Objective-C - Convert an image to icns

Question

I am trying to create an app for the Mac OS X that will convert an image type to an icns file. I'm wondering how I can get started on doing so. Any suggestions would be nice!

Thanks,

Kevin

What's wrong with Icon Composer? All you have to do is paste the image into its spot. — ughoavgfhw, Dec 19 '10 at 03:06

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 19 '10 at 02:50

3

Use CGImageSource APIs (e.g., CGImageSourceCreateWithURL, CGImageSourceCreateImageAtIndex) to load each image into a CGImageRef. Then use CGImageDestination APIs (e.g., CGImageDestinationCreateWithURL, CGImageDestinationAddImage, CGImageDestinationFinalize) to combine however many images you have into one icon file. The 3rd parameter of CGImageDestinationCreateWithURL would be kUTTypeAppleICNS.

answered Dec 19 '10 at 02:50

JWWalker

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Thanks! I'll definitely look into those APIs – lab12 Dec 20 '10 at 00:18
"`CGImageDestination`, produces buggy ICNS files in pre 10.7 (maybe pre 10.6.8)." http://stackoverflow.com/questions/27808025/how-to-progrmatically-make-mac-os-x-icns-with-10-differnt-images-using-sips-or-o/27809425#comment44029912_27809425 – Noitidart Jan 08 '15 at 05:06

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 25 '12 at 11:29

1 Create a folder named icon.iconset.
2 Add one or more of the following images to the folder:

icon_16x16.png
icon_16x16@2x.png
icon_32x32.png
icon_32x32@2x.png
icon_128x128.png
icon_128x128@2x.png
icon_256x256.png
icon_256x256@2x.png
icon_512x512.png
icon_512x512@2x.png

3 Run this command and icon.icns will be created.

iconutil -c icns icon.iconset

http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/GraphicsAnimation/Conceptual/HighResolutionOSX/Optimizing/Optimizing.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40012302-CH7-SW2

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited Oct 17 '13 at 05:07

Save the NSImage which contains the icon as a TIFF file (use NSData* tiff = [image TIFFRepresentation]; to create a NSData with the TIFF file, and then just use [tiff writeToFile:tiffFile atomically:YES]; to save it in some folder), then use NSTask to convert the TIFF file to an ICNS file using tiff2icns.

tiff2icns /Users/Me/Desktop/pic.tiff /Users/Me/Desktop/pic.icns

Now, an example of the complete code (image is a NSImage file the icon, and iconFile is an NSString with the final location of the icns):

    NSString* tiffFile = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@.tiff",iconFile];

    NSData* tiff = [image TIFFRepresentation];
    [tiff writeToFile:tiffFile atomically:YES];

    NSTask *task = [[NSTask alloc] init];
    [task setLaunchPath:@"/usr/bin/tiff2icns"];

    [task setArguments:[NSArray arrayWithObjects:tiffFile, iconFile, nil]];
    [task launch];
    [task waitUntilExit];

    [[NSFileManager defaultManager] removeItemAtPath:tiffFile error: NULL];

And that's it.

Objective-C - Convert an image to icns

3 Answers3

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