Computerworld 1996 March

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Icon Chooser v1.2 Released July 17, 1991 _______ ____|__ | (tm) --| | |------------------- | ____|__ | Association of | | |_| Shareware |__| o | Professionals -----| | |--------------------- |___|___| MEMBER Written by Keith Ledbetter 4240 Ketcham Drive Chesterfield, VA 23832 (804) 674-0780 (6:00pm - 10:00pm Eastern Time) Tech Support BBS: Blue Ridge Express 804-790-1675 30 Phone Lines (2400 bd) Sub-board KEITHL ("J KEITHL") Electronic mail on GEnie : ORION.MICRO CompuServe: 72240,1221 BIX : kledbetter Program and Documentation are Copyright (c) 1991 by Keith Ledbetter. All rights reserved. Portions (c) Microsoft Corporation. Chooser was written with Visual BASIC. Icon Chooser Page 1 About the Program If you are a regular Windows user, then you have no doubt had to struggle to keep up with the multitude of icons (.ICO files) available today. The Icon Chooser is my solution to the problem. The Chooser makes manipulation of icons easy; you can easily categorize, delete, and choose icons from up to twelve different categories with intuitive drag-and-drop operations. The Chooser works by keeping a master directory on your hard drive named \CHOOSER\. There are twelve subdirectories under \CHOOSER\ which are named as followed: APPS application icons BUSINESS business icons BUTTONS buttons (for programmers) CARTOONS cartoons (how many Bart Simpsons do you have?) COMM communications DOCS documents DOS DOS-based icons GAMES the all-important games! HARDWARE hardware icons SPORTS sports icons TOOLS tools, utilities, etc. OTHERS a catch-all for all other icons Icon Chooser Page 2 Installing the Chooser To use the Icon Chooser, you MUST have a copy of the Visual BASIC runtime library, which is named VBRUN100.DLL. This file is readily available on most BBS's. If you can't find it on your favorite BBS system, you can download it from CompuServe's MSLANG forum, Library #6. Once you download the VB runtime library, simply copy the VBRUN100.DLL file to your \WINDOWS\ directory. To install the Icon Chooser, copy the ICO-CHZ.EXE file to the directory of your choice (I keep it in the \WINDOWS\ directory). Then, install it into the program manager like you would any other Windows program. Next, double-click on the Icon Chooser icon to load the program. The first time you execute the Icon Chooser, you will be presented with an "installation" screen. All you need to do here is to tell the Chooser which drive you'd like it to create the above directory structure on. Once you choose the drive letter and press the "Continue" button, the Chooser will do two things: 1) It will create the CHOOSER directory structure on the drive you selected. 2) It will modify your WIN.INI file to add the [Icon Chooser] section to the system. At this point, you will be presented with the Chooser's main screen. But, we can't do much at this point because none of your .ICO files are located in the new directory structure. You need to exit the Chooser and go to DOS so we can move your icon files to where the Chooser expects them to be. The easiest way to get going with the Chooser is to copy all of your .ICO files into one of the Chooser directories. I normally use the "business" directory. Once all of your icons are in this directory, you can then easily move them to the other categories with the Chooser. If all of your .ICO files are currently in one directory, you can accomplish this with the command: COPY *.ICO x:\CHOOSER\BUSINESS where x: is the drive letter you told the Icon Chooser when you installed. If your .ICO files are straying around all over your hard drive, then you could use my SST (Supersonic Search Tool) program to hunt them down and move them into the business directory. Icon Chooser Page 3 Using the Icon Chooser Now we're ready to get down to business! After you've moved all of your .ICO files into the \business\ subdirectory, re-run Windows and open up the Icon Chooser. Double-click on the "Business" folder and you'll now see all of your icon files in the scrollable display area (I told you this would be fun!). The "Options" menu ------------------ Before we get started, let's cover the "Options" menu. You find two important items under this menu: "Check Icon Integrity" and "Verify Deletes". The "Check Icon Integrity" is the most important thing to cover. There is a serious problem with Windows in that attempting to load an "illegal" icon normally results in the program terminating with a UAE ("Unrecoverable Application Error"). If you turn on the "Check Icon Integrity" option, the Chooser will actually read in EVERY SINGLE ICON and check its header to make sure that it looks like a valid icon. Any icon that the Chooser thinks is invalid will be displayed as a totally black box. When you first start using the Chooser, you should keep this option turned ON until you've deleted all of the "totally black" icons. Once you're assured that all of your icon files are valid, you should turn off the "Check Icon Integrity" switch. Turning this switch off greatly speeds up the Chooser's performance. If you ever get an "Unrecoverable Application Error" while paging through your icons, simply run the Chooser again with the integrity check turned on and look for the all-black icons, and then drag them to the trash can. The "Verify Deletes" option does exactly what it says -- when you drag an Icon to the trash can, the Chooser will ask you to verify the deletion if this menu item is checked. To move an Icon --------------- To start categorizing your Icons, you'll want to use the Chooser "move" function. All you need to do to move an icon to another category is to grab (click and hold the left mouse button) and then drag it on top of the folder you want to move it into. When you are "over" a valid target folder, you'll notice that the target folder is outlined and highlighted. To "Paste" an Icon ------------------ You're probably saying to yourself "OK, so what does this buy me?". If you think about it, how does Windows 3 normally ask you for an Icon? That's right -- by the FILENAME. That's where the Chooser really shines. Icon Chooser Page 4 Using the Icon Chooser Any time you are asked for an Icon name (for example, in the "Change icon" dialog box in the Program Manager), you can simply open up the Chooser, find the icon you want, and the drag it to the "Clipboard" icon. This will copy the FILENAME of the icon to the Windows Clipboard. Then you just return to your text input box, press SHIFT-INSERT, and the full filename of the icon will be pasted into the text box. Let's take a normal example -- changing the icon of a Program Manager item. Here's the steps you'd take: 1. Start the Icon Chooser, and then "minimize" it to an Icon. 2. Single click on the item you want to change the icon for in the Program Mangager. 3. Choose "File / Properties" from the Program Manager menu bar. 4. Click on the "Change Icon" button. (Notice here that the icon's filename is already highlighted). 5. Double-click on the Icon Chooser icon to bring it back to life. 6. Find the Icon you want to select, and then drag and drop it on the "Clipboard" icon. The Chooser will beep once to let you know the name has been copied into the clipboard. 7. Minimize the Icon Chooser again; this will return you to the Program Manager "change icon" dialog box. 8. Press SHIFT-INSERT to paste the icon's name into the dialog box. 9. Press OK twice -- all done! Moving Your CHOOSER to a Different Hard Drive ---------------------------------------------- If you ever need to move your \CHOOSER\ directory to another hard drive, there's only a little work involved. In this example, we'll assume that you're moving it from drive C: to drive E:. You would perform these steps: 1. Exit Windows. 2. XCOPY c:\chooser\*.* e:\chooser\*.* /s /e 3. Delete the c:\CHOOSER directory. Icon Chooser Page 5 Using the Icon Chooser 4. Edit the WIN.INI file in your \WINDOWS\ directory. 5. In the [Icon Chooser] section, change Path=C:\CHOOSER to Path=E:\CHOOSER Icon Chooser Page 6 Keith Ledbetter's Software Catalog Keith Ledbetter's Software Catalog ---------------------------------- Listed below is a chart of my other shareware and freeware utilities, along with the current version number of each. Also listed is the filename that you will find them under on BBS systems (please note that they may be different on your favorite BBS's, but it should help you at least get close to locating them). When you register one of my Shareware programs, you will receive a disk with all of these utilities on it. Filename Version Description ----------- ------- ------------------------------- SST_53a.ZIP 5.2a The ultimate file-finder program. Until recently this was simply called "WhereIs". It's now been renamed to "Supersonic Search Tool" to avoid confusion with other programs. Shareware: $15 LCD_31a.ZIP 2.1a "Led's Change Directory" is an intelligent directory changing program. This program was voted one of "the 10 best utilities of 1990" by the "Public (software) Library" magazine. Shareware: $15 ICOCHZ12.ZIP 1.0 The ultimate Windows Icon Manager. Mangage all of your .ICO files with the Chooser's intuitive drag-and-drop design. Freeware: $0 AV_12.ZIP 1.2 "Archive Viewer" is used to display the names of members of all of the popular archiving programs (ZIP, ARC, LHARC, PKARC, ZOO, PAK). No longer do you have to struggle remembering the syntax to 6 different archiving programs. Freeware: $0 X_30.ZIP 3.0 "X: The Executioner" can save you a lot of disk space. X allows you to ZIP down those seldom-used-but-hard-to-delete .COM, .EXE, and .BAT files into one system "Command Library". You can then execute them easily by simply typing an "x" in front of the command line (eg: "x chkdsk c:"). Freeware: $0 ADMENU30.ZIP 3.0 If you own an Adlib Music card, you need this program. It allows you to ZIP down all of those .ROL song files you've accumulated, yet still play them with no extra effort! Uses a mouse-able, easy-on-the-eyes window system. Freeware: $0 Icon Chooser Page 7 Keith Ledbetter's Software Catalog DELDIR12.ZIP 1.2 "Delete Directory" allows you to delete an entire directory (and all directories under it) with one quick command. You will be shown totals of what you are about to delete and then be asked to confirm (the confirm process can be over-ridden from the command line). Freeware: $0 DIRSIZ11.ZIP 1.1 "Directory Size Information" allows you to easily determine the total size (in both files and bytes) of any directory. Freeware: $0 DUPICO10.ZIP 1.0 "Duplicate Icon Deleter" is for any Windows 3.0 user who has accumulated tons of icons. It will go through a directory and delete all duplicate icon images, regardless of what they are named. Freeware: $0 TIMER10.ZIP 1.0 This program allows you to easily time the execution of any program. Simply use TIMER to invoke the command (eg: "timer chkdsk C:") and you will be shown, at the completion of the command, the elapsed time. Freeware: $0 UNTAB10.ZIP 1.0 One of the fastest "un-tab" programs you will find. It takes the specified input file and copies it to the specified output file, replacing all tab characters with hard blanks (you specify the "tab size"). Freeware: $0 You can download all of these files from the Blue Ridge Express in Richmond, VA. This is the official tech support board for all of my software, and there's a special "Keith Ledbetter" message section where you can quickly get your questions answered. Once you log on, just do a "J KEITHL" to join my sub-board. First-time callers have access to both my message base and all of my download files. The Blue Ridge Express is a first-class BBS, with 30 phone lines; no need to worry about getting a busy signal! The number is: The Blue Ridge Express BBS 804-790-1675 Icon Chooser Page 8 Keith Ledbetter's Software Catalog All of my software can also be obtained from the following places: Alternative Personal Software 269 Springside Drive Suite C Hamilton, Ontario Canada L9B 1P8 Tel: (416) 577-4068 PC Assist Limited 4 Carruber's Close 135 High Street Edinburgh, EH1 1SJ Scotland Tel: 031-557-6432 BroCo Software P. O. Box 446 3760 AK SOEST Holland Tel: 31-2155-26650 EURO BOARD John Warren Postfach 3920 ZERMATT, VS Switzerland BBS: (0228) / 476-111-06 (Swiss Telepac) End of document.