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 IconDropper New Features | Top • Full support for 32 bit (millions of colors) icons in Mac OS 8.5 • The pack counter tells you if the pack contains 32 bit icons • View icon packs in large, small, 256 or millions "View mode" • The pack inspector now supports the Finder's label colors • Space saving prefs. to set either 8.5, 8.1 or both icon formats • Bring up the Preferences window with Command-E • Bug fixes • Using contextual menus, icon changing is quicker than drag and drop! Just control-click any icon you want to customize, taa-da! • Folders can be created inside the packs folder. Much easier to categorize your collection. Folders display along with loose packs in the inspector window and can be toggled open or closed. • You can double-click on a folder in the inspector and it will open in the Finder. A single-click on the folder will open or close the folder. • A small preview of each icon pack is displayed in the inspector. It shows the first icon in the pack. • The inspector window displays the total number of icons in a pack. The inspector will also display if a pack has been locked by its author. If the locked pack icon is dimmed, you have permission to unlock the pack. • Statistics about all of the icons in your icon packs can be displayed by choosing Display > Calculate Statistics... • You can double-click on an icon pack in the inspector. The pack will be opened with IconPacker. After updating the icon pack with IconPacker, you can single-click on the pack in the inspector and the changes will be displayed. • Icons can be displayed in their small size using Display > Show Small • You can collapse all the items in the list using Display > Reset List. This can also be used if you add icon packs to your Packs folder and want to see them in the inspector without restarting IconDropper. • Icon packs now include a "web link" button. Pressing this button will take you to the Internet site where the pack was created. You can also use the File > Launch URL menu item. • Icon packs created for version 2.0 of IconDropper will not have a web link button (since there was no way to enter the URL in version 2.0). Icon packs created for version 3.2 are compatible with older versions of IconDropper. Update your packs and everyone will be happy. • The setup mode is gone. Preferences are now set dynamically using Edit > Preferences... • The maximum size of an icon pack was increased from 100 to 150 icons. IconPacker | Top • Create and edit your own Mac OS 8.5 icon packs • The window where the icon pack information is entered has been updated to support the "web link" button. • The size of an icon pack was increased to 150 icons. • The size of the icon pool was increased to 150 icons. IconDragger | Top • Support for 32 bit icons has been added to IconDragger • IconDragger displays a list of icon packs, just like IconDropper. Everything else works the same. IconLocker | Top • Support for 32 bit icons has been added to IconLocker • This utility, available only to registered users, will continue to work with the new "web link" icon pack format. • Updated Application and Locked Pack icons. IconExpander | Top • IconExpander has been removed from the standard release. This freeware utility is available as a separate download at the Iconfactory. It has not changed for the 3.2 release of IconDropper. What is IconDropper? | Top IconDropper 3.2 is an exciting piece of shareware from Craig Hockenberry. IconDropper allows you to customize your Mac's icons on-the-fly through the use of Drag-n-Drop technology. Instead of having to copy and paste custom icons from tons of folders on your hard drive, IconDropper stores all icons in custom designed sets called "packs". A single click is required to update any folder's icon and see the results in real time. What is IconPacker? | Top IconPacker is the second part of the software which allows registered users to create custom packs of their own. IconPacker organizes all of your icon files lying around on your hard drive into sets that you name and design. Save disk space by eliminating hundreds of custom folder icons and have fun while doing it! IconPacker even lets the user design and embed a custom banner and background color into the packs when saved. Packs can then be e-mailed to friends or distributed on the Internet. What is IconDragger? | Top IconDragger is a utility for quickly turning packed icons into PICT files or Mac picture clippings for use with an image editing program like Adobe Photoshop. IconDragger lets you select which icon you need to work with and then, through drag and drop technology, you simply move the icon to your desktop. The icon becomes a picture clipping at any of several magnification levels you preset, ready to use in any number of image editing software packages available. What is IconLocker? | Top IconLocker is a utility provided to registered users of IconDropper that allows pack authors to secure their icon creations. IconLocker protects locked packs against being changed and redistributed with someone else's name/credits attached to them. Locked packs can only be edited by the pack's original author. What is IconExpander? | Top IconExpander is a small utility that can be used to expand the contents of an IconDropper pack to a normal Mac desktop folder. This is useful when sending icon packs to friends who do not have IconDropper. Because of its small size, it is ideal for attaching to e-mail messages and sending along with icon packs. Simply drag and drop icon packs onto IconExpander to decompress the entire pack's contents to a single folder on the desktop. Common Problems | Top • If the IconDropper icon does not highlight when you drag items on top of it, try rebuilding your Desktop. In fact, most problems related to the Finder or the Desktop can be fixed by holding down the Command and Option keys while you restart your Mac. • If IconDropper or any of the other tools starts behaving strangely, try deleting the preferences. They have names like "IconDropper 3.2 Preferences" in the Preferences folder. • If you have problems with the icons not being set in System 7.5 or 7.6, make sure that there is a "Finder Scripting Extension" in your Extensions folder. You don't need this extension in Mac OS 8+. • In Mac OS 8+, if you drag an alias onto IconDropper the original item gets a new custom icon (a Finder bug). If you use the contextual menu, it works correctly and the alias gets a new icon. • If you aren't using Mac OS 8 or install on a disk without a System Folder, the contextual menu is not installed. If the contextual menu starts an older version of IconDropper, put the old version in the trash and empty. In addition, make sure both the "Contextual Menu Extension" and the "SOMobjects™ for Mac OS" are loaded, or contextual menus will not function. • If your hard drive crashes and you never made a backup, or you somehow loose your registration number for IconDropper, drop us a line and we'll send it along to you. We *strongly* suggest you record your IconDropper serial number (and all your software serial numbers for that matter) somewhere besides on your computer. It's only common sense. Q&A | Top Q: What is the current version of IconDropper? A: The current version of our IconDropper application is v 3.2. Q: Is IconDropper/IconPacker compatible with Mac OS 8.5? A: Yes. Version 3.2 works with Mac OS 8.5. You can now set custom 32 bit icons as well as create 32 bit icon packs with IconPacker 3.2. Q: Why should I bother registering IconDropper? A: There are several good reasons to register IconDropper, not the least of which is moral support. When you register IconDropper you're telling us you would like us to continue developing cool kick-butt stuff for the Mac. In addition, registering means you won't see annoying shareware messages, and you'll be able to save your own custom icon packs out of IconPacker. Lastly you'll receive an additional piece of software called IconLocker that will allow you to protect your custom packs from being changed by others. Q: How much does it cost to register IconDropper? A: The registration fee for the IconDropper suite of utilities is $20.00 for a single user. This isn't bad when you consider everything you get: IconDropper, IconPacker, IconLocker and IconDragger. Q: Will you be posting 3rd party icon packs at the Iconfactory? A: No. Unless the pack has been part of some kind of Iconfactory promo (like the Pixelpalooza contest) we won't be posting packs done by 3rd party's. We'd love to showcase people's work, but we've got our hands full with just our own work at present. Plus its not fair for us to decide who's work we should post and who's work we shouldn't. If you've created a pack you'd like the world to see, we suggest distributing it on the net through the usual channels; AOL, IMUG, Info-Mac and so on. Q: I've downloaded extra packs from the Iconfactory. How do I use them? A: Place the new packs inside the "packs" folder with the IconDropper application. The next time you drop an icon, the program will make the new packs available. Q: What are the system requirements for IconDropper? A: IconDropper requires a "scriptable finder" in order to run. This means that if you are running System 7.5 or above you should be fine. Q: When I launch IconDropper I get a dialog box saying that some of the files the program needs are missing. What gives? A: You probably deleted the read-me file or the register program that came with IconDropper. IconDropper checks to make sure those files reside in the same folder as IconDropper. If you rename them or remove them, IconDropper won't start. You can also run into problems if you move IconDropper out of the folder (such as to the desktop). The recommended setup for IconDropper is to keep the distributed files in a single folder (which you can put anywhere). If you want to have an IconDropper icon on your desktop or docking bar, use an alias file. If you're using Mac OS 8.x then you can simply use contextual menus to invoke the program no matter where your are! Q: When I make a custom icon pack, is the pack banner limited to 256 colors? A: No. We've designed IconPacker with the flexibility to accept 16 bit (thousands of colors) banners. This allows you to have smooth gradations through a wide range of color schemes. Q: Are there preference settings for IconDropper? A: Yes. Preferences are now located underneath the Edit Menu bar. You can also press Command-E to bring up the Preferences. |
The IconDropper FAQ page will answer almost every question you could think of regarding our cool shareware app, IconDropper. Please look over the material carefully before you decide to send us a question or concern of your own. We are dedicated to the seemingly nonexistent art of designing awesome freeware icons for your Mac. Comments, or requests should be sent to webmaster@iconfactory.com. |
