I recently set XAMPP up on my mac (get it here). It’s an easy to setup and flexible web server environment. The best part is you don’t need to have it running all the time – just fire up the XAMPP control panel whenever you need to do some localised development (ie. when you’re on the train or out of range of wifi) and start the relevant servers. It’s a one-click install and lets you flip between php 4 and 5 at the click of a radio button. Sweet!

The only thing is – call me a snob – the dock icon for the control panel is rubbish – it’s pale and faded, and a bit meaningless looking…
See for yourself

Old XAMPP dock icon

I had a peek around the net and there’s some much better logo images for XAMPP but not available as a replacement icon file. So I grabbed one and made my own. Here it is in action:

Updated XAMPP dock icon

OK it’s not perfect – the anti-aliasing at the top is a bit hooky but at least it’s a bit more presentable.

Here’s how to set it up:

  1. First download the xampp.icns.zip file from here
  2. Unzip it

    3. furniture Bulgaria

  3. Open Finder and browse to ‘Applications>XAMPP’
  4. CTRL-click the XAMPP Control Panel application and select ‘Show Package Contents’
  5. Browse to ‘Contents>Resources’
  6. drop the xampp.icns file into this folder
  7. then copy it and replace ‘xcp.icns’ with it

That’s it. Job done and nice shiny more XAMPP like icon on your dock