There are useful web apps that we use everyday. Just as you can add a shortcut icon to your iphone screen for non-native iphone applications, you can also add a shortcut icon to a your Mac OSX dock for non-native Apple Store / Mac OSX applications. Adding shortcut icons can increase work day productivity and make life easier. Dock shortcut icons are especially useful for software we use everyday, for me, it’s task software like Trello, that I like to have quick access to.
One method of adding web applications or website urls to your dock is to simply go to your browser, load the web page you would like to add a shortcut to, and drag the Favicon that displays to the left of the URL to your Mac OSX Dock. The following icon will represent each url you drag to the Mac dock.
This can be confusing if you have multiple web pages. A better user experience would allow you to add custom icons to replace this @ icon.
Well, you can! It’s just not as straightforward as other Mac OSX actions.
Here’s how:
1. First things first, find the icon image (via google image search, etc) for the URL you would like to pin to your Mac OSX dock.
2. Drag the icon image you would like to use to your desktop.
3. Open the icon image in Preview, select the entire image with the selection tool, and copy it (Command-C).
4. Go to the browser window of the web app or page you would like to have a shortcut to. Drag the favicon to your *desktop* first.
5. Right click on the desktop shortcut to that page and click “Get Info”.
6. Select the default shortcut icon at the top left of the Get Info window. Once clicked, it will highlight in blue.
7. Command-V to paste the new shortcut icon image to replace the default shortcut icon image.
8. Close the Properties window.
9. Drag the desktop shortcut icon to your Mac OSX dock.