Sunday, 10 July 2011

Change Mac OS X 10.7 Lion iCal and Address Book Skins from Leather to Aluminium

Revised: 30/7/11 - Removed repeating gradient from sidebars in AddressBook skin & revised some images.

This is my original post on how to re-skin 10.7 Lion's iCal and Address Book from leather back to an Aluminium look as in previous versions of Max OS X.

This method still works but I have since posted a much easier way to do the same thing using standard installers.


If you prefer to do things the manual way and want to see exactly what is going on, then continue reading....

Download the zip files below and follow the instructions further down this article, they have been tested with Mac OS X Lion 10.7 Build 11A511 (Gold Master and Final Release)

Zip Files for Manual Installation (Updated 30/07/11)

They look like this: -
 and this..
Installation Instructions
Both of these skins are installed in the same way and using them will not affect your user data (eg. appointments, addresses etc), only the look of the application: -

1 - Make a copy of iCal.app / AddressBook.app ** THIS IS IMPORTANT **
If you don't make a backup you will need to reinstall to revert back to the original look.

2 - Download the relevant file above and unzip it someplace.

3 - Go to your Applications folder and Control-Click on iCal / AddressBook and select 'Show Package Contents'.

4 - Browse to Contents > Resources.

5 - Drag the files from the zip to the Resources folder (You may need admin rights).

6 - Quit and Reopen iCal / AddressBook.

Reverting back
If you decide you want to go back to the original Lion versions and you made a backup before you started, do the following: -
1 - Delete iCal.app or Address Book.app - This can be done in Finder by dragging the application from the Application folder to the trash can.  If that doesn't work, go to Utilities > Terminal.app and enter the following command: -
sudo rm -rf /Applications/iCal.app

or

sudo rm -rf /Applications/Address\ Book.app
2 - Copy back the backup of iCal / Address Book you made earlier in to the Applications folder.

Hope you enjoy them, please make a donation if you use them regularly :)



Posted by at

55 comments:

  1. Mr Fruitbat6 July 2011 at 00:54

    Nice one, I couldn't agree more with your sentiments.

    ReplyDelete
  2. satyrica7 July 2011 at 08:36

    NICE WORK! Just have to figure out how to hack the text color now...
    (that brown hue is awful!)

    I still can't believe they let ical ship looking like that!!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Codeus8 July 2011 at 09:24

    Yes, I would like to know how to adjust the color of the text. I think it is coded someplace in a .nib though, and they cannot easily be decompiled. Please let me know if you find away though.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Unknown21 March 2013 at 11:57

      Did you find out how to change the text color?

      Delete
  4. Adam B18 July 2011 at 16:10

    That looks much better. I'll spread the word ;)

    ReplyDelete
  5. timeitself20 July 2011 at 11:59

    Great job! Much better now

    ReplyDelete
  6. Louis Tristan20 July 2011 at 12:11

    Wow! Thank you.. This is a life saver.... Don't know whoo decided was part of the creative dpt in creating the ical skins for Lion...

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thistle20 July 2011 at 13:15

    Great work. A leather-bound calendar - what on earth were they thinking!? How long before we get a tropical hardwood veneer Dock...

    ReplyDelete
  8. mylene20 July 2011 at 19:57

    i dragged the files to resources. now what do i do to get the skins?

    ReplyDelete
  9. NathanNookie21 July 2011 at 00:41

    Thank you soooo much. I was so nauseated by the new look, I'd gone into the resource folder, found the leather PNG files, taken them into photoshop and made them metallic (or transparent in the case of the ripped paper PNG) and even embedded my name on the large bar to personalize it. BUT, I haven't had time to fix all the other PNG files, so, like I said... thank you so much.

    ReplyDelete
  10. NathanNookie21 July 2011 at 00:43

    Now, if Apple can just give us the classic 3 pane view (from SL) for Address Book, I'll be happy ;)

    ReplyDelete
  11. Anonymous21 July 2011 at 03:25

    I messed up your directions and need to revert to the original settings. I did make a copy as mentioned in your directions. How do I go about getting back to original settings?

    ReplyDelete
  12. Codeus21 July 2011 at 04:33

    Just drag the broken iCal.app from your Applications folder to the trash (you may have to authenticate).

    Then just copy back the original iCal.app in to the Applications folder.

    That should revert it back to the original.

    ReplyDelete
  13. anybodyelse21 July 2011 at 04:52

    THX

    ReplyDelete
  14. Shaun Keenan21 July 2011 at 10:06

    Thank you! that theme was HORRID. WTH were they thinking?

    ReplyDelete
  15. Unknown21 July 2011 at 11:57

    Thank you for helping to fix Apple's mistake of not making the UI consistent. Now I'll be able to sleep at night knowing there's no leather in my aluminum-cased Mac Pro.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Anonymous21 July 2011 at 14:09

    I love you.

    Whew. Now I can look at my calendar and address book without cringing. Donate button, here I come!

    ReplyDelete
  17. dpulvino21 July 2011 at 15:08

    Hated the Apple skins, love yours. When I change iCal from full screen to a window the skin goes black. Can you please fix?

    ReplyDelete
  18. psok21 July 2011 at 16:16

    Thank you so much!

    ReplyDelete
  19. Anonymous21 July 2011 at 22:05

    Readers, send iCal feedback to Apple.

    http://www.apple.com/feedback/ical.html

    MacNix, we love you. May the donations of thanks and payments make you rich, in soul and wallet, beyond your wildest dreams.

    One thing could make you more wildly popular than you are already: offer something to restore the sidebar … 

    http://identi.ca/notice/79370593

    ReplyDelete
  20. Jayse21 July 2011 at 22:21

    Thank you for saving my iCal experience. The leather was an AWFUL distraction.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Anonymous22 July 2011 at 02:19

    Totally agree with you on this one!! Many thanks for saving me time and effort to make these images!

    ReplyDelete
  22. Gnyffe22 July 2011 at 06:00

    How to revert, you are not allowed to delete of overwrite ical because it's a part of OSX.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Codeus22 July 2011 at 06:20

    To revert back; either delete iCal.app using finder, or if this fails, from Utilties > Terminal

    In terminal type: -

    sudo rm -rf /Applications/iCal.app

    or...

    sudo rm -rf /Applications/Address\ Book.app

    You will need to enter your password.

    Now just copy back the backup you made of iCal.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Anonymous24 July 2011 at 05:03

    Good stuff, thx a lot. Leather-look? What a design disaster! Someone's going to pay for that :D

    ReplyDelete
  25. Andy C24 July 2011 at 12:53

    Any word on how to disable the heinous page-turn animation? It prevents you from clicking 'next month' multiple times, you have to wait each time.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Toby25 July 2011 at 11:33

    Hi there!

    Thanks a lot for this nice graphics!


    Does anyone know how to get rid of this brownish hue of the type in the upper bar?

    ReplyDelete
  27. James W4 August 2011 at 01:24

    Excellent, thank you for posting these. I have no idea what possessed Apple.

    ReplyDelete
  28. hodihigson4 August 2011 at 13:17

    OK that is great, much better ... however ....
    CALENDAR COLOURS - where have they gone?
    Is there anyway to change the colour of each calendar event to a more vibrant, less translucent wishy washy waste of space?

    I use the calendar to track bookings, and now all 5 colours look about the same, I need my old snow leopard colours back, this is crazy.
    Have a wishy washy no-use to man nor beast see-thourgh option by all means but don't take away the old colour system

    Any ideas

    ReplyDelete
  29. Anonymous11 August 2011 at 12:39

    Thank you thank you thank. Don't know what Apple was thinking, just about the worst UI change they've ever made imo. Thanks for letting us get back to 2011. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  30. Adam Krell12 August 2011 at 10:10

    Is there any way to get the mini-calendars back in week view? I can't believe Apple removed them.

    ReplyDelete
  31. Anonymous12 August 2011 at 15:25

    Thanks for this :)

    ReplyDelete
  32. Test it Again13 August 2011 at 14:01

    Good to see I am not alone!
    Anyone figure out how to hack appointment text coloring back in as well?

    ReplyDelete
  33. James Kachan19 August 2011 at 15:29

    hodihigson, you can change the colors by right click on the calendars from the drop down thing, and selecting GET INFO, then there is a colour picker there.

    ReplyDelete
  34. Malcolm6 September 2011 at 10:19

    Just donated. Thanks for putting time into the installer. BTW, I'd pay a small sum for a package that installed other skins if they were attractive.

    ReplyDelete
  35. Unknown9 September 2011 at 12:54

    Much appreciate your effort.

    Regardless of skin, the &!@%#!@!!! grid and numbers on the calendar are near invisible! What are the specific components that need adjusting for these, if their is a way to change them?

    I long for the days of RESEDIT!

    Thanks much!
    Ray~

    ReplyDelete
  36. Oliver4 October 2011 at 19:06

    Thanks! Great work!

    ReplyDelete
  37. Unknown10 October 2011 at 02:58

    Great work, any ideas on how to pull this off for quicklook aswell?

    ReplyDelete
  38. Armand13 October 2011 at 12:57

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  39. Nelio19 October 2011 at 01:51

    Thanks a lot!

    I'm not sure Steve or Joni saw this leather horror. Can't believe they'd approve it. It simply is bad taste.

    Georges

    ReplyDelete
  40. Armand19 October 2011 at 10:14

    Dear Codeus,

    This looks great! Congratulations.

    I've been experiencing a very annoying bug though. Since I installed the skin, every time I close the iCal window and move to a different app, iCal quits all on its own. Highly problematic as naturally my alarms do not come up without iCal running.

    Anyone else experience something similar? Codeus, please, any ideas?

    Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  41. Armand19 October 2011 at 10:21

    Also, I tried copying back my backup... all that did was restore the hideous leather skin but the problem remains. I used the dmg installer.

    Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  42. Codeus19 October 2011 at 10:58

    The skin changes only affect the image files inside the app. It doesn't touch any code whatsoever and could not cause the behaviour you are seeing.

    Maybe this link will help as it seems others have seen the same problem as you with Lion iCal: -

    https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3275196?start=0&tstart=0

    Hope you get it fixed!

    ReplyDelete
  43. thinayr24 October 2011 at 09:07

    Awesome! Now if we could only get rid of the HIDEOUS new notification badges!!

    ReplyDelete
  44. Unknown28 November 2011 at 19:12

    Thanks for the help on this.
    Personally I went for a black address book, and kept the torn paper look on the calendar.

    ReplyDelete
  45. decoman6 January 2012 at 15:25

    where is the backup ical.app stored?

    ReplyDelete
  46. jkaris2 February 2012 at 16:31

    begrudgingly updated to 10.7, this makes it just that bit more bearable...

    ReplyDelete
  47. Tommawack4 February 2012 at 07:35

    Thankkkkkksssssss !

    ReplyDelete
  48. Angelica Holiday10 February 2012 at 11:05

    I am a 1 week old PC convert to Mac and formerly used Outlook as my address book that syncs with my Blackberry. Any options for changing the appearance/layout of the inside page layouts or is it one choice of layout and thats it? I know how to add more fields, but I am looking for a better visual experience of those fields. The way it looks now is very sub par to everything on the market from the paper diary to digital.
    Thanks for your help.

    ReplyDelete
  49. WandaB.12 February 2012 at 13:11

    Thanks for the share.
    Any chance you could also "render" the AddressBook.icns images to make them match?

    ReplyDelete
  50. Anonymous4 May 2012 at 03:28

    Hi Codeus,

    Do you have a skin installer that will work in 10.8? The 10.7 ones do not work. I also noticed some images are TIFF, not PNG. I wonder why they did that ...........

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Codeus5 May 2012 at 08:44

      Hey, 10.8 / Mountain Lion version is now up on the blog. Enjoy!

      Delete
  51. Lar of the Lair28 August 2012 at 13:33

    Codeus,

    Just got a MBP Retina and the iCal window reverts to the original look when the window is displayed on the MBP screen, but remains the aluminum skin when on an external (non-Retina) display. Am I doing something wrong? Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Lar of the Lair30 August 2012 at 18:59

      Just to clarify, I'm still running Lion on my MBP Retina.

      Delete
  52. Justin Wilson14 December 2012 at 13:10

    Now if only we could get the buttons straight as well (little but brown still).

    ReplyDelete

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