An icon is that little image associated with programs. At MWM we have created our own little icon that accompanies all MSM-Workstation programs from our tutorial. The icon will appear in the top left hand corner of the running program and is the graphical representation of that executable. With or without icons programs will function just the same, but these little diagrams can make something look nicer and more professional.

The .ico format is similar to other formats, in that it has its own characteristics (e.g. transparency) with one distinguishing limitation regarding the size of the image: icons are small. Many of the normal drawing programs do not handle this type of file although some will allow import of them.

In this issue MWM takes a look at the shareware product Axialis AX-Icons 4.0 by AXIALIS SA. This product is an icon editing and managing program. With it you can create icons that range from 16x16 to 72x72 (plus in-betweens and custom sizes). The images may range from 2 bits per pixel (two colour) to 24 bit per pixel (16.8 million colours).

Unlike the more basic icon editors which simply provide you with a square grid area into which you simply fill in the boxes with colour, this product has painting tools that make creating more elaborate icons easy. For example, you can use it to create lines, rectangles, ellipses. Rather than drawing text, you type it in (after selection of one of your installed fonts). Another interesting feature is the gradient tool.

One of the problem with icons is their management. These small files are like bugs; they can easily fill up every corner of your hard disk, making them difficult to trace. With this product, you can create icon libraries and can even compile these EXE files.

By default, the screen loads as shown above. There are 5 toolbars and from the display menu you can easily hide those items you do not need at the moment. For example, whilst developing a new icon, you don’t probably need the librarian. On small monitors the space gained from hiding this window can facilitate development. If you have a 17" monitor or higher, probably you could fit the draw colour and scale windows on the right hand side of the screen. These windows can be dragged around, made either freely floating (i.e. bounded by a window) or locked in the toolbar area (left or right hand side). All other windows will automatically adjust to take up all the screen area.

Very important when creating icons is the Scale window. This displays what the icon will look like. The difference between the development area view and the real size can be astounding and one trick to creating good icons is to always keep an eye on the actual size of the icon. For example, dithering looks horrible in the work window but may simply look fantastic in the smaller window (which, at end of day, is what counts). The scale window is read only. You cannot effect changes directly to it. This is not a problem because AX-Icons allows you to zoom your work area in and out. This feature can prove useful when fine tuning an icon.

The tools and the facilities provided by AX-Icons make creating icons child’s play. One feature we particularly liked was that of displaying the colours assigned to the left and right mouse buttons on an icon of the mouse itself, with a facility to swap the colours. Outside the drawing area, the right mouse button is also used to call up the context sensitive menus that relate to the command being used.

This program allows you to create multiple versions of the same icon. For example you might have an icon that is black and white, one that is 16 colour and one that is 256 colour. Depending on the display, one would then present the appropriate icon.

You can cut, copy and paste either the entire icon or a selected area. Rotation is limited only to the entire icon while horizontal and vertical flipping can only be performed on a selection. These features can reduce icon development time substantially.

With Axialis AX-Icons v4.0 you can also import a number of standard format files (such as .bmp and .jpg) into your icon. The original file does not have to be the reduced to an icon size; the program will automatically re-scale the image. If the imported image’s palette is different, this program will prompt you to choose whether to use the program’s palette or keep the current one. If your image has less bytes per pixel than the image, the import process will automatically dither the icon. This means that your program splash screen can also be used as the program icon without having to recreate the icon.

This program also allows you to place you icons within an exe file. Once the file is compiled it can be distributed. Users who execute this file will be presented with all icons and will be able to extract from them.

Click here to download our version of MWM icons created using this program.

Included in the distribution file is are also some utilities that allow you to manipulate your windows settings with respect to icons.