Icon Manager 1.6a
by Christopher Antos, Copyright © 2002-2004, All Rights Reserved.
Visit the Icon Manager User Group hosted by Yahoo.
Contents:
What is Icon Manager?
Sample Icon Sets for Download
User Manual
Icon Set List View
Icons View
Icon Editor
Assemble Your Set Of Favorite Icons
MYTH - Icon Set Authors Please Read
Known Issues
History
What is Icon Manager?
Visit PalmGear to find the latest version of
Icon Manager or
HandyShopper.
Icon Manager works on any Palm™ based device with Palm OS 3.0 or higher,
including devices from Palm, Handspring, Sony, etc. Icon Manager lets you
create or edit icon sets for use with HandyShopper, DateBk5, DataShield,
SplashID, and Agendus (formerly known as Action Names). Icon Manager also
supports high density icons on Palm OS 5.0 devices and higher.
Some other applications also support using custom icon sets created with Icon
Manager. Please refer to your application's documentation to find out if it
supports custom icon sets created with Icon Manager. Icon Manager cannot edit
icons that show up in application launcher programs (such as the built-in
launcher, ZLauncher, SilverScreen, or etc).
FreeWare and DonationWare - Icon Manager is free for anyone to use.
But if you like it, then I encourage anyone who recognizes the value of the
adage "give a man a fish, feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, feed him
for a lifetime" to take a look at what Heifer
International is about, and see if you'd like to contribute and/or be
involved. If for some reason you don't believe this is a cause worth
supporting, please consider giving to a charitable organization involved in
community service or medical research.
Disclaimer - This software is FREE and I cannot be responsible or
liable for lost data or any other problems. If this is not acceptable to you,
do not use Icon Manager!
Distribution - You have permission to distribute Icon Manager with
other applications as long as (1) you include the full Icon Manager package,
(2) you do not modify any of the files in the Icon Manager package, (3) you do
not charge for Icon Manager (you can charge for book or disk materials,
download bandwidth, other software, etc).
Support - I wrote Icon Manager as a hobby project. I have a "real job"
during the day. I am not able to provide technical support for Icon Manager.
If you have questions or suggestions, or if you want to share icons you've
created, then visit the Icon
Manager User Group.
Note to Sony Clie users with OS 4.x - High
density icons can only be stored in Palm OS 5.0 format. Icon Manager can edit
the OS 5.0 format icons on Sony OS 4.x devices. But in order for other apps
to draw the high density icons, you will either need an updated version of the
other app with special support for OS 5.0 icons on OS 4.x devices, or you can
try installing v3bhack
(USE V3BHACK AT YOUR OWN RISK - some people have reported it is
incompatible with some apps and may require a Hard Reset). I've contacted the
authors of DateBk5, Agendus, DataShield, and SplashData with information on
how to support high resolution icons on Sony OS 4.x devices, so hopefully it
won't be long before they support it:
- HandyShopper
version 2.7.3 and higher support high resolution icons on Sony OS 4.x devices.
- DateBk5 -
version 5.1 and higher support high resolution icons on Sony OS 4.x devices.
- DataShield - Ultrasoft will soon support high resolution icons on
Sony OS 4.x devices (please direct further inquiries to Ultrasoft).
- Agendus - Iambic Software has not responded (please direct further
inquiries to Iambic).
- SplashID -
SplashID version 3 and higher support high resolution icons on Sony OS 4.x
devices.
Sample Icon Sets for Download
Here are just a few of the icon sets that you can find on the internet, listed in
alphabetical order by artist:
Icon Set List View
When Icon Manager is first launched, it shows a list of the icon set databases
on the handheld device or on the inserted expansion card(s). For each, it
shows the first icon in the set (or a card icon if the set is on a card), the
name of the set, and how many icons are in the set.
An icon set can contain a little over 65,000 icons (the limit comes from the
Palm OS). Most apps support a little over 65,000 icons in an icon set.
DateBk5 supports up to 255 in v5.0, or up to 2600 in v5.1.
The Cards checkbox controls whether Icon Manager looks on expansion
cards. Expansion cards can be slow, and some users prefer not to use them.
Also, in some cases issues with expansion cards can cause the device to reset,
and unchecking this box can work around that problem. On expansion cards,
Icon Manager looks for icon sets in the /PALM/Programs/IconMgr and
/PALM/Launcher directories.
Icon Set Names
DateBk5, HandyShopper, and SplashID look for an icon set named
"Icons-DATEBK5", "HS2Icons", or "SplashDataIcons", respectively. If the
specially named icon set does not exist they use the default icon set, which
is indicated by a star to the right of its name. Agendus always uses the
default starred icon set. DataShield looks exclusively for an icon set named
"DataShield Icons", and if that doesn't exist it doesn't use icons.
Context Menu
To the right of each icon set is a dropdown arrow. Tapping on the arrow pops
up a menu with several actions:
- Copy... - Asks for a name for the new copy of the icon set.
- Rename... - Asks for a new name for the icon set.
- Delete... - Asks for confirmation before deleting the icon set.
- Beam or Send - Transfers the icon set via infrared beaming,
Bluetooth, or etc. Protected icon sets have a lock icon next to the dropdown
arrow, and can't be beamed.
- Set as default - Marks the icon set as
the default one. Agendus always uses the default icon set. DateBk5,
HandyShopper, and SplashID use the default icon set only if there is no
"Icons-DATEBK5", "HS2Icons", or "SplashDataIcons" icon set, respectively. The
default icon set has a star next to the dropdown arrow. DataShield
exclusively uses the "DataShield Icons" set, and if that doesn't exist it
doesn't use icons.
- Sonyize... - Sony OS 4.x devices have certain
hardware bugs that will lock up the device when drawing 16-bit icons that are
compressed or have transparent backgrounds. The Sonyize command analyzes the
icon set and if necessary modifies it to avoid these hardware bugs. You only
need to Sonyize icon sets you get from other people, or sets that you may have
created using Icon Manager 1.0 or 1.1. When editing or creating icons with
Icon Manager 1.2 and higher, images are automatically Sonyized while you edit
them (on Sony OS 4.x devices; other devices are not affected).
- Move to card - If the icon set is on the handheld, this moves it to
the /PALM/Programs/IconMgr directory on the card (creating the directory if it
doesn't exist yet).
- Move to handheld - If the icon set is on an expansion card, this
moves it to the handheld's memory.
Jog Dials
In the list of icon sets, Icon Manager suppports the following operations on devices
with jog dials (such as Sony Clie, Handspring Treo, and Handera):
- Up - Scroll the list up. If an icon set is selected, instead of scrolling the
list it selects the previous icon set.
- Down - Scroll the list down. If an icon set is selected, instead of scrolling
the list it selects the next icon set.
- Push - Pushing the jog dial button selects the top icon set. If an icon set
is already selected, instead it opens the selected icon set.
Direction Pads
In the list of icon sets, Icon Manager suppports the following operations on devices
with direction pads (such as Palm Tungsten T):
- Up - Scroll the list up. If an icon set is selected, instead of scrolling the
list it selects the previous icon set.
- Down - Scroll the list down. If an icon set is selected, instead of scrolling
the list it selects the next icon set.
- Left - If an icon set is selected, this clears the selection.
- Right - If an icon set is selected, this pops up the context menu.
- Select - Pushing the center button selects the top icon set. If an icon set
is already selected, instead it opens the selected icon set.
Icons View
When you open an icon set, Icon Manager shows a list of the icons contained in
the icon set. If the icon set name begins with "HS2" then Icon Manager shows
a table of 8 columns by 11 rows of icons, which corresponds to the table
HandyShopper and Agendus show when letting you select an icon. For all other
icon sets Icon Manager shows a table of 13 rows by 10 columns of icons, which
corresponds to the table DateBk5 shows when letting you select an icon.
Selecting Icons
To select an icon, tap on it with the stylus.
To edit the selected icon, tap it again. Or, use the Edit Icon command
from the Edit menu.
To select multiple icons, tap on the Select+ checkbox to check it, and
then tap on the icons you want to select. Drag the stylus to quickly select
multiple icons.
Clipboard
The icon view menu has a toolbar with clipboard commands and a quick preview
of the first 16 icons on the clipboard. Tap the preview area to view the
entire contents of the clipboard. You can show or hide the clipboard toolbar
by tapping the clipboard icon at the bottom of the screen. The clipboard
commands are also available in the menus (pop up the menus by tapping the
lower left circle in the Graffiti area).
- Cut - Removes the selected icon(s) from the icon set and adds them
to the end of the clipboard.
- Copy - Copies the selected icon(s) and adds them to the end of the
clipboard.
- Copy To... - Copies the selected icon(s) to another icon set. If
copying the icons will cause the other icon set to become larger than 255
icons, it warns you first, since some versions of DateBk5 only support up to
255 icons.
- Paste (& Insert) - Pastes icons from the clipboard, inserting
them in front of the selected icon, or at the end if no icon is selected. If
pasting the icons will cause the icon set to become larger than 255 icons, it
warns you first, since some versions of DateBk5 only support up to 255 icons.
- Paste & Replace - First select the icon(s) you want to replace.
Then use this command to replace the selected icons with icons from the
clipboard until it either runs out of selected icons or runs out of icons from
the clipboard, whichever comes first. Note that this command is not in the
menus, and is only available in the clipboard toolbar.
- Delete Icon(s)... - Removes the selected icon(s) from the icon set.
- Show/Clear Clipboard... - Shows the contents of the clipboard, and
has a Clear... button to let you clear the clipboard.
Note that Cut and Copy do not clear the clipboard first. This allows you
to batch up a bunch of icons to be pasted at once. You can clear the clipboard either
by using the Show/clear clipboard command from the menus, or by tapping the
Clear button in the clipboard toolbar (show or hide the clipboard toolbar by
tapping the clipboard icon at the bottom right corner of the screen).
Icon sets can contain any combination of 16-bit color, 8-bit color, grayscale,
monochrome, high resolution, and normal resolution icons. In fact, an
individual icon can include multiple images, one for each of the possible
resolutions and color depths. The 16-bit color format is referred to here as
"16-bit", and the 8-bit color format is referred to here as "color".
The dropdowns in the upper right corner lets you select which images to show.
There are two dropdowns if the device has a high resolution screen - one
selects the color depth (Best, 16-bit, Color, Gray, Mono) and the other
selects the resolution (Best, High, Low).
HandyShopper, DateBk5, Agendus, DataShield, and SplashID all support 16-bit,
color, grayscale, monochrome, and high resolution icons (high resolution icons
require Palm OS 5.0 with a high resolution screen). Older versions of DateBk5
may mistakenly report that the icons are corrupt, or may just crash (see the
Known Issues section below).
Even if a color device supports 16-bit mode, the Palm OS defaults to using
8-bit color mode because it's faster (half as much work to draw the screen).
Few applications force the screen into 16-bit mode, because it's slower and
uses more memory. DataShield does force 16-bit mode, and also you can use
utilities such as Screen
Prefs to force 16-bit mode. The advantage of 16-bit icons is that there
are 65536 colors available, versus only 256 for 8-bit icons; the disadvantage
is they take up twice as much space on the device. So generally it's better
to use 8-bit icons even if your device supports 16-bit color. To that end,
Icon Manager defaults to creating 8-bit color images even on 16-bit color
devices (unless you explicitly indicate otherwise by selecting "16-bit" from
the Color Depth dropdown).
When importing from .BMP files or when adjusting an image (brightness, contrast, etc) you
will get higher quality results using 16-bit icons, due to the much greater
color possibilities.
Tip - If you're creating an icon set for use on a variety of devices,
you can use the Resolution and Color Depth dropdowns to simulate different
devices. For example, if you select "Low" and "Color" then the icon view
shows the same images that will be drawn by apps running on a low density
color device. Or if you select "Low" and "Gray" then the icon view shows the
same images that will be drawn by apps on a low density grayscale device (OS
3.5 or higher grayscale device).
Note - OS 3.3 and lower only support monochrome images. OS 3.5 and
higher support grayscale images on all devices. OS 3.5 and higher support
color images on color devices. OS 4.0 and higher support 16-bit images on
color devices. OS 5.0 and higher support high density images on devices with
a high density screen.
Resolution
- Best - Show the best resolution image for the device's capabilities.
- High - Show high resolution images.
- Low - Show low resolution images.
Color Depth
- Best - Show the best color depth image for the device's capabilities.
- 16-bit - Show 16-bit color images, or lower.
- Color - Show 8-bit color images, or lower.
- Gray - Show grayscale images, or lower.
- Mono - Show monochrome images.
If an icon doesn't have the indicated image then the next available lower image is shown
with a small red 'X' next to it. If no lower image is available, then a dot is shown
with a small red 'X' next to it.
When opening an icon to edit it, if the icon doesn't have an image that matches the
Resolution and Color Depth dropdown selections Icon Manager offers to convert one of the
existing images. You can select Convert to edit the converted image and add the
new image to the icon, or Edit to edit the next best image, or Cancel.
When the dropdowns are set to 'Best', you can also make Icon Manager automatically
convert to the best image format, without your needing tap the Convert button.
To do this, select the Conversions... command from the Misc menu, check
the Convert to best image format checkbox, and tap OK.
You can pop up a list of the images contained in an icon by tapping and holding the
stylus on an icon. To edit a specific image, select it from the list. Images listed in
boldface are present in the icon; images listed in the standard font are not present.
(High resolution images can't be drawn on devices with low resolution screens; in this
case a dot is drawn instead of the image, and the boldface text indicates whether the
high resolution image is present in the icon).
An individual icon can contain several image formats, to help it look as good as
possible on different devices. The extra image formats take up extra space in memory.
Icon Manager can remove unwanted image formats to help you save space. To do this,
select the Remove Extra Images... command from the Misc menu. Then select
the image format(s) you want to keep, and tap OK. Icon Manager will remove other
image formats from the icon set. If an individual icon doesn't have the format(s) you
want to keep, Icon Manager will find the next closest image format in the icon and keep
that one (it always makes sure there is at least one image in an icon, even if your
preferred image format is not available).
Tap the New button to add a new icon to the icon set. If the Resolution and
Color Depth dropdowns are "Best" then the icon will be the best resolution and color
depth for your device (except that to save space and help your apps run faster, it
favors Color icons instead of 16-bit icons even if your device supports 16-bit mode).
If the dropdowns are set to something else, then the new icon matches the dropdown
selections. If adding a new icon will make the icon set larger than 255 icons then it
warns you first, because some versions of DateBk5 support up to only 255 icons.
Icon ID Numbers
There are two key approaches for how applications associate icons with item
records.
The latest versions of all the apps are able to use "icon ID" numbers. This
enables the icon associations to be preserved even when rearranging the icons
in an icon set. Icon ID numbers are used by HandyShopper 2.7.1 and higher,
DateBk 5.0c preview 7 and higher, all versions of Agendus, and all versions of
DataShield.
Older versions of HandyShopper (2.7 or lower) and DateBk5 (5.0c preview 6 and
lower) used the icon's position in the icon set, or the "icon index". The
drawback of this approach is that rearranging the icons in an icon set wrecks
the association between the icons and item records.
DateBk5 and icon ID numbers - If you're
using DateBk5, you can upgrade to DateBk 5.0c preview 7 or higher and refer to
its documentation for how to convert it to use icon ID numbers, to allow
rearranging icons in an icon set without wrecking the associations between
icons and items.
Menu Commands for ID Numbers
The icon view menu has some commands to make it easier to manage icon ID
numbers. Tap the menu button (the lower left circle in the Graffiti area) and
select one of the following menu items from the IDs menu.
- Toggle ID Numbers - Normally the icon view just shows icons.
Toggling the icon ID numbers makes the icon view also show the icon ID number
for each icon.
- Find Icon ID... - Asks for an icon ID number, and searches the icon
set for an icon with that ID number.
- Set Icon ID... - Changes the icon ID number for the selected icon.
- Renumber Icon IDs... - This renumbers the icon ID numbers. You can
choose to renumber all the icons, or only the selected icons. You can also
choose to start the new numbers with the lowest or highest available number,
or with a custom number.
Use the "Renumber" menu commands with caution. Using them may damage the
associations between icons and item records in your applications. These
commands are generally not needed.
Conversions and Compression
The icon view menu also has Conversions... and Compression... commands.
These commands pop up forms that let you set related options, and select related
commands.
The Conversions... form lets you instruct Icon Manager to always convert to the
best image format without prompting you, when editing an icon.
The Conversions form also has commands to convert all white background icons into
transparent background icons, or bulk convert images to ensure each icon includes a
particular image format.
In the Compression... form you can choose whether Icon Manager compresses icons
to save memory. By default, Icon Manager compresses icons (note that v1.0 did not
compress icons). You can clear the checkbox to disable compression. Compressed icons
may be drawn slightly slower than uncompressed icons, but compression can significantly
reduce the size of the icon set. Compressing icons does not affect which devices the
icons are compatible with.
The Compression form also has commands to compress or uncompress all the icons in the
current icon set.
Rearranging Icons
You can rearrange icons by tapping and dragging an icon. When you move the stylus to
the left or right edges of the screen, the list of icons scrolls. When you lift the
stylus it pops up a menu asking what you'd like to do:
- Move - Moves the icon to the new location, shifting the position of
the other icons. If the icon set is for use with DateBk5, be careful when
moving icons because it can wreck the association between icons and item
records (see DateBk5 and icon ID numbers).
- Swap - Swaps the icons, including their ID numbers. Swapping the
icon ID numbers means that the icon associations for Agendus and HandyShopper
are not affected, only the order of the icons is affected.
- Swap (image only) - Swaps the icon images, without swapping the ID
numbers. This means the icon associations become swapped for Agendus and
HandyShopper, as well as affecting the order of the icons.
- Copy & insert - Copies the icon to the new location, shifting
the position of the other icons to make room for it. If the icon set is for
use with DateBk5, be careful when moving icons because it can wreck the
association between icons and item records (see DateBk5 and icon ID numbers).
- Copy & replace - Copies the icon to the new location, replacing
the existing image(s) at the new location. The icon ID number is not
affected.
Removing Non-Icon Objects
Sometimes icon sets contain objects that are not really icons. These non-icon
objects can cause some apps to crash, if they expect that icon sets contain
only icons.
Agendus inserts non-icon objects into all icon sets, and these objects
describe the order in which Agendus will list the icons. If an icon set
author happens to also use Agendus, then the icon sets he or she provides will
likely contain non-icon objects.
There are two main reasons you might want or need to remove non-icon objects
from an icon set:
- If an app keeps crashing while you are trying to choose an icon.
- If you want to force Agendus to list the icons in the same order Icon
Manager lists them.
Use the Remove Non-Icon Objects... command from the Misc menu to
check how many (if any) non-icon objects the icon set contains. If the icon
set contains one or more non-icon objects, then a Remove all non-icon
objects button appears. Tap the button to remove the non-icon objects.
Jog Dials
In the icon view, Icon Manager suppports the following operations on devices
with jog dials (such as Sony Clie, Handspring Treo, and Handera):
- Up - Scroll the list backwards. If an icon is selected, instead of
scrolling the list it selects the previous icon.
- Down - Scroll the list forwards. If an icon is selected, instead
of scrolling the list it selects the next icon.
- Push - Pushing the jog dial button selects the icon in the upper
left corner. If an icon is already selected, instead it opens the selected
icon for editing.
Direction Pads
In the icon view, Icon Manager suppports the following operations on devices
with direction pads (such as Palm Tungsten T):
- Up/Left - Scroll the list backwards. If an icon is selected, this
selects the icon above or to the left of the current selection.
- Down/Right - Scroll the list forwards. If an icon is selected,
this selects the icon below or to the right of the current selection.
- Select - Pushing the center button selects the icon in the upper
left corner. If an icon is already selected, instead it opens the selected
icon for editing.
Saving Your Changes
When Icon Manager opens an icon set, it makes a copy of the icon set and edits the copy
rather than editing the original icon set. This gives you the freedom to make changes
and later choose whether to keep the changes or revert them.
If you switch to another application while editing an icon set, the next time you launch
Icon Manager it reopens the copy. The changes have not been saved back to the original
icon set yet.
To save the changes back to the original icon set, tap the Close button. If
there have been any changes, Icon Manager will ask you if you want to save the changes.
Tap Yes to save the changes back to the original icon set, or tap No to
discard the changes (this will lose your changes and there isn't a way to get them
back). Tap the Cancel button to continue editing the icon set.
To save the changes without closing the icon set, use the Save command
from the Record menu.
To save the changes to a new icon set, use the Save as... from the
Record menu.
Icon Editor
The icon editor form lets you edit the icon images. You can draw, change
colors, and drag/move or cut/copy/paste selected parts of icons. You can also
flip, mirror, and rotate the icon or selected parts of the icon.
Colors
Monochrome icons
When editing monochrome icons, there are no colors to select. Tapping on a
"white" pixel in the icon editing grid turns it "black", and vice versa. Tap
and drag to draw freehand (if you tapped on a "white" pixel, then all pixels
you drag over become "black", and vice versa).
Grayscale icons
When editing grayscale icons, there is a list of 16 gray levels to the right
of the icon editing grid. Tap one of the gray levels to make that the active
color (all matching pixels are also highlighted until the stylus is lifted).
Tapping a pixel in the icon editing grid sets it to the active color. Tapping
and dragging sets all pixels you drag over to the active color.
In the upper right corner is a pair of up/down buttons you can use to increase
or decrease the gray level of the active color.
Color icons
When editing 8-bit or 16-bit color icons, there is a list of the 25 most
recently used colors to the right of the icon editing grid. Tap one to make
it the active color (all matching pixels are also highlighted until the stylus
is lifted). To select a different color, tap on the box labeled
ACTIVE. Tapping a pixel in the icon editing grid sets it to the active
color. Tapping and dragging sets all pixels you drag over to the active
color.
In the upper right corner are three pairs of up/down buttons you can use to
adjust the Red, Green, and Blue levels of the active color.
Transparent backgrounds
For color or grayscale icons you can also choose a color that will be
"transparent". When an app draws the icon, the transparent pixels are not
drawn; they remain whatever was already there where the icon is being drawn.
Tap the checkbox labeled TRANS to toggle whether the icon should use
transparent mode. When the checkbox becomes checked, it pops up the color
selector to let you pick what color will be transparent. To make that the
active color (so you can make pixels transparent), tap the box to the right of
the TRANS checkbox.
Drawing Tools
The big square buttons are the drawing tools. When you tap on a tool button,
a tip window at the top of the screen says what the tool does. The drawing
tools are:
- Pen - The pen tool lets you draw in the icon editing grid with the
stylus, as described in the preceding section.
- Bucket - The bucket tool fills an area with the active color.
Select the bucket tool and then tap on a pixel in the icon editing grid. The
pixel and neighboring pixels of the same color are filled with the active
color.
- Eyedropper - The eyedropper tool sets the active color to the color
of a pixel you tap on in the icon editing grid. All matching pixels are also
highlighted until the stylus is lifted.
- Needle - The needle tool changes the color of all pixels under the
stylus. Select the needle tool and then tap on a pixel in the icon editing
grid. All pixels with that color in the icon are changed to match the active
color.
- Selection - The selection tool lets you select a rectangle in the
icon editing grid. Drag the selected rectangle to move it. Or use the
Cut or Copy commands from the Edit menu to copy the
selection to the clipboard. Then you can Paste it into the icon again
(and drag it around), or you can open another icon and Paste it there.
Also most of the editing commands modify the selected rectangle if there is
one.
Editing Commands
The small square buttons are the editing commands. When you tap on a command button, a
tip window at the top of the screen says what the command button does. The command
buttons are:
- Left - The left arrow shifts the icon or selection left one column of pixels.
The leftmost column of pixels wraps around and becomes the rightmost column.
- Right - The right arrow shifts the icon or selection right one column of
pixels. The rightmost column of pixels wraps around and becomes the leftmost column.
- Up - The up arrow shifts the icon or selection up one row of pixels. The
top row of pixels wraps around and becomes the bottom row.
- Down - The down arrow shifts the icon or selection down one row of pixels.
The bottom row of pixels wraps around and becomes the top row.
- Mirror - This mirrors the icon or selection left-to-right.
- Flip - This flips the icon or selection top-to-bottom.
- Rotate - This rotates the icon or selection 90 degrees clockwise. Only the
leftmost square region of the icon or selection can be rotated. The rest of the area is
cleared.
- Undo - This undoes the previous change you made. The last 8 changes can be
undone.
- Redo - This redoes the last thing you undid. You can redo the last 8 undoes.
- Revert - This reverts the icon or selection to whatever it was when you
opened the icon.
- Clear - For color (8-bit or 16-bit) or grayscale icons, this clears the icon
or selection to the transparent color. For monochrome icons, this clears the icon or
selection to white.
The Brightness and Contrast screen lets you adjust an icon image in several
ways. Open an icon in the icon editor and use the
Brightness/Constrast... command from the Misc menu. The
Brightness and Constrast screen is also shown automatically when importing from a .BMP file.
For best results, use the Brightness and Constrast screen with 16-bit color icons. 8-bit color or grayscale icons
have limited color possibilities, and the adjustments will be lower quality.
In the Brightness and Contrast screen there is a magnified version of the
icon, and normal size "Before" and "After" versions of the icon. You can tap
and drag in the magnified version to select a part of the image to adjust.
Below the magnified image are a slider control and some buttons that when
selected choose what kind of adjustment to apply:
- Bright - Drag the slider left or right to decrease or increase the
lightness of the colors in the image. This is similar to the brightness
controls on a television.
- Contrast - Drag the slider left or right to decrease or increase
the contrast between the colors in the image. This is similar to the contrast
controls on a television.
- Sharp - When this is selected, Icon Manager will auto-sharpen the
colors in the image: the darkest color is changed to black, the lightest
color is changed to white, and the lightness of the colors in between are
adjusted proportionally. The effect is to draw out the color differences in a
washed out image. Drag the slider left to soften the sharpening effect (the
darkest/lightness color are less close to black/white), or drag the slider
right to harden the sharpening effect (more of the darker/lighter colors are
changed to black/white). Often you can enhance the sharpening effect by first
lightening or darkening the image using the Bright control, tapping the
Apply button, and then using the Sharp control.
- Hue - Drag the slider to adjust the colors in the image through the
rainbow of possible colors. The closer a particular color is to a shade of
gray (including white and black), the less effect this will have on that
color.
- Sat - Drag the slider left or right to decrease or increase the
saturation of the colors in the image. Saturation is the "purity" of a color,
so dragging left will decrease the "colorfulness" of the image, and dragging
right will increase the "colorfulness" of the image.
Tapping a control button (above) selects a new adjustment mode, and normally
the adjustments do not mix and match. That is, if you adjust the brightness
and then try to adjust the hue, the hue adjustment does not "stack" on top of
the brightness adjustment. Tap the Apply button to remember the
adjustment made so far, and start a new adjustment. By tapping Apply
in between different adjustments you can make multiple separate adjustments
without leaving the Brightness and Contrast screen.
When finished tap the OK button to accept the adjustments, or tap the
Cancel button to discard them. Note that even if you tap OK,
you can still discard the adjustments by tapping Cancel in the icon
editor.
Icon Manager can import an image from a .BMP file, if you have an expansion
card. Put the .BMP file on the expansion card either by using the Palm
Install Tool, or by using a card reader on your PC, or check the manual that
came with your handheld device for other ways. Icon Manager looks for .BMP
files in the /PALM/Programs/IconMgr directory on the expansion card, or in
whatever directory apps have registered as the default directory for .BMP
files (this is where the Palm Install Tool will install the .BMP files).
To import from a .BMP file, first either create a new icon or open an existing
icon in the icon editor. For example, if you want to import a .BMP file into
a 16-bit icon, first create a new 16-bit icon (tap the dropdown at the top of
the icon list view and choose 16-bit, then tap the New button).
Then use the Import from .BMP... command from the Misc menu.
This will show a list of .BMP files that were found on the expansion card.
Select one of them to import it. If the image is larger than the icon, only
the upper left corner of the image is imported. If the image needs to be
resized, resize it on your computer before importing it into Icon Manager (low
res icons are 10x9, and high res icons are 20x18).
Next the Brightness and Contrast screen will
pop up to let you adjust the imported image. When you are satisfied with the
imported image, tap the OK button.
Note - The Zire 71 and some other newer Palm-based devices
automatically convert .BMP files to .JPG files when using the Palm Install
Tool to HotSync them onto your expansion card. To work around this, rename
the .BMP file to .IMBMP on your computer, and then use the Palm Install Tool.
Or use a card reader/writer to copy the .BMP files directly onto the expansion
card.
Other Menu Commands
Here are additional menu commands that haven't already been covered above:
- Edit -> Save as New - Adds a new icon at the end of the icon set,
containing only the current image. The new icon gets assigned the next available icon
ID number. Any further changes are saved to the new icon rather than the original icon.
- Misc -> Toggle Gridlines - Toggles whether gridlines are drawn in the icon
editing grid.
- Misc -> Set ID Number... - Allows you to assign a specific icon ID number
to the icon. You can also tap the ID number just to the right of the form's title bar.
- Misc -> Delete Bit Depth... - Allows you to delete the current image from
the icon. If the icon only contains one image, then you can't delete the image, instead
you need to delete the icon from the Icons View.
How To Assemble Your Set Of Favorite Icons
Remember that when you purchase an icon set, it's a violation of copyright law to give
the icon set (or the icons in it) to other users. Support the artists who work hard to
draw those icons. If a friend wants a copy of your icon set, ask them to purchase the
icon set themselves, rather than giving them an illegal copy of the icon set.
Adding and Removing Icons
You can use the Copy and Paste commands on the Record menu to copy
icons from one set to another and build up an icon set with your favorite icons. You
can make apps use the icon set by copying or renaming it to one of the
special names, or by setting it as the
default icon set.
If the icon set is for DateBk5, be careful about removing icons because it can
wreck the associations between the icons and item records (see DateBk5 and icon ID numbers). If the icon set is
for Agendus or HandyShopper you can remove icons without messing up the icon
associations.
Rearranging Icons
You can drag icons or use the clipboard commands to rearrange the order they appear in
the icon list.
If the icon set is for DateBk5, be careful about rearranging icons because it
can wreck the associations between the icons and item records (see DateBk5 and icon ID numbers). If the icon set is
for Agendus or HandyShopper you can rearrange the icons without messing up the
icon associations.
MYTH - Icon Set Authors Please Read
Some icon set authors use the Conversions... command to make sure there
is an image for every possible combination of Resolution and Color Depth. But
it's totally unnecessary, and wastes quite a bit of memory on customers'
devices: it can bloat the icon set by as much as 330%! The Palm OS is
designed to do as much automatic conversion as possible. The only images that
need to exist for an icon set to show optimal images on ALL devices are:
- Low-res Mono - Palm OS 3.3 and lower can only use monochrome icons.
- Low-res 8-bit Color - Palm OS 3.5 and higher automatically convert
low-res color icons to low-res grayscale (or 16-bit color) on the fly when
appropriate.
- High-res 8-bit Color - High resolution devices don't need
monochrome icons, and the Palm OS automatically converts high-res color icons
to high-res grayscale (or 16-bit color) on the fly when appropriate.
Optionally, an icon set can contain 16-bit images for low and high resolution,
but it's extremely wasteful to convert Color images to 16-bit. Nothing is
gained by conversion, and it uses 3 times as much space as was really needed.
The only way that it makes sense to have 16-bit icons, is if you have
originally drawn or imported the icon using 16-bit color, and the image really
needs the additional color fidelity. But keep in mind that very few customers
can actually benefit from 16-bit icons anyway, since the Palm OS uses 8-bit
color mode by default. In fact, normally any 16-bit icons get converted to
8-bit on the fly, and lose color fidelity, sometimes looking worse than if
you'd drawn the icon using 8-bit color. Only certain apps that forcibly
enable 16-bit color mode can show these icons properly. As of this writing,
the only app I'm aware of that forces 16-bit color is DataShield. Some apps
support using third party utilities to force the screen to 16-bit color, but
some apps force 8-bit color anyway.
Known Issues
- Agendus 7 Beta - As of this writing, the Agendus 7 Beta does not
notice when you use Icon Manager manager to rearrange your icons. A future
version of Icon Manager may be able to remedy that, but there is no guarantee
or ETA. In the meantime, the Agendus 7 Beta should be able to rearrange the
icons.
- Agendus 7 Beta Corruption - As of this writing, the Agendus 7 Beta
corrupts icon sets in such a way that although they continue to work on the
device, they can no longer be backed up. The backup copies are corrupt and
cannot be reinstalled onto a device. Iambic is aware of the issue and
working to resolve it in a new beta version.
- dbIcon+ - Icon sets created or edited with
Icon Manager are very likely to cause dbIcon+ to crash or mistakenly claim the
icon set is corrupt. This is because dbIcon+ only understands icons that
contain a single 8-bit color image. This is a limitation of dbIcon+, not a
bug in Icon Manager.
- DateBk5 - You can download the latest official version of DateBk5
from Pimlico
Software. In order to successfully use icon sets that contain any images
other than 8-bit low resolution color images, you'll need to download at least
5.0c preview 6 or higher. Older versions of DateBk5 have the same limitation
that dbIcon+ has, and either crash or mistakenly report that the icon set is
corrupt. This is a limitation in older versions of DateBk5, not a bug in Icon
Manager. Version 5.1 and higher include support for high resolution icons on
Sony OS 4.x devices, and can show tiny icons in the tiny fonts mode.
- Agendus for Windows - The Agendus for Windows HotSync Conduit does
not understand compressed icons, or icons that do not contain at least one low
resolution image. This is a limitation of the Agendus for Windows HotSync
Conduit. Contact Iambic Software to
report the problem and ask them to add support for the full Palm OS Bitmap
format specification.
- Sony Clie devices and 16-bit icons - On Sony Clie devices,
compressed 16-bit low-res icons can draw garbage on the screen or crash the
device. The Sony CLIE Developers
FAQ confirms that this is due to a bug in the Sony ROMs, not in Icon
Manager or other apps. Icon Manager provides a Sonyize command to analyze an icon set and if
necessary modify it to avoid the Sony hardware bugs.
- Palm Tungsten T devices and 16-bit icons - On Palm Tungsten T
devices, normal (low) resolution 16-bit icons with a transparent color do not
work correctly unless the transparent color is either white or black. This is
a known bug in OS 5.0, and should be fixed in OS 5.2. Visit PalmSource for more information about OS
5.2.
- Icon ID number conflicts with applications - Applications contain
bitmap images which they draw on the screen at various times. When an
application wants to draw a bitmap, it asks the Palm OS to find the bitmap by
looking up the bitmap ID number. Icons are really just plain old Palm OS
bitmap resources of a certain size (10x9 or 20x18). So, if an icon set and an
application contain icons/bitmaps with conflicting (same) ID numbers, then the
Palm OS gets confused about which one to return. Generally the icon will win,
and this can lead to strange looking displays or even crashes. As long as
your icon ID numbers are less than 1000 then it's very unlikely you'll run
into any problems. But there's no way for Icon Manager to make sure an icon
set won't have any icon/bitmap ID number conflicts with other applications.
HandyShopper does its best to avoid the problem by being very explicit when it
asks the Palm OS for bitmaps; the technique is imperfect but does make it very
unlikely you'll run into problems with icon ID numbers less than 10,000 (the
Palm OS has built in bitmaps in the 10,000 range). If you suspect that you've
encountered an icon ID number conflict, look at the display to figure out
which icon is causing the conflict, then launch Icon Manager and select that
icon, and use the Set icon ID number... menu command to choose a
different icon ID number.
History
v1.6a (build 6628) June 28, 2004
Features:
- The new Remove Non-Icon Objects command in the icon list screen
enables you to check how many non-icon objects the icon set has, and
optionally remove them.
Fixes:
- Depending on what version of Agendus had inserted the non-icon objects
into the icon set, and whether the entire icon set was able to fit in one
screen, it was possible for build 6627 to crash after having successfully
removed the non-icon objects (no harm was done). This is fixed in build
6628, which was posted early June 28.
v1.6 (build 6501) May 1, 2004
Free:
- Icon Manager is now freeware (all features are available). Please use the
Icon Manager User Group if
you have questions about Icon Manager or problems using it.
Features:
- The new Sizes checkbox in the icon list screen lets you choose
whether to show the number of icons in each set, or the size of each set.
- On Sony OS 4.x devices, the 'tap here' box takes up less room in the icon
list screen.
For Developers:
- Fixed syntax error typo in the GetIconByID() sample code in the
IconInfoForDevelopers.htm file.
v1.5b (build 6210) February 10, 2004
Maintenance:
- SplashID from SplashData now
supports custom icons. Icon Manager now recognizes the 'SplashDataIcons'
named icon set.
- Agendus 7 now inserts two non-icon resources. Icon Manager now detects
and hides both of them.
- Icon Manager tries to detect corrupt icons and show them as a big red
square with a white X in it. At this time Icon Manager does not detect all
kinds of corrupt icons, because some kinds of corruption are much harder to
detect without being too slow.
For Developers:
- Updated the IconInfoForDevelopers.htm file with information on how
to protect your app from crashing due to how Agendus 7 modifies user's icon
set.
v1.5a (build 5922) November 22, 2003
Maintenance:
- Added support for jog dial and direction pad on Treo 600, Kyocera 6035,
and Kyocera 7135 devices.
- If Icon Manager can't import a .BMP file into an icon, now it reports a
more informative explanation why it couldn't.
- Worked around a Palm OS bug in the Beam/Send commands.
- Fixed mysterious crash that some people encountered when launching or
exitting Icon Manager. The problem turned out to be caused by the Palm OS
expansion card APIs using too much stack space while the application was
running, and the problem occurred only for people with a large number of
folders and files on their expansion cards. Very special thanks to
Winny Schuster in Germany for a top notch job of helping me to track down
and debug the cause.
- The Agendus 7 Beta adds a special non-icon record to all icon sets, and
this caused previous versions of Icon Manager to crash. Icon Manager has been
updated to carefully avoid trying to access non-icon records in icon sets.
v1.5 (build 5701) September 1, 2003
Features:
- For grayscale users: Now you can use transparency in grayscale icons,
just like in color icons!
- Added an Import from .BMP command in the
icon editor, to import .BMP files from expansion cards into icons.
- Added a Brightness and Contrast command
in the icon editor, where you can use a slider to adjust the brightness,
contrast, or sharpness of the colors in the image. Here you can also adjust
the Hue and Saturation (see the built in Tips screen by tapping the "i" in the
upper right corner of the Brightness and Contrast form).
- The Renumber Icon IDs command lets you renumber icon IDs for the
selected icons, or for all icons in the set. You can also renumber them to
the lowest available numbers, the highest available numbers, or starting at a
specific number.
- New icons are assigned the lowest available ID number, to help keep the
icon numbers from getting too high for DateBk5.
- When selecting a color, all matching pixels in the image are highlighted
until the stylus is lifted.
- Improved results when converting icons to monochrome, by automatically
balancing the contrast level.
Fixes:
- Fixed to support the screens on the Samsung i500 and Garmin iQue 3600
devices.
- Fixed to be much less likely to crash when an icon set contains corrupted
icons, such as happens after using dbIcon+ (see the Known
Issues section on dbIcon+).
- Fixed bug that accidentally discarded the changes to an icon set if saving
it back to an expansion card failed.
- Fixed bug that sometimes failed to clear the Cards checkbox after a
crash (crashes are rare but often turn out to be problems with expansion
cards).
- Various cosmetic fixes.
For Developers:
- Fixed a bug in the __WinDrawBitmap function in the
IconInfoForDevelopers.htm document. The bug caused transparent
backgrounds for high resolution 16-bit icons to be drawn incorrectly on Sony
OS 4.x devices.
v1.4 (build 5326) May 26, 2003
Features:
- VFS support for icon sets. You can move icon sets to expansion cards or
to the handheld. Icon Manager finds icon sets in the /PALM/Programs/IconMgr
directory on an expansion card, or also in the /PALM/Launcher directory.
- Added a clipboard toolbar with quick access to clipboard functions.
- Supports Acer high resolution devices.
- Remembers the selected view mode individually for each icon set.
- Bluetooth support.
- The Remove Extra Images command now lets you keep multiple image
formats instead of only one.
- The Bulk Convert and Remove Extra Images commands now let
you choose whether to do it to all icons, or only the selected icons.
Fixes:
- Fixed bug that could make transparency not work in high resolution icon
images that were converted from other existing images.
- Fixed redraw bug when clearing the clipboard.
For Developers:
- Icon Manager now includes a document IconInfoForDevelopers.htm
which covers what developers need to know in order to add icon set support to
their apps.
v1.3 (build 5205) April 5, 2003
Features:
- By popular request, the Conversions screen now has a Bulk
convert images... button that converts and adds the indicated image format
to icons that don't already include that format.
- Any device can convert any image format to any other format, even if the
OS version on the device doesn't support that image format (but a device can
still only edit an image format if the OS version on the device supports it).
- The Cut command now remembers the icon ID numbers, and Paste
assigns the pasted icons their rightful ID numbers (as long as the icon ID
number hasn't been already used by some other icon in the set you're pasting
into).
- Added a scrollbar to the 8-column view and the Details view.
- Several of the bulk operations are cancelable now.
- Removed some limitations from the Free Version:
- Can cut/copy any number of icons at a time to the clipboard now.
- Can bulk convert images now.
- Can convert white backgrounds to transparent backgrounds.
Fixes:
- Fixed selection after paste & insert.
- Fixed showing the icon set name when it contains no icons.
- Fixed various image conversion bugs on Sony devices.
- Fixed several OS 3.5 bugs (mostly in the color picker).
- Fixed the (very) broken grayscale support.
- Fixed the fatal error when there are more than 32 icon sets (this also
fixed a potential crash when exiting).
- Fixed the crash after deleting an icon set.
- Various obscure fixes.
v1.2 (build 5123) March 23, 2003
Features:
- The new Paste special... menu command pops up a screen where you
can paste & replace selected icons with icons from the clipboard,
or paste & insert icons from the clipboard inserting them in front
of the selected icon.
- The popup menu when you drag an icon includes two convenient new commands,
Copy & insert and Copy & replace.
- The color picker now supports the full 16-bit range of colors when editing
16-bit color icons.
- Low resolution devices are now able to convert high resolution icon images
into low resolution images if necessary.
- There is a new "view select" button in the upper right corner of the
screen. Tap it to cycle through the available views: 13 rows (DateBk5), 8
columns (HandyShopper and Agendus), and the Details view (showing all
available images for each icon).
- The clipboard commands are available for quick access from the new
clipboard button in the lower right corner of the icon list screen.
- The Cut and Copy clipboard commands now add icons to the
clipboard (instead of clearing the clipboard first, like it used to). To
clear the clipboard, use the Show/clear clipboard... command from the
Misc menu, or tap the clipboard button in the lower right corner of the
screen and select the Clear clipboard command from the popup menu.
Fixes:
- Fixed crash on OS 3.0 through 3.3 devices when using the Copy to...
command.
- Fixed bug where it didn't ask to save changes after using the Set icon
ID... command.
- Fixed bug that accidentally renumbered icons when saving the icon set, if
ID #0 occurred anywhere other than at index #0.
- Fixed bug on low-resolution devices that caused the Remove Extra
Images... command to have no effect on an icon if it contained any high
resolution images.
- Fixed a fatal error and reset if Icon Manager was unable to open an icon
set, for example if the icon set is marked as read-only.
- Fixed bug where the shift/rotate/flip/etc buttons didn't work right in the
icon editor after doing some steps involving copy+paste.
Other:
- Added some Known Issues to the readme.
- Icon Manager now uses registration codes - this makes it possible to post
beta versions that still allow all the features to work for registered users,
and also makes it possible to beam/send Icon Manager to other users and have
it automatically revert to the Trial Version for them.
- Sony OS 4.x devices have a hardware bug that causes them to crash if they
try to draw low resolution 16-bit icons that are compressed or have
transparent backgrounds. Your friendly neighborhood Icon Manager sports a new
Sonyize... command that analyzes an icon set and modifies it if
necessary to ensure it won't cause lockups on Sony OS 4.x devices.
v1.1 (build 5009) February 9, 2003
- Compression features to help save memory.
- Conversion features for convenience.
- Can set the ID for an individual icon in the Icons View, without having to open the
Icon Editor.
- Support for editing high resolution icons on Sony OS 4.x high resolution devices.
Be sure to read the important note to Sony OS 4.x users.
v1.0 (build 4931) January 31, 2003
- Initial release.
- Supports all devices with Palm OS 3.0 and higher (including OS 5.0 ARM devices).