use that on my iMac. It was either impossible to read elements or too large before fractional scaling was re-introduced to Ubuntu - this time it's an interface setting and not some Terminal command I have a USB key with Ubuntu ready and I just tried live booting earlier today.

 

[teejaysplace24]

Thanks to everyone who is working on this. My biggest fear with Apple's recent direction for MacOS was that they would lock down system customizations, as they do on iOS. iOS is an endless grid of divergent icons with virtually no way to simplify things beyond basic (and equally busy) folders. When you stare at the same screen all day, you often need to keep things as simple as possible, or at least organized in a way that makes sense to you, the user. Whenever I pick up my phone, I feel less like i'm using an advanced computer and more like I'm staring at a tiny billboard with each app competing for my attention. Desktop customization may be leveraged by only a fraction of users, but it's been among the Mac's strongest features since before OS X and it keeps getting whittled away version after version. What is the point of having the power of a desktop if the OS is going to handicap it like a phone?

I've typically been an early adopter, but maybe I'll just stay on Catalina this time around and hope that (some) of these issues get worked out by the time Apple and Adobe railroad me into an upgrade. Anyway, I don't have anything meaningful to add, so here's a picture of my dock. It's pretty.

 

[fisherking]

Thanks to everyone who is working on this. My biggest fear with Apple's recent direction for MacOS was that they would lock down system customizations, as they do on iOS. iOS is an endless grid of divergent icons with virtually no way to simplify things beyond basic (and equally busy) folders. When you stare at the same screen all day, you often need to keep things as simple as possible, or at least organized in a way that makes sense to you, the user. Whenever I pick up my phone, I feel less like i'm using an advanced computer and more like I'm staring at a tiny billboard with each app competing for my attention. Desktop customization may be leveraged by only a fraction of users, but it's been among the Mac's strongest features since before OS X and it keeps getting whittled away version after version. What is the point of having the power of a desktop if the OS is going to handicap it like a phone?

I've typically been an early adopter, but maybe I'll just stay on Catalina this time around and hope that (some) of these issues get worked out by the time Apple and Adobe railroad me into an upgrade. Anyway, I don't have anything meaningful to add, so here's a picture of my dock. It's pretty.

View attachment 943917

apple's been resistent to customization for a long time; hence, an app like liteicon (to do the heavy lifting).

either way, hard to imagine you'd stay on catalina because, you know.... icon customization. i've ALWAYS customized my macs, always... but realize: i just don't spend much time looking at icons, or folders. so, whatever will be...

 

[teejaysplace24]

apple's been resistent to customization for a long time; hence, an app like liteicon (to do the heavy lifting).

either way, hard to imagine you'd stay on catalina because, you know.... icon customization. i've ALWAYS customized my macs, always... but realize: i just don't spend much time looking at icons, or folders. so, whatever will be...

Depends on how much I really need the features offered in Big Sur. And frankly, I can't remember the last time I actually needed a new MacOS feature (although I appreciated Dark Mode.) I've interacted with the the interface in basically the same way since 2005 and nothing Apple has introduced since then has majorly affected that. It's a testament to how well designed OS X was in the first place. Reimagining the whole interface might change the game, though.

 

[fisherking]

Depends on how much I really need the features offered in Big Sur. And frankly, I can't remember the last time I actually needed a new MacOS feature (although I appreciated Dark Mode.) I've interacted with the the interface in basically the same way since 2005 and nothing Apple has introduced since then has majorly affected that. It's a testament to how well designed OS X was in the first place. Reimagining the whole interface might change the game, though.

don't forget about the changes under the hood; a new OS should faster, cleaner, & more capable than in 2005 (am sure you know this).

my own biggest need with any os is... how well does it support my apps? am enjoying big sur on my macbook, but had to revert to catalina on my imac (because of logic X issues). the work is the priority, always.

 

[iModFrenzy]

First off, just like to say I'm all for modifying things. If the icons bother you that much, and you want to do the work. No problem, I'm not arguing.

I just feel its a little excessive to try and modify system files that if there's a slip up, could result in the icon not changing. Or worse, breaking a system app. Not to mention, updates will probably kill the icons every now and then I'd imagine. Just my opinion on it.

And I won't lie, I like Big Sur's design. But I was the same way when iOS 6 shifted to 7. Eventually I just came to terms with it as its too much of a hassle to jailbreak my phone just for some icons.

 

[emoopo]

No news about changing system icons and system theme sad sad sad actually I thought that the user has so much responsibility to protect his system and keep it clean. But since Apple is just Apple and no user asks, that's just the way it is and if it should stay that way you have to look for another platform like linux. Here you can find the Big Sur Theme for KDE/Gnome. I hope not i have MBP15/2017/3,1/1TB SSD, iMac 27 5k 2017 with 2TB Nvme + 4TB SSD SATA internal /128GB RAM. We will probably keep our iPhones 11 and 2x iPad 12.9/4G/256GB. But iMac/ MBP will have to go piggyback and I can't be master of these devices then I don't need them either. Apple goodbye and bye bye

 

[borp99]

Hi everyone! Apple is at it again!

I just updated my cMP 5,1 2010 to BS beta 9. What a mission!!!: had to reinstall b6 many times to try updating with OTA b9 delta updates (no good) - then a b9 full installer came out...but my Mac got stuck in an install loop with that (not progressing past the initial decompression to the 'macOS Installer' folder) - tried @ASentientBot's Hax3 (no good) - tried suggestions from @jackluke (no good) - tried @Barry K. Nathan's micropatcher 0.32 (no good) but his latest 0.33 one worked as a fresh install from the full b9 installer on a patched USB stick.

Anyway, Apple has now moved the 'Assets.car' file, which contains the system-wide/template neon-blue folder icons to:

⁨(BS System Volume)/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks⁩/⁨IconFoundation.framework⁩/Versions/A/Resources

From there, follow my previous large instructions on how to alter these icons to what you desire. Remember that these system folders will still get SF font glyphs overlayed to represent the different types of system folder, so keep the middle of your replacement folder icons with just a background colour which will allow for the glyphs to be seen. Also, remember that you 'can' alter individual folders laboriously one at a time (which places a hidden '.icon' file inside that folder). I wanted to fix the way the system-wide folders looked - and when new ones are added, so that I didn't have to change each one every single time.

Also in the meantime, ThemeEngine.app used to modify the Assets.car file on Mojave (alexzielenski's original) and on Catalina (Allan Nyholm's https://jumpshare.com/v/W1PDjzxfzLXDWIbNyeis), has been experimentally modified to run on Big Sur itself by Jeremy Legendre: https://github.com/jslegendre/ThemeEngine/releases. I've used the Legendre one very successfully - just dragging and dropping new icons of the various sizes and using 'save as' to save the changes to a new file, ready to swap this Assets.car file out for the Apple one (also as outlined in my previously 'huge' instructions).

I read that many forum members say 'why bother, get used to the new look' or 'I'll give up and stay with Catalina'. Well, to me, the hill was placed in the way to how I like my OS's to look, so I'm finding ways to dig underneath to the other side. Once you do this process the first time, it's not that hard to do it again, once BS's final version is released and then on later updates (which will probably overwrite the Assets.car file, so you just put the modified one back in each time and clear the icon cache).

 

[q64ceo]

Nevermind please delete

 

[q64ceo]

Thanks for the ThemeEngine link for Big Sur. Curious, anyone know where the menubar selection tint is located? I can barely see the menubar items that I click on and I want to change it to a brighter shade of white.

 

[borp99]

Thanks for the ThemeEngine link for Big Sur. Curious, anyone know where the menubar selection tint is located? I can barely see the menubar items that I click on and I want to change it to a brighter shade of white.

From what I've read, the tint is 'dynamically' created, based on your highlight selection in General preferences and possibly the desktop picture you select. Maybe experiment with altering the latter, with a darker picture or colour used.

 

[q64ceo]

From what I've read, the tint is 'dynamically' created, based on your highlight selection in General preferences and possibly the desktop picture you select. Maybe experiment with altering the latter, with a darker picture or colour used.

Hmm. Using stock wallpaper shouldn't make it damn near impossible to see.

 

[borp99]

Hmm. Using stock wallpaper shouldn't make it damn near impossible to see.

There are other settings in the Accessibility preference pane to do with changing transparency and contrast, which apparently are there to help GUI legibility for some people. There is also a ‘transparency fix’ as part of Barry K Nathan’s micropatcher method of installing BS. Have a look at the ‘Big Sur on Unsupported Mac’ thread on Macrumors (google it) and search for ‘transparency fix’ comments. You may be able to trigger that script retrospectively if you don’t want to reinstall the whole OS.

 

[pappkristof]

How to Change the Icons for Your Favorite Apps on macOS Big Sur - AppleToolBox

While the iPhone and iPad have become a focal point, it has seemed like Apple left the Mac off to the way-side. Even with the release of the Mac Pro, the Learn how to customize the icons in macOS Big Sur with these steps outlined from our expert.

appletoolbox.com

 

[mikzn]

Any one remember anything about the story surrounding the Apple Genius Bar and Application Enhancer Framework at the time of OS Tiger? How they apparently got a whole lot of Mac users coming in because 10.4.10 or 10.4.11 caused their Mac not to boot to the Desktop because of the old APE framework needing updating? I think that the owner? of the website of Unsanity products lingers over on Neowin - I might ask him what happened during that time if I have the guts to.

I used to love the “nightshade app” by Unsanity that made windows rolled up into the title bar 💕 - It was great when you had a lot of windows open and wanted to leave them where they were, but still see what was behind them or focus on another window. In 0S9 it was built in to the OS but for some reason it was dropped moving forward to OS X 😕 - still miss that feature

 

[fisherking]

i have always played with the GUI on my macs (since 10.2); transparent dock, custom icons, etc. i STILL hide the dock forever (i never use it). but... been running big sur with no modified icons, and... it's fine, i don't miss anything. am much more interested in the general aesthetic of my mac, and my work going well. for me, unless liteicon returns, it's the end of customizing my mac. full disclosure: still using bartender to manage the menu icons.....