iCal lack of finesse

Ermm Mine does!!

I've not rebooted or Quit iCal for almost 2 weeks and yet the date on the icon is fine...what version are you using both OS and ical?

--Zed :cool:

The key is not quitting iCal. If it's not running it defaults to the July 17th date.

actually, if you keep iCal in the dock by default it only defaults back to july 17 if you logout/restart. otherwise, it just hangs at the current date.

and, special brownie points if you know the significance of the july 17 date :rolleyes:

and, special brownie points if you know the significance of the july 17 date :rolleyes: That's an easy one.. it's precisely 41 days before my birthday. Pfftp. Easy!

actually, if you keep iCal in the dock by default it only defaults back to july 17 if you logout/restart. otherwise, it just hangs at the current date.

Hmm. Mine still reads June 2, the last date it was open. I haven't logged out or restarted since that date, that I can remember.

Thank you for the responses
and sorry about my lack of clarity.
I mean when it is NOT running.
I use iCal but only launch it when I need to.
I have other apps that continuously update their Dock icon,
Meridian, for example, keeps a clock running there,
with a flawless seconds hand, too.
It is un-elegant to show the wrong date on the iCal icon;
if it is not going to show the right date, it should not
show a date at all. This clearly violates Apple's
UI design guidelines. I mean, how hard would this be?
It only needs to do it ONCE a day...!
Or at least it should NEVER change from that "17."
It fools you into believing the date when it refreshes
upon launching the app. ( Sorry about the rant! )

There's actually a way to remove the date from the icon altogether. Not exactly what you're looking for, but achieves the "finesse" you're after ;)

...pray tell me how.

Why doesn't iCal keep the date on its dock icon current...?
Many applications constantly update their doc icons.
Is there a 3rd party fix for this...?

What I've done is put iCal in my startup items and I wrote an applescript that waits for 30 seconds and then quits iCal. This script is also in my startup items.

It's not very elegant, but it works.

Libwolf

Blank iCal icon:

Control-click on iCal app in Finder;
Select "Show package contents";
Drill to Contents > Resources;
Find iCal-Empty.icns;
Copy that file to Contents > Resources > English.lproj;
Rename the current icon (iCal.icns) to something like iCal_bak.icns;
Rename iCal-Empty.icns to iCal.icns;

Job done. You may need to restart Finder and/or log out and back in to your machine to get the change to take, but that way you end up with a nice blank icon for iCal.

BTW, this hint was mercilessly ripped from the Mac OS X Hints book (plug), but only because I couldn't find the hint on the main site - a search for iCal Dock Icon brought up a tonne of irrelevant results.

Thank you for all the suggestions.

I am intrigued by the script suggestion.
I rarely restart my powerbook, so I wonder
if I could write an applescript that is triggered
every day at midnight and...

1. Launches iCal.
2. Waits 20 seconds.
3. Quits iCal.

The iCal icon would thus be kept
synchronized with the current date.
I've never written an applescript, though.
Does this sound possible...?
Too difficult to script...?

I seem to recall the script has already been written.
Try searching the main hints section.
(If someone finds the hint, please post the link or the code)

I believe if iCal is running at midnight it will auto update the icon to the new date. (Which explains why users that don't shut it down keep the correct date)

If you need to shut it down for some reason, I would set up a cron job to relaunch at 12:01 AM, wait 30 seconds, then shut it down. (Could be the same script in your launch items, just include a pointer to it)

I seem to recall the script has already been written.
Try searching the main hints section.
(If someone finds the hint, please post the link or the code)

...

Is this (http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20030214163614514&query=ical+date+dock) the hint you recall?

Best,
darin

Yep, that was the thread!
Thanks.

Thank you for the tip.
I made it a bit simpler by having iCal
itself be the trigger. I set a repeating event
that launches the script you provided...

tell application "iCal"
activate
quit
end tell

...every night at 12:01 am. Works very well.
Thanks to everybody who patiently helped.
Another micro-flaw has been eliminated!