If you liked that tip earlier today about adding track information to your iTunes dock icon, here’s another great tip for you: it’s easy to replace the boring old iTunes icon in the dock with the album art for whatever track is playing. Here’s how.
To use this trick, you’re going to want to download DockArt, a free iTunes plugin that works in version 10.4 or above.
Once you’ve downloaded Dock Art, you’re going to want to follow the following instructions from OS X Daily:
1. Unzip the DockArt2.zip file to a folder.
2. From the OS X Desktop, hit Command+Shift+G to bring up the “Go To Folder” window and enter the following directory path:
~/Library/iTunes/iTunes Plug-Ins/
3. Drag the ‘DockArt.bundle’ file into that folder
4. Relaunch iTunes and start playing a song
Once you do, you should see the album art replacing the iTunes icon for any playing song. If there’s no cover art, the regular iTunes icon will pop up instead.
Want to play with DockArt’s options? No problem. In iTunes, just go to View > Visualizer > Dock Art, make sure it is selected, then go there again and select Options. From there, you can change the way the cover art is displayed, tick off a badge notice for unplayed podcasts and more.
Fantastic stuff. Between this tip and our previous tip about displaying track information right over the iTunes icon, who needs any other app?
