Window Background

Creating the background of the disk image window is as easy as picking a color or setting a background image using the sidebar. But that’s not where the fun has to end.

DMG Canvas also allows you to drag and drop images onto the Background view, as well as add text objects in order streamline the design process. Instead of having to switch back and forth between two different programs designing the background image and testing it in DMG Canvas, you can drop in pieces of the background and fine tune the layout right inside the Background view. DMG Canvas will automatically composite the layout from the Background view into the background image for the Finder window.

To change the font, size, and color of text objects in the Background view, double-click on it, select the text, and use the standard Font and Color panels (see the Text menu) to style the text.

Retina Background Support

Finder in OS X 10.7 Lion and later supports Retina-resolution background images in disk images. DMG Canvas supports creating these Retina backgrounds. When a dmg is created, the background image (the composited color/image of your choice with the text objects on top) is created at both a regular size and Retina-size. This multi-resolution image is set as the background image for the dmg’s Finder window and the correct resolution is used when the window is displayed. To enabled Retina background creation, you must set the Build Target of the disk image to be OS X 10.7 or later. Earlier versions of OS X do not correctly handle the Retina resolution images, so if you need to build a single disk image for OS versions before and after Lion (such as for an application which runs on 10.6 through 10.8), you will unfortunately not be able to have a Retina background.

One thing you must note, however, is that if you add an image file to the dmg background (either in the Background view or setting it as the background image in the sidebar), the image files you use should be 144 dpi in order to be Retina-savvy. Otherwise, when using a standard 72 dpi image, on a Retina screen it will not be as crisp and clean as it should be. For example, if your disk image is sized 600 x 400, normally you would use a 600 x 400 72 dpi background image. To support Retina displays, you should use a 1200 x 800 144 dpi background image.