Icons in Activity Monitor?

Question

In the above image some processes have "icons" beside their names. What characteristic must a process meet to have an "icon" beside its name? Note the defining characteristic is not simply being in the Applications folder since several processes location in the Applications folder don't have the icon.

In addition how can I check if a PID meets the defining criteria in Objective-C? (Using Cocoa on OSX)

Answer 1

Applications that have "checked in" with Launch Services as a UI app get icons. Technically speaking, anything that ends up calling LSApplicationCheckIn will get one, but that's not a call you can make yourself.

If you run a standard NSRunLoop, or even initialize NSApplication ([NSApplication sharedApplication]) you should get it.

My question is: what are you doing that you're not getting it?

Answer 2

I think only applications that appear with their icon in the dock when you open them do have an icon in the activity monitor.