IconPress Icon Maker

[AMIGASYSTEM]

Great work miker, having thumbnails also on Wanderer would be useful, with OS3 it is possible to have thumbnails thanks to Tool "Eastern" and icon.library bu PeterK

[miker1264]

Great work miker, having thumbnails also on Wanderer would be useful, with OS3 it is possible to have thumbnails thanks to Tool "Eastern" and icon.library bu PeterK

For Thumbs View for Wanderer for picture files it is possible. They are simply resized PNG images to simplify the explanation. When Wanderer displays icons it displays PNG images. The Thumbnail images act like icon objects.

Actually there is a way that Wanderer can do the same. 

[AMIGASYSTEM]

Regarding the Icon Type, for someone like me who produces a lot of icons, small, fast and especially drag-n-drop tools are very useful, at the moment for the creation of icons for AROS One, on OS3 I use "IconType", this tool allows me i little time and easily to edit hundreds of Icons.

Using mouse and menu would involve so much extra time, this applies to both Icon Type and Image Change, if I then need to copy only Position, Tooltype, Image, Stack Size or data Drawer, I use IconCopier, although now IconCopier has become obsolete.

[miker1264]

The first release version of IconPress will be ready when ResizeToFit is working and we can load 2 PNG images or 2 ILBM Images and Save Icon works to assemble a new icon.

ResizeToFit will be automatic. If the PNG image being loaded is not a size that will comfortably fit in the display area the user will be prompted to Resize the pixel data. The original image will not be altered. The scaled pixel data will be used to save the new icon. This is the first icon image effect.

The second release will focus on adding a small menu system with a few more icon image effects. Also Save Argb will be enabled to use Color Quantizing to convert PNG to ILBM to save a Classic Icon.

The third release will add the Drop Shadow and Glow Border functions as well as the ability to Select Icon Options such as Icon Type, add Default Tool,  & ability to add ToolTypes if that's possible. By then Save Argb will be complete. It will save Argb Icons as well as saving OS4 Icons from 2 PNG input images.

These things seem small but they involve a lot of work. 

[miker1264]

Regarding the Icon Type, for someone like me who produces a lot of icons, small, fast and especially drag-n-drop tools are very useful, at the moment for the creation of icons for AROS One, on OS3 I use "IconType", this tool allows me i little time and easily to edit hundreds of Icons.

Using mouse and menu would involve so much extra time, this applies to both Icon Type and Image Change, if I then need to copy only Position, Tooltype, Image, Stack Size or data Drawer, I use IconCopier, although now IconCopier has become obsolete.

It may be possible to do something similar for a planned icon tool such as IconType. I had just thought of it as allowing to user to change type. But maybe it could allow dropping a source icon & destination icon then choose which attributes to copy as well as string the icon type.

If you just want to change the type drop the icon in the destination area set the new icon type then save it.

Not sure about it. I will consider the new layout.

[AMIGASYSTEM]

The IconEditor Program that I use to create my Icons, on OS3 and AROS, the Icons created are saved the all as "Project Icon" icons, this means that I then have to do the conversion with other software.

Also IconEditor, on folder icons, doesn't have a tool to set position and window size, I don't know of any application that can set this on all Icons.

Actually this on AROS One should not be a problem since on Wanderer Preferences I set window position and size to "automatic", basically if you save the SYS window, all subfolders will open at the same size.

However, the problem may arise if the user disables the automatic from Wanderer, in which case the Folder Windows will open in a cluttered manner as IconEditor a prefixed.

Another feature that will show the messy icons is if you try to open a folder from a Shell without using Wanderer.

[miker1264]

As far as Thumbnails that can be used with drag-n-drop there is a possible solution.

The command line iconmake program will copy the PNG image of itself to the same location with .info extension making a copy of itself into an icon instead of using a picture def icon.

If you are batch processing icon images into icons the iconmake app will "find" an image by making a copy of itself as it's own icon. In batch mode it will "find" all the images in that directory. But please make sure they are icon images. It may be wise to check the dimensions before assigning.

I'm still working on this. I will have to write iconmake

[miker1264]

For facilitating drag-n-drop of icon image files for IconPress I have started writing "iconmake" which is a small command line tool that can make an icon for a single PNG icon image or batch process all icon images in a directory.

It makes an icon for PNG picture files that are of the correct width & height for an icon image. It copies the PNG image itself & adds .info to make it into an icon of itself. When you open the directory containing the icon images you will then see icons that represent the true image rather than a def picture icon although the girl with the red scarf is very nice too! If you delete the temp icons she will reappear.

This only works for PNG icon images not other picture files. It doesn't create thumbnails. It creates temp icons that act like thumbnails but they can be used for drag & drop. 

But it's all about speed and accuracy. Dragging and dropping hundreds of icon images can be tedious! IconPress will work in batch mode also for a source directory containing pairs of icon images if they are named appropriately. If the files are System1.png, System2.png, Tools1.png, Tools2.png, etc. IconPress will scan the directory to find the base names then combine the image pairs into System.info, Tools.info, etc. If an output directory is provided the icons will be saved there instead. Otherwise they will be saved in the source directory. It can process hundreds of icons in just a few minutes.

For Wanderer I write a similar utility to generate thumbnails & make icons as a proof of concept. Eventually Wanderer may be able to generate virtual thumbnails of pictures to be used as temp icons in a Thumbs View Mode. When we switch back to Icon View Mode thumbnails are replaced with original icons.

[miker1264]

IconMake can make single icons for icon images such as the blue drawer that only have def picure icons.

Next I will start a new fuction to scan directories for batch processing.

[miker1264]

Oh Yeah! IconMake Batch Processing all the png icon images in "Ram Disk:" 

After you run IconMake to make temp icons you can use them to drag-n-drop to IconPress (or other apps).

The temp icons act like thumbnails so that you can actually see which icon images are available instead of just def picture icons!

Now that I scan a directory I will modify IconMake to also make real thumbnails for picture files other than icon images. The PNG picture file thumbnails can also be dropped on IconPress. It will scale them to fit the display.

The IconMake tool will be ready after a little code cleanup. I will post it here.

[AMIGASYSTEM]

Thanks miker, it will be immediately installed on AROS One, I also prepared a complete icon set for all AROS One icons.

[miker1264]

Thanks miker, it will be immediately installed on AROS One, I also prepared a complete icon set for all AROS One icons.

Thanks. I also have some artwork for the icons for the other icon tools. I will post them for you to see.

I'm not satisfied with my icon image for IconPress. Maybe you could do better. My concept is a stack of colored paper with an arrow  pointing down like a printing press. Mine isn't pretty.  :'(

I will also post the new colored drawer icons for everyone.

I'm working on ResizeBilinear for creating thumbnails. It is also for ResizeToFit for IconPress to fit the display area.

If IconMake will be capable of making thumbnails that's ok for proof of concept. But why not have it create the complete icon?

[AMIGASYSTEM]

I will look at the archive images and see if I can create something of my own !

[miker1264]

As far as Icon Image Effects I created a DropShadow Effect manually using a black image mask & gaussian blur with radius of 5. The original RGB pixels are then overlaid on the blurred mask creating the shadow effect.

But for the Glow Border it may require a custom algorithm. It has 4 bands of transparency radiating outwards. It consists of rectangular offsets with rounded edges with alpha blending against a white background. Easy breezy! 

[AMIGASYSTEM]

When you have the tools and know how to use them, anything can be created.

I am content to do manual things without using effects, with icons the less objects there are the more it will have good visibility.

In many cases complex photos are not good for icons, considering that then when you reduce them the details leave something to be desired.

I made some icons for your tools, they are simple, see if you like them: