Tips for Techies

Icon Gallery is designed so that any Macintosh user can use it.  But there are some features that only those of you who are technically-minded will enjoy knowing.

If you're non-technical, you won't miss anything critical by skipping this chapter. 


Icons are ResEdit Files

Icons are distributed as ResEdit files.  Each family of icons has its own file.  Each file contains individually crafted icons for large and small icons, 256 color, 16 color, and black and white.  These icons weren't just auto-scaled.  This stuff was all done by hand.

If you have ResEdit, just double-click and icon file and you'll be in ResEdit, fully able to edit the icons.

Use ResEdit to open the file and replace its usual Finder icons with an Icon Gallery icons. If you don't know how to use ResEdit, don't be afraid to experiment on a COPY of something. Holleran says that "A year ago I had no idea what ResEdit was either, and no one taught me 'cept ME." 

Note: We're not equipped to give you ResEdit support.  There are some great books that document the product in detail.  Also note that ResEdit allows you to tinker with bloody well everything.  Use caution and don't come cryin' to us if you delete important resources.  Know what you're doing before you play with anything you're unsure of.  And always, always, always make backups.

Icons for folders can be found inside the folder in an invisible document named (Of course!) "Icon".  The invisible document "Icon" won't exist until something is pasted into the Finder's Get Info window.  (In other words, if it's a non-custom "Vanilla" folder, you've got to paste in something for it to be hackable with ResEdit. 

One important note about these invisible "Icon" documents inside folders;  the ID number for the icon resources is set to -16455; don't change that or your new icon won't be visible. Paste in all the members of the new Icon family (one by one) from one editor window to the other, or simply renumber them all once you've copied them into their new home. This can be applied to the whole family at once if you select Get Resource Info from the Resource menu when the editor is in the foreground, then change the ID number.


Icons Use the System Palette

For those of you concerned about color switching, please note that every single icon in all the Icon Gallery collections uses the Apple standard 256-color palette.


Licensing Icons

In general, you may use Icon Gallery icons within your non-competing creations.  If you're doing non-commercial, in-house presentations, just go ahead and use the icons.  The same goes for use within documents.  But if you plan on widely distributing icons (commercially or otherwise), please check with us.  We rarely have any concerns or restrictions, but we'd like to be able to talk with you on a case-by-case basis.


Have fun and be creative!  If you create your own fabulous collection of icons, call us.  We're always interested in great icons.