DISK EDITOR NOTES: While the Workbench based icon editing tools on this disk are far more flexible and easier to use than the CLI based utilities in this tutorial, this is intended to give you both a better hands-on understanding of icons and get your hands a little dirty with the CLI. --------------------------|Icon Tutor|--------------------------- 12 June 1988 by Robert Woodard The Amiga Computer Society (AMYCUS) aka Woody (C) ----------------------------------------------------------------- Call the Wolves Den BBS @ (803) 293-4930 Myrtle Beach Sysop - George Lewis - President AMYCUS South Carolina ----------------------------------------------------------------- Woody (C) is a handle used by Robert Woodard - V.P. AMYCUS ----------------------------------------------------------------- Ever wonder how people make all those neat little icons? Ever wish you could figure out how to use all those PD icon utilities? Well fret no longer, a step-by-step tutorial is finally here! I was possessed to write this tutorial because many club members wanted to know how I made/modified all the icons I have running around my disks. After showing several people, I decided a tutorial was badly needed. This is my first contribution to the Amiga community, but more is on the way! Deluxe Paint is recommended for this tutorial, however, I have provided some ready made brushes (by me!) for those not fortunate enough to have this great program. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Section 1 - Creating a Brush ----------------------------------------------------------------- To start with, you need to print out these instructions! It's a little difficult (unless you have a photographic memory) to remember all the steps involved. Begin by booting up Deluxe Paint. When prompted, select med-res and four colors. Don't worry about the colors, I'll set those for you. Load in the IconGrid picture. Notice that the colors are now set to the default Workbench colors? This makes it much easier to guess what your final icons will look like. The icon grid is divided into ten small windows in which I have drawn pictures that we will convert to icons. Using the grid is not very important when creating a single picture icon. The grid if very helpful however, when we begin framing the brushes for making two picture icons. The grid is also numbered and lettered for easy reference from this tutorial. Let's start by clipping each picture out and saving them as a brush. Select the magnifying glass, and move up to the upper left hand corner of grid A1. Magnify this area and then select the cut option. Begin cutting just on the inside (the very next pixel) of the upper left hand corner of the grid. Continue dragging out the box until you reach just inside the lower right hand corner of the A1 grid. Would you believe this is the hardest part in creating an icon? (Other than trying to think of a picture to draw, that is.) Now save the brush with the filename of: A1. Repeat the above steps for each frame of the grid, naming the files A2,B1,B2,...E2. Remember to cut very carefully, one pixel in from each corner of a given grid. The reason that this so important is that when making two picture icons, it is very important to prevent a one or two pixel shift between the first and second picture. (See Icon Hints at the end of this file.) ----------------------------------------------------------------- Section 2 - Making an Icon from a Brush -------------------------------------------------------------- Now the going gets a bit easier. Boot up Workbench and enter CLI. CD to your work disk that has the 10 brushes we saved in part one. Make sure these brushes are in the root directory along with the three icon utility programs. Enter the following command: ZapIcon A1 ICONA1 Where the first argument (A1) is the brush to be converted, and the last argument (ICONA1) is the name of the icon you wish the brush converted to. Congratulations! You have just created your very first "Tool" icon! Enter this command for each of the ten brushes, changing the brush and icon names as appropriate. Return back to Workbench and click on your work disk to see what the icons look like. Clicking on these icons will do nothing for now since there is no program yet assigned. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Section 3 - Making Two Picture Icons ----------------------------------------------------------------- Anyone still out there? I hope that you have mastered sections one and two by now. Ready to make some two picture icons? If you want to keep some of the single icons, be sure and copy them to another disk so they won't be changed by this part of the tutorial. Ok, lets get crackin. To make a two picture icon, simply enter: SetAlternate ICONA1 ICONA2 This Modifies ICONA1 so that ICONA2 appears when it is clicked. Note that only ICONA1 is modified. ICONA2 is left unchanged. Do this with each of the five pairs of icons. (ICONA 1&2, ICONB 1&2, ICONC 1&2, ICOND 1&2, and ICONE 1&2) If all went well, you now have five two picture icons. Try them out by closing the window on your work disk and re-open it. Click on ICONA1, ICONB1, ICONC1, ICOND1, and ICONE1 in turn to see the professional results of your labor. Remember that these are all still TOOL icons that currently serve no purpose since no tool has been assigned to them. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Section 4 - Give'em Some Purpose ----------------------------------------------------------------- Well, now we have a bunch of icons running around and they don't do anything but look nice. If all we want them to do is run a Tool, (like CLI) all we have to do is rename the icon to the same name as the TOOL. Try this: 1) Copy NewCLI from the 'C' directory of Workbench to the root directory of the work disk. Rename it to just 'CLI'. 2) Single click on ICONB1 and chose the rename option from Workbench. 3) Rename the icon "CLI". There is no need to add the .info to the end, as Workbench does this automatically. 4) Close the window, re-open it and double click on your new "CLI" icon. Neat huh? Pat yourself on the back. You have come a long way. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Section 5 - OK, What Next? --------------------------------------------------------------- Glad you asked. Like I pointed out before, these icons only work for "TOOLS". So what if I want to make a Disk Icon? Wait! Come back! It's very simple. Enter the following command: IconType d ICOND1 This changes ICOND1 into a disk icon. Now before you go running to Workbench to see what it looks like there are a few steps you need to take: 1) Delete the Disk.info file from your work disk. (NOT WORKBENCH) 2) Rename (from CLI) ICOND1.info to Disk.info 3) Close all open windows on Workbench. 4) Remove your work disk and CD to RAM: 5) Re-insert your work disk and CD to that drive. If you don't see your new disk icon, don't worry. Move CLI around. It's probably hidden up underneath it. Time and space prevent me from going into Drawers, Projects, ect, but hopefully you are now on the right track. Read the instructions at the end of this file for a little more info on how IconType works. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Section 6 - Icon Tips ----------------------------------------------------------------- As already mentioned, the hardest part about making two picture icons is framing. The second most difficult is aligning both pictures within the frame. I find that the best way to do this is to draw the first picture within a grid and then cut it out (including the "frame" around it) and stamp it onto another grid, being extremely careful to place the brush frame directly on top of the grid square you wish to copy it in to. Then make changes to the second frame as necessary. Don't ask me why, but not all programs will run from an icon. Also, some icons converted using IconType will cause the system to crash, be sure to try out all changes on a BACKUP of the original before committing yourself. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Section 7 - Last but not Least ------------------------------------------------------------- I hope you found this file very helpful. No, I'm not asking you to send me money, BUT if you found this file useful, please help out our infant users group by sending us a disk of PD programs for our library. Also include some of your custom made icons. (I collect them.) Thank you in advance. Feel free to give this tutorial to anyone interested in sitting through it. But please do not upload it to an information service that claims copyright to it's contents. (I didn't even mention CIS.) Please send all comments, suggestions, and PD software to: AMYCUS c/o Robert H. Woodard Box 58, Jones Rd. Myrtle Beach, SC 29577 P.S. I have a suggestion for the Amiga Community: Whenever Arc'ing up a file for upload to a BBS, always put the Read.Me file or a dummy text file as the last Arc'ed file. This is normally where errors in the transfer of the file occur. Most CRC errors are recoverable on a text file but are rarely so on the runtime code of a program. Woody (C) _/ \_ CLI ICON TOOL DOCS: ZAPICON turns an IFF "Brush" file (from DPaint or elsewhere) into an icon. Just use the command: zapicon brushname iconname (use the root of the icon name only -- i.e. omit the '.info' suffix.) It will ALWAYS create a TOOL icon. If you want to use it with xicon, you must change its type to PROJECT by using IconType on it. SETALTERNATE concatenates a second icon image to a single-image initial icon, so that the second will appear when it is selected.The format is: setalternate icon icon2 The first icon is modified. +++++++++++++++++++ ICONTYPE A useful utility for changing the type of an icon after editing with IconEd. The "Kick" icon type is not supported, mainly because I can't see a use for it. If you have a use, let me know, and I'll put it in. Typing the command name by itself or with a "?" for an argument will print a short "usage" message. Please note that if you change the type of an icon that is currently displayed in a window, the window must be closed, then re-opened before you will see any change in the "INFO" for that icon. Usage is as follows: IconType clock.info project (change "clock.info" to a "project" icon) IconType tools.info drawer (change "tools.info" to a "drawer" icon ) Valid icon types are Disk, Drawer, Tool, Project, Garbage, and Device.