IconRulesAgent

IconRulesAgent is a lightweight macOS menu bar utility that watches a directory of per‑app icon rules and applies custom icons to your apps. It runs without a Dock icon and provides a status bar menu plus a drag‑and‑drop window to quickly add apps.

Highlights

• Menu bar app (no Dock icon)
• Watches a configurable rules directory (watch_dir)
• Applies per‑app custom icons automatically
• Drag‑and‑drop window to add .app bundles
• Handy menu actions: Open Rules, Open Logs, Reload & Reapply, Quit

How it works

At a high level:

1. On launch, the app loads (or creates) a config file at ~/.icons/config.conf and ensures the configured watch_dir exists.
2. A file system watcher observes watch_dir and relevant application folders for changes.
3. For each rule folder inside watch_dir, the app:
   • Reads rule.conf for one or more target= lines that point to app bundles.
   • Picks an icon image (e.g., default.icns, default.png, or any default.*).
   • Sets that image as the bundle’s custom icon and nudges Finder/Launch Services to refresh.
4. A drag‑and‑drop window lets you drop .app bundles to create/update rule folders and their rule.conf entries.

Installation & running

• Open the project in Xcode (macOS target) and build/run.
• On first launch, the app:
  • Hides its Dock icon (accessory activation policy).
  • Creates default configuration and directories if they don’t exist.
  • Shows a menu bar item you can click for actions.

Using the menu bar

Click the menu bar icon to open the app menu:

• Add App… (⌘D)
  • Opens the “Drop Your App Here” window. Drag one or more .app bundles into the window to add them as targets.
• Open Rules Folder (⌘O)
  • Opens the configured watch_dir in Finder.
• Open Logs Folder (⌘L)
  • Opens the app’s log directory in Finder.
• Reload Config & Reapply (⌘R)
  • Reloads configuration and reapplies icons across all rules.
• Quit (⌘Q)
  • Exits the app.

The drop window

• Title: “Drop Your App Here”.
• Drag one or more .app bundles into the window.
• The app will:
  1. Create (or reuse) a rule folder named after the app (e.g., MyApp).
  2. Ensure a rule.conf exists and add a target=/path/to/MyApp.app line if missing.
  3. Open the rule folder in Finder so you can place an icon file.

Rules directory layout

• watch_dir/ — the base directory for rules
  • MyApp/ — a folder per target app
    • default.icns or default.png — icon to apply (any default.* image works)
    • rule.conf — text file with one or more target= entries

Example rule.conf: