New Icons for Smart Editor/SmartLauncher

you need a program which will resize the icons, like paint shop pro or adobe photoshop

Hi,
As has already been said you need some form of image manipulation program to alter the icons, Adobe, Paintshop Pro (Which I use) etc.
From there you can create the two sets of icons you need.
I have found that the height of any icon needs to be no more than 1.1cm, the width doesn't matter quite so much but try to keep them square if you can or corners get cut off.
Once you have the main icon, resave it adding mask to the end of the filename, so essentially you have two of the same thing. On this mask one using the colour black, blackout all the icon leaving just the white border around it. This creates the mask and is launchers way of knowing what part to show and what not to. Similar in principle to Photographers masks.
Hope this helps, once you get into it it's quite quick the fiddly bit is making the icons.
Ian [/img]

ahhh, so that's what the mask does, i use paintshop pro too, do you know the quickest way to create the mask? and also, is there a way of like getting a cut out box set to 42*29 ready to like cut out an icon? or do i just have to cut it out, crop it then resize it?

thanks/
nk

Hi,
To my knowledge I don't think you can create a window, which you place over the section you need to cut from within. If there is, this would make it so much easier.
All I did was literally using the selection tool get as close as possible to the icon I want to cut and then paste it as a new image.
By eye you can cut to a nice square and then resize the icon.

At first I didn't know what the mask was for but then I realised.
With the mask, first off I save the icon after I have removed any speckles from the white border around it. Then once I have resized and done everything I need to do I click "save as" and make an exact copy, but adding mask to the original filename.
Then it's just a case of zooming in and replacing each pixel of the icon with black. Sometimes it's easier to use the colour replacing brush and others times it's more sensible to just do it manually. Zooming in so you can see each pixel makes it a whole lot easier, it looks like a right mess but then viewed at 1:1 it's all in proportion again.
Hope this helps some more, let me know how it goes.
Ian

LOL, that sounds easy, sure it does

getting the icons sorted out is not a prob, the masks, hmmm, if it just needs to be like black, isn't there an option to decrease the colours? first it'll be at 32 bit, then 24, then 16, then 256, and so on untill it's monotone?

and when you say remove all the white, does that mean remove like...say if i was to cut an icon from a website, resize it and the icon was a circle but what i cut comes out as a square, do you mean to remove the white stuff surrounding the circle? and is this for the mask or the icon or both?

it sounds you save the mask at the very end of perfecting the icon, so i'd guess you do it to both right?

thanks

Hi,
No leave the white on the icon, or in this case surrounding it.
At first when I found out they were .gifs I thought you had to specify the transparent part, which would be any white. But it appears that the Skin Editor takes white as being tranparent, or does not do anything with it.
I have found that when I cut out an icon you always get some speckling in the white, it could just be from the screen save perhaps. I just make sure that any white is pure white so as not to get any off colour pixels where you don't want them.

The mask needs to have the same white border as you do have for the icon. But takes the place of the icon and follows the same shape as it, just black. This is the way that the program is told what to show and what not to. Anything laid on top of the black in the mask will show up on the menu.

Yeah do the mask last, thats what I do.
Make your icon, then save it again but adding mask.
EG. App_Icon make a copy saved as App_Icon_Mask. Two files the same size but one shows the coloured icon and the other shows the icon shape but in black. I would upload and example but I haven't got the hang of it yet.

You may be right in that you can just change the colour depth the acheive the same effect but I just colour the iamge black.

Ian

If you use photoshop, here's a quick tip:

Create your icon and crop/scale it to the correct size.

Save it (eg my_icon.gif) (this creates the actual icon)

Then: Image - Adjustments - Hue/Saturation ... Move 'Saturation' and 'Lightness' sliders all the way to the left and click ok.

Save it (eg my_icon_mask.gif) (this creates the mask)

Here's an example:

Hi,
Now thats an easier way than sitting there changing pixels.
Will have to try something similar in Paint Shop, should be the same I think.
Ian