Features

If you have downloaded a disk image-based installer you will almost certainly have seen a few examples of custom Finder windows. In these, an image is shown in the background to enhance the impact for the user and possibly display instructions such as 'click here', 'copy this item to your Applications folder', and so on. Applying a graphic to a window on your Mac is simple enough; just use the View Options palette from the Finder's View menu. But making this work for CDs and downloadable disk images takes a little more work. Here we will show you just how to make a graphically stunning Finder window background that works when viewed by others.

We will use Photoshop to create the images, but you can use whatever image editor you have handy to do the job. For the OS X steps, you will need just the Finder and, optionally, Terminal.

You may not be producing your own software to supply in disk images, but if you ever need to prepare a digital portfolio, this is an excellent way to achieve that all-important initial impact. The content you use might be a web-style HTML portfolio, an interactive multimedia extravaganza made with SuperCard or Director, or a collection of images for browsing, perhaps using an iView Media utility - whatever suits your audience best. As long as the recipient is using a Mac, the CD or mounted disk image will be as attention-grabbing as your imagination can make it.

The hard sell

You cannot make applications

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or files run automatically when the volume you have made is mounted; such behaviour has been deemed, quite rightly, to be a potential security risk. You cannot even use Folder Action AppleScripts, as the scripts themselves have to reside on the host computer, not the folder or volume being opened. What you are doing here is making the whole thing as interesting and attractive as possible in order to persuade the recipient to go ahead and try it out.

Planning the interface

Designing the right graphic for use in a Finder window does not have to be hard. If you plan to do this as part of a CD-based portfolio project, then you might already have a form of interface designed, in use in the portfolio interface itself. (At least, we hope you do. Unless you are just building a collection of images, you really ought to consider how the final product will look very carefully.)

Have a look at that work and see if it lends itself to being used in a Finder window, either lifted straight out or modified in some way first. Begin by thinking about the most appropriate window size for your audience and the content you want to present in it.

If you just have one or two icons to show and no blocks of text instructions to embed in the background, something fairly small is most likely to be right. You should consider the icon size as well - and, of course, the icon itself. Make a 128-pixel-square icon and paste it into the file's Info window, or use an application such as Pixadex (www.iconfactory.com) or Can Combine Icons (www.ittpoi.com) to create a proper icon file with mask, then copy and paste that on to the appropriate file. Consider how the icon graphic could be integrated into the overall image, perhaps by having elements appear to go through the icon itself and out past it in the background.

Alternatively, make sure the icon cannot be missed by painting out an area or having elements in the main graphic converge on the spot where your file or folder will sit.