makeicns mit Homebrew, MacPorts installieren

Projektlinks

• Homepage
• Paketmanager-Seite

Befehle und Aliase

• makeicns

Projektgeschichte

The upstream page records an original release date of 20081122 and a v1.1 usage banner dated 20090413. It presents makeicns as a command-line answer to creating .icns files, especially when Leopard-era 512x512 icon variants were not handled by tiff2icns.

The same page says the downloadable archive is a universal binary with source included, but it does not publish an official source-control repository. That is why the repository field is null even though the package remains buildable from the upstream download.

Adoptionsgeschichte

The upstream page does not document broad adoption history. Its adoption signal is narrower: it was packaged as a small CLI alternative to GUI icon tools and to tiff2icns limitations for users who wanted scriptable .icns generation.

Because .icns files are Mac-specific, makeicns mainly matters in macOS packaging and app-bundle workflows rather than cross-platform graphics tooling.

Wie es verwendet wird

makeicns accepts key-value arguments naming input images for icon sizes such as 512, 256, 128, 32, and 16, plus 'in' for a shared input and 'out' for the output file. Examples on the upstream page show creating an .icns with selected image variants or overriding the output path.

The page also points users to Preview.app or sips for converting back from .icns to PNG, and includes terminal recipes using Rez and SetFile for assigning custom icon resources to files or folders.

Warum Paket-Nerds sich dafür interessieren

makeicns is a tiny, old-school Mac packaging helper: one focused binary, no daemon, no configuration, and a job that matters when building app bundles or file icons from scripts.

Its significance is mostly historical and practical. It fills the gap between Apple's limited command-line tools of the time and GUI icon converters, especially for the larger icon sizes introduced in newer macOS releases.

Zeitleiste

• 2008: Original release recorded by upstream as 20081122.
• 2009: Version 1.1 usage banner and last-updated note recorded as 20090413.

Related projects

• tiff2icns is mentioned by upstream as a limited alternative.
• img2icns is mentioned by upstream as a GUI program for the same purpose.
• sips, Rez, and SetFile are mentioned by upstream for related icon conversion and resource workflows.

Quellen

• http://www.amnoid.de/icns/makeicns.html