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Skin the Scroll Bar in iTunes by Michael Coyle

If you have created skins for iTunes, one evasive area of modification has been the Aqua scroll bar. If you know where to look, all the pieces are there as PNG images. Unfortunately, none of the current resource editors can display PNG images, so you have to jump through a few extra hoops.

First, download and install Forker 1.3. It's a System Extension that allows ResEdit to display the data fork of an application.

Open a copy of iTunes in ResEdit and find the PNGf resources. Open them with a double-click, then open ID# 5000. Click once in the HEX area of the window (not the text side on the right) and select all the data to copy to the clipboard (Control-A, Control-C).

From the FILE menu in ResEdit, select NEW to create a new file.

Name the new file 5000.png

Because Forker is installed, the only resource visable in the new file is the data fork (DF).

Open the data fork with a double-click, then open ID# 128 with a double-click.

Click once in the HEX area and paste in the contents of the clipboard (Control-V).

Remember, the clipboard contains the PNGf from iTunes.

From the FILE menu, select Get Info for 5000.png.

Change the file type from rsrc to PNG<space>. That is: PNG with a space as the fourth character. This will allow it to be dragged onto an appropriate image editor.

Unfortunately, you will have to repeat the above process of opening the PNGf, pasting the data into the data fork of a new PNG image file, and then after the PNG image is modified, reverse the above process to copy the PNG image data fork and paste it back into the PNGf resource.

Below is a chart providing the PNGf ID number that corresponds to each section and state of the iTunes scroll bar.

Most readers will start by modifying ID numbers 5000, 5001, 5002 which is the Aqua-Blue section of the scroll bar, but as you can see, the entire scroll bar can be modified to match your favorite Scheme or Theme.

In a few weeks, ResExcellence will be opening a new iTunes skin section. If you have previously submitted a skin and which to update it with a new scroll bar, please resubmit them and they'll be added to the section.