Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
After you set a code signing identity, you can continue to test and run the project on your Mac in the usual way.
Unlike iOS code signing, Mac code signing doesn't prevent this. Receipt checking can complicate this, so disable
receipt checking code until your final production build.
Creating the app icon file
Mac apps use a special multi-icon file with a
.icns
extension that stores multiple resolutions of the icon.
There's only one way to create this file: Use the Icon Composer utility, which is supplied with Xcode 4. You can
find it in
<Xcode 4 install folder>/Applications/Utilities
.
You have two options for icon design:
Create a single 512 x 512 file in an image editor, and allow Icon Composer to create the other resolutions
for you.
Create separate files for other resolutions.
The required resolutions are 512 x 512, 256 x 256, 128 x 128, 32 x 32, and 16 x 16. Rescaling a single file usu-
ally creates poor results, but—depending the design of your icon—this may not matter.
A time-saving option is to create two resolutions: 512 x 512 and 32 x 32. Use Icon Composer to create the 256
x 256 and 128 x 128 resolutions from the larger file, and the 16 x 16 resolution from the smaller. For best res-
ults, create the smaller file independently. For example, if the icon includes text, retype the text in the smaller
file with a smaller font size.
Save your source files as PNGs. Launch Icon Composer, and drag the files from Finder into the squares in the
Icon Composer UI, as shown in Figure 13.23. When every square is filled, save the file with the
.icns
exten-
sion.
FIGURE 13.23
Creating an icon file with Icon Composer
