Question

How can I modify the red/yellow/green window buttons for close/minimize/zoom in Mac OS X? There must be an editable resource or plist somewhere.

Here are the buttons I’m talking about:

For red/green colorblind individuals, those colors can be maddening. I wish they chose the actual bluish shade of green used in a traffic light instead of the puke grass green. That grassy green is indeterminable from the red.

Changing the theme to graphite is a poor alternative, so any other method is much preferred.

Answer 1

Okay, after a long and seemingly endless research cycle, I’ve located where the window buttons are stored. They’re in a file called ArtFile.bin in /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CoreUI.framework/Versions/A/Resources/.

Also, a guy named Alex Zielenski with the help of Indragie Karunaratne created a utility named artFileTool to get to its contents. The second link is the code repository for the utility.

• http://macthemes.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16810624
• https://github.com/alexzielenski/artFileTool

Here’s the process to extract and then rebuild the resource as described on the MacThemes forum by a user named toutheme:

For ArtFile.bin – Lion

Preparation

• Create new folder: TheFolder
• Copy the Lion ArtFile.bin (/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CoreUI.framework/Resources) and artFileTool on TheFolder.

Terminal

• Launch Terminal, type “cd” + “space” + (drag TheFolder on Terminal window). Type enter.

Decoding

To decode ArtFile.bin and compile a folder Resources Disconnected Classified:

• ./artFileTool -d ArtFile.bin ResourcesDisconnectedClassified

  — or —

To decode ArtFile.bin and compile a folder Named Connected Images:

• ./artFileTool -d -c ArtFile.bin NamedConnectedImages

Edition

Edit your files with PhotoShop, for example…

Encoding

To re-encode the Resources Disconnected Classified:

• ./artFileTool -e ResourcesDisconnectedClassified ArtFile.bin ArtFile.new.bin

  — or —

To re-encode the Named Connected Images:

• ./artFileTool -e -c NamedConnectedImages ArtFile.bin ArtFile.new.bin

---

For ArtFile.bin – Snow Leopard:

• ./artFileTool -d -l ArtFile.bin ResourcesDisconnectedClassified
• ./artFileTool -d -l -c ArtFile.bin NamedConnectedImages
• ./artFileTool -e -l ResourcesDisconnectedClassified ArtFile.bin ArtFile.new.bin
• ./artFileTool -e -l -c NamedConnectedImages ArtFile.bin ArtFile.new.bin

---

For ArtFile200.bin (Lion only):

• Create new folder: TheFolder
• Copy the Lion ArtFile200.bin (/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CoreUI.framework/Resources) and artFileTool on TheFolder.
• Launch Terminal, type “cd” + “space” + (drag TheFolder on Terminal window). Type enter.

Decoding

• ./artFileTool -d ArtFile200.bin ResourcesDisconnectedClassified
• ./artFileTool -d -c ArtFile200.bin NamedConnectedImages

Encoding

• ./artFileTool -e ResourcesDisconnectedClassified ArtFile200.bin ArtFile200.new.bin

• ./artFileTool -e -c NamedConnectedImages ArtFile200.bin ArtFile200.new.bin

• Make sure to check the size of the newly created file. (4.0-5.2 mb)

• Rename ArtFile.new.bin to ArtFile.bin and replace the one location in the CoreUI.framework directory
• Logout

I hope this helps anyone who got as frustrated as I did at how difficult it is discovering basic information about the inner workings of OS X.