Bigicons

[David Graser]

I decided to do a test to see how well the new icons are looking.

I copied my new icons to drive:\sys\icons

The new folder name is DGYellowIcons

I changed the bigicons path in the config.sys file to
SET BIGICONS=D:\SYS\ICONS\DGYELLOWICONS

I opened the System Setup folder
Selected the WPShell icon

Selected the last tab for Icon Size

I then selected Use custom icons and and Dynamic setting it to 56, closed and rebooted.

Nothing changed.  The text was still named bigicons.txt.  I then changed it to dgyellowicons.txt, rebooted and still no change.  I was wonder if this feature was ever tested.  I also rename my dgyellowicons folder to bigicons to see if that helped which it did not.

Rich, any ideas?  There are now over 400 :png icons and with lots more to do.

Note:  There were some items in the txt file I had no clue what they were.  I used the ; to comment them out for now.

I have attached the txt to see if it is the problem.

[David Graser]

OK, I tried it on a different partition and this time some of the icons were replaced, but not many.   There must be major problems with that other partition that will require me to reinstall when I have time.  It appears that a lot of program icons were replaced, but none of the folder icons.
 
Further examination reveals the pro.gram icons are changing except for the ones that are missing or named incorrectly.  Not one folder icon changed. There appears to be a problem with folders changing.

[Rich Walsh]

I then selected Use custom icons and and Dynamic setting it to 56, closed and rebooted.
Nothing changed. The text was still named bigicons.txt.

The filename must not be changed.

I was wonder if this feature was ever tested.

Yes, both at the time of its inclusion in AOS 5.0, and within the last week in response to your postings. WFM.

I replaced my copy of 'bigicons.txt' with yours, then restarted the WPS. Entries that you hadn't changed, such as folders, font palette, and color palette, all came up with the appropriate PNG icon.

It occurs to me that you had previously been replacing icons manually on an object-by-object basis. Doing so would override any changes you've made to the defaults. Have you tried pressing the "Reset icon" button that's displayed when 'png' is selected? Also, the "Browse" button should bring up a file selection dialog that points at the currently active 'bigicons' directory. Does it point at the correct directory?

If problems persist, perhaps you could post a representative sample of your icons (10-20) for objects I'm likely to have, such as stuff in System Setup. This would let me do more comprehensive testing.

[David Graser]

I then selected Use custom icons and and Dynamic setting it to 56, closed and rebooted.
Nothing changed. The text was still named bigicons.txt.

The filename must not be changed.

I was wonder if this feature was ever tested.

Yes, both at the time of its inclusion in AOS 5.0, and within the last week in response to your postings. WFM.

I replaced my copy of 'bigicons.txt' with yours, then restarted the WPS. Entries that you hadn't changed, such as folders, font palette, and color palette, all came up with the appropriate PNG icon.

It occurs to me that you had previously been replacing icons manually on an object-by-object basis. Doing so would override any changes you've made to the defaults. Have you tried pressing the "Reset icon" button that's displayed when 'png' is selected? Also, the "Browse" button should bring up a file selection dialog that points at the currently active 'bigicons' directory. Does it point at the correct directory?

If problems persist, perhaps you could post a representative sample of your icons (10-20) for objects I'm likely to have, such as stuff in System Setup. This would let me do more comprehensive testing.

Hi Rich
 
I have attached some of the icons including an update bigicons.txt which corrects a lot of the mistakes I made.  I have attached new startup folder icons, network icons. command prompt icons, drive icons, and others.  I also include some folders.  I have yet to get folder icons to update.

Also, a peek the new icons.  This is a work in progress..

[David Graser]

As you stated Rich, I needed to open the folder properties and reset each icon.  I guess this is due to the fact that I had individually install all the previous PNG folder icons.

[Rich Walsh]

I have attached some of the icons including an update bigicons.txt which corrects a lot of the mistakes I made.

I tried this and everything worked OK - except for SET BIGICONS=<path>. The reason is simple: it's WRONG! It should be SET BIGICONSPATH=<path>. Give that a try...

[Martin Iturbide]

I have attached some of the icons including an update bigicons.txt which corrects a lot of the mistakes I made.

I tried this and everything worked OK - except for SET BIGICONS=<path>. The reason is simple: it's WRONG! It should be SET BIGICONSPATH=<path>. Give that a try...

Hello Rich

ArcaOS 5.1.0 installed here shows me by default "SET BIGICONS=C:\sys\icons\BIGICONS" on the config.sys.

Does it means that  "SET BIGICONS=" is always wrong, or that it is also possible to use "SET BIGICONSPATH=" ?
Is there a difference between both that you know about?

Regards

[Rich Walsh]

I tried this and everything worked OK - except for SET BIGICONS=<path>. The reason is simple: it's WRONG! It should be SET BIGICONSPATH=<path>. Give that a try...

Does it means that  "SET BIGICONS=" is always wrong, or that it is also possible to use "SET BIGICONSPATH=" ?
Is there a difference between both that you know about?

The difference between the two is that "SET BIGICONSPATH=" is correct (i.e. that's what the code looks for) while "SET BIGICONS=" is incorrect (i.e. the code doesn't look for this). The fact that AN has been putting the wrong entry in config.sys for the last 6 years doesn't change things. My only question is why it took someone 6 years to notice the error.

FWIW... I was the one who transformed "Sunny Icons" into "Dynamic Icons", so maybe I was the one who gave them the wrong info. If so, I apologize for the error.

[David Graser]

Rich, is there a way in the bigicons.txt file to use one icon file for all icons to use that are not assigned an icon.

For unassigned txt files, is there a setting for the system to look at?

The same for URL text files.

For unassigned folders.

I noticed these keep the Original OS/2 icon.

[Pete]

Hi Rich

Both config.sys lines work equally well - or badly in my case.

I did not install Dynamic Icons when installing 5.1.0 but since purchasing a slightly bigger screen (Dell P2222H) with more acreage have installed from the wpi packages in the ISO file.

After a reboot I set icon size to Dynamic, 56 for both Icon and Tree views. Shortly after I bumped into a problem: Opening the Drives folder results in a system hang, Drives folder status bar shows "Collecting objects...", mouse moves but cannot click on anything, C-A-D works to get me to the option of WPS Reset which only delivers a black screen, Trying C-A-D again then Reboot(Restart) option results in a blue-ish (turquoise) screen of death, only the system box Off button works.

After a reboot retried opening the Drives folder with the same result.

Rebooted, reset icon size to Normal for Icon View and can now open Drives folder.

Prior to the Drives folder problem I noticed that some folders opened in icon view did not use the icon size 56 but were displayed at Normal size.

Any ideas on resolving the above problems?  - which may be related...


Regards

Pete

[Martin Iturbide]

Hello

I wanted to try to see if I can use "DGicons.ZIP" to change the icons.

Here I'm using ArcaOS 5.1.0. Icons are set on "Dynamic - 64x64"
- Downloaded DGicons.ZIP , unzip it and put it on C:\sys\icons\DGIcons
- Changed Config.sys to "SET BIGICONSPATH=C:\sys\icons\DGIcons"

On the next reboot I did not see any change to the icons.
- I tried going back to "Icons - Normal" and back "Dynamic - 64x64" but I still see the icons included in ArcaOS.
- David's bigicons.txt is located on "C:\sys\icons\DGIcons"

Are the icons supposedly to be automatically changed on the next reboot, or I missed up something on the thread?

Regards

[Rich Walsh]

On the next reboot I did not see any change to the icons. [...]
Are the icons supposedly to be automatically changed on the next reboot, or I missed up something on the thread?

On the last tab in the "Workplace Shell" object ('Icon size'), there's a checkbox labelled "Use custom icons". That must be on.

Precisely because this option is so well hidden, I've started work on a companion page for "Text Size" called (yes!) "Icon Size"   It has a simplified UI for enabling Dynamic Icons (including custom icons) as well as an option to have XCenter use either Full-sized or Mini icons. I believe Roderick Klein will be displaying some screenshots of it in his Warpstock presentation.

BTW... this new page will not replace the existing D.I. pages - it will just be easier to find...

[Martin Iturbide]

On the last tab in the "Workplace Shell" object ('Icon size'), there's a checkbox labelled "Use custom icons". That must be on.

Yes, that was what I was missing. It did the trick.

I understand that "DGicons.ZIP" is not complete yet, that's why I have some non-matching icons, but the concept worked here.

Regards

[David Graser]

I just finished some DFSee icons.  Once I add these to the script and check for errors, I may upload.  Tons of corrections in the bigicons.txt.

This may be about 90% finished.  Need to arrange the bigicons.txt file better.  There are still some issues.  The arca command prompt shows for for some icons that don't a png icon.  The KLIBC icons will not update in the systems setup folder.  The bitmaps folder and one other have no asssigned id, so can't update.  Common unassigned folder and text continue to show the old ugly OS/2 icons.

Other than that, it is working well. Up to aroound 470 PNGs

Wait one more day and the new pngs and new txt will be uploaded.  I think Rich or someone smarter than me may have to correct what I can't.

[Rich Walsh]

Rich, is there a way in the bigicons.txt file to use one icon file for all icons to use that are not assigned an icon.

For unassigned txt files, is there a setting for the system to look at? The same for URL text files. For unassigned folders. I noticed these keep the Original OS/2 icon.

Sorry for the delay in responding but I needed to do some testing.

First, though, a comment: when AN licensed Dynamic Icons (a.k.a. Sunny Icons), it was in a pretty sorry state (IMHO). With the initial release of AOS 5.0 just weeks away. I started trying to fix things. Fortunately (for me), the release was delayed so I was able to get it from "lousy" to "minimally acceptable" - the state you see it in today. Since then, nothing meaningful has been done to it. Since then there have been incremental changes but nothing to fix some basic design errors.  I no longer work for AN so I'm not in a position to give it the TLC it clearly needs. I can tell you how it _should_ work but sadly, there's nothing I can do to fix it.

Anyway... if a file can't be given an icon based on its type, its extension, its Object ID, or its associated app, it should get an icon based on its WPS class (e.g. WPDataFile). Sometimes it does, sometimes, it doesn't (sometimes both). The only one that works consistently is WPFolder because I worked on that.

As a test, I opened a folder containing one of my programming projects. Files whose extensions are listed in bigicons.txt had the right icon. The rest had the stock WPS datafile icon. When I opened one of these files' Properties, the object suddenly got the right icon.

Next, I opened a different folder in Xview first, then opened it in Icon View. Almost all of the miscellaneous files had the correct icon. This suggests these failures are due to timing issues: if it can't come up with the right icon quickly enough the first time the folder opens, it uses what's available (i.e. the stock icon). The next time, with all of the objects already in place, it has the time to find the right icon (mostly).

For my final test I had a "bright idea". At the very end of the list of files and extensions I put "*" and associated it with the MIDI icon. After a restart, most of the miscellaneous files had the MIDI icon - but so did every Program Object that didn't have a custom icon. Pretty lame...

I've gone into all this detail (sorry for the length) to confirm what you already know: some parts of Dynamic Icons just don't work correctly and won't no matter what you do. For the foreseeable future, only icons that target specific files, extensions, IDs, etc. will work reliably. You can establish default icons for various WPS classes but don't expect a lot and you won't be disappointed