Asset Catalog Tinkerer 2.7

Asset Catalog Tinkerer is one of the few tools that allow browsing and extracting the contents of CAR files, which are asset catalogs that allow organizing and managing such assets as images, sprites, textures and colors used by an application.

Asset Catalog Tinkerer integrates seamlessly with the system, especially with Finder. To browse the assets contained in a file with the CAR extension, you will need to right click the desired application’s icon on Finder and choose to explore the contents of the package. Then, you can explore the system of folder. You should also know that CAR files are usually stored in the Resources folder. Then, when you click on a CAR file, its contents are automatically shown.

Compared with other similar tools, Asset Catalog Tinkerer has the advantage of extracting files without changing their original format. For example, some tools would convert a PDF document to separate PNG images while Asset Catalog Tinkerer keeps the PDF file as it is.

All in all, Asset Catalog Tinkerer efficiently and accurately solves the problem of exploring the contents of CAR files. However, in my opinion, the weakest point of this application is its scarce help documentation. Even the description provided by its developer is extremely short. For instance, when you open the tool after installing it, there is no visual feedback about what you should do next. Yet, it is a product I strongly recommend to those engaged in developing Mac applications and, fortunately, it will not cost anything.