An icon pack is a file that contains icons and extra visual elements for their presentation. It is possible to have a different visual experience with each icon pack. It also allows you to design beyond the constraints of 32 x 32 pixels.
One of the primary benefits of icon packs is that you have less stuff sitting around on your hard disk. Almost all icons are distributed as empty folders (or resource files) with custom icons attached. This is a very simple mechanism, but it wastes a lot of space and system resources.
With icon packs, you have one file for all your icons rather than folders upon folders. It is much easier for both you and the MacOS to handle one thing rather than a bunch of things.
Icon packs will also save disk space. Let's use the World of Copland icons as an example:
• Compressed folder of icons at the Iconfactory: 81 KB
• Expanded folders on a 1 GB hard drive: 776 KB
• Expanded folders on a 2 GB hard drive: 1.4 MB (Yikes!)
• Compressed icon pack: 33 KB
• Icon pack on a 2 GB hard drive: 99 KB
Note: the Finder does not include invisible items (like custom icons) in its calculations of folder sizes. If you do a Get Info on an empty folder that has a custom icon, it reports the size as 0 bytes even though the custom icon uses at least 2,960 bytes.
Of course, since icon packs are smaller, they take less time to download or copy for a friend.
There are other icon archiving utilities available. They do a fine job at storing the icons. They don't do so well at making icons easy to use.
Ease-of-use was the primary goal for the development of IconDropper, not to create another icon archive format. After using IconDropper for awhile, try using Get Info to change an icon. We think you'll agree that we succeeded in meeting our goal.
Where do I put my Icon Packs?
By default, IconDropper looks for the icon packs in a folder named Packs in the same directory as the application. Put the icon packs that you download in this directory and they will be available the next time IconDropper is started.
If there is an icon pack that you don't like or need, move it into the Packs (Disabled) folder. Just like control panels and extensions.
The icon pack files can be named anyway you want. We find it is useful to put special characters like • and ∆ at the beginning of the file names (especially when you want things to show up as groups in the icon pack pop-up).
How do I make my own Icon Packs?
With an application called IconPacker. There is a tutorial which takes you through the process of creating an icon pack.
Just open the IconPacker Tutorial folder and double click where you are instructed. Have fun!
If you don't have this folder, you need to download a fresh version of the software from http://www.iconfactory.com.
Why do some Icon Packs have gold locks?
An icon pack can be locked by the person who created it. If you double-click on a pack with a gold lock, you will be able to view, but not modify, the pack. There is more information about locked icon packs in the IconPacker Tutorial.
The IconDropper pop-up menu displays the locked packs above the separator and unlocked packs below the separator.
