Folder Icon X 3.0
reviewed by Harry {doc} Babad
Developer:Narattaphol (Narratt) Charoenphandhu http://www.naratt.com/FolderIconX.html Released: April 29, 2006 $15 USD Requirements:Mac OS X 10.3 or later. For some advance icon making tasks QuickTime 6.4 or later is needed. • An Icon Exporter Plug-in for Photoshop is also available. Audience: All user levels Strength — The product very easy to use, fast and stable with a comfortable interface. Weakness — In Tiger, I could not implement drag-and-drop Icon creation and lack of an undo feature significantly slows down new users. |
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The software was tested on a 1 GHz dual processor PowerPC G4 Macintosh with 2 GB DDR SDRAM running under OS X 10.4.6. |
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Product and company names and logos in this review may be registered trademarks of their respective companies. |
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Introduction
I enjoy customizing the icons on my folder both by adding a few words or an interesting or appropriate image. To add words to my folders I use FolderBrander 2.0.1, which I reviewed [as Version 1.3] in February 2005 macC. To create image rich folders I have used both CandyBar 2.5.1 [macC March 2006] and Icon Compo 3.2 [macC March 2005] that is now at version 3.3.1
I have long been convinced that commercial sources of icons were too eclectic and the free icons that are posted on MacUpdate or not terribly interesting.
Folder Icon X is an application for those who love custom icons. It is a graphic utility for creating custom folder icons out of one or two images: Simply gather up a fold or drive or disk media image, an image-containing icon (logo) and in several click you created a custom icon to suit any customization needs.
Publisher’s Description
Folder Icon X is a Mac OS X-native application that provides a simple way to create a customized folder, disk, and document icons by placing another icon on a standard plain icon. It fully supports "drag & drop" features and can load any icons from any files, .icns documents and folders. All generated icons are 32-bit Mac OS X-compatible icons, which can be viewed on both Classic Mac OS and Mac OS X. This software now supports 9 languages. The product is flexible, having powerful import and export function tuned to allow you to maximize the resources you can use for icon creation.
Working With Folder Icon X
Installing the software is simple and very Mac-like. Opening the application give you the only window you need to create logo-containing icons. I played with the software creating a half dozen or two needed folder icons that contained logos. Before we get too deeply into the review, please note that the developers uses the term logo to described the image you are adding to a folder or disk icon to dedifferentiate it from a standard generic image.
I found some of the features described in the publisher’s description lacking, most importantly drop and drag as a means for quickly creating icons that contained logo did not work on my system. Instead, using “select folder icon” and then Select logo icon” I used Finder open dialog windows to navigate to my stored icons collections. This seems to me the long way around.
In addition to drop and drag refusing to work on my Tiger OS X 10.4.6 based system my scattered disk organization made finding the objects I wanted to use as a logo (e.g., I needed to get the Target Stores logo to create a “ToDo” target folder.)
After accommodating to these peculiarities, I had very little trouble getting used to Folder Icon X’s interface, but then I’d already worked extensively both CandyBar and IconCompo. For fun, and just to see if it worked, I also created folders that open and closed when feeding them new content.
The ability to Manually Crop Images, from within the application for use in creating logos was useful. In other application, I had to do that, when importing a picture or part of a photo, in GraphicConverter. The manually Crop command is located on the Edit menu. It allows users to crop the logo icon manually.
I’ve also had fun transforming or distorting the image (logo) icon, as a special effect. |
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However, more seriously, such capability does not allow you to match the shape of non-generic folders. Such alignment of a logo parallel to the upper or lower folder shape is very difficult. Skewing an icon to match the orientation of a non-generic folder is a trial and error operation. Unlike IconCompo, there is no way to simply rotate the logo, in place, to align it up with a chosen folder.
A problem of hard disk helter skelter - My testing was made complicated by the organization of my hard drive. Since I’ve not been as diligent in organizing the custom icons I’ve created, as with my recipe collection, I have such icons scattered in folders all over my hard drive. In order to make effective use of the product’s interface from within the application, I (finally) had to organize my scattered collections of downloaded icons. It’s a little like collecting your photographs into one place when starting to use iPhoto. [A little house keeping never hurts] Finding all those scattered icons was easy. I avoided Spotlight and used EasyFind [macC December, 2005] instead, dragging everything into a new Icons Collections Folder.
Once you’ve created icons saving them in a centralized location, for future use, is easy. The software allows you to organize your icons using the products of Template menu. According to Narratt, your icon, before you apply it to the selected folder icon, are stored in the Template folder. I did not find this factoid immediately useful but the idea that icons created can be kept and stored in an added centralized location seemed to make sense. Saving such creations for future use was an additional benefit of the product. [Of course, for the items I like, I promptly moved them to my new Icons collection folder, so there!] Therefore, I saved all the icons I played with – the good, the bad and the ugly as templates. Note, the default template folder is a folder named "Template" and is located in the same folder as Folder Icon X application.
To aid in finder based icon creation, he product also installs a "Folder Icon X.plugin" that is a Mac OS X-compatible contextual menu module. This helps users to manage icons of files and folder form Finder. "Folder Icon X.plugin" allows users to more readily perform a variety of tasks to facilitate the use of the product. For instance, it can import icons from images located in the Finder by using Finder's contextual menus, using a plugin called the Folder IconX.plugin. Read the details of the product’s other extensive capabilities on Naratt’s website.
Other Package Features
You can import pictures, and save them as icons or .icns documents). Since doing so is not obvious, the author provides both instruction and an example that can be downloaded. In addition, you can import pictures to create a logo icon, a small icon on a plain icon (PICT-to-icon). I know you can do this in the Finder (Get Info) by pasting an image into, but that has lead to my creating small or weird looking products.
Create icons with that open and close when adding to them. Folder Icon X provides an easy way to add the dropping variant, i.e. icon of the opening status, to the folder icon. Just create your folder icon on the main window as usual, and then select your dropping variant from the Add Dropping Variant command of the Icon menu. The resulting Icon has two statuses, closing and opening.
Importing icons from images located in Finder collection by using Finder's contextual menus, is also straight forward, using a plugin called the Folder IconX.plugin.
Review Limitations — As noted in the review I did not check out some of the advanced features of this product.
Discomforts
Drop and Drag Implementation — Drop and drag of an item from a folder does not seem to work; only by finding the file in the finder from within the application can a logo be easily added. Indeed dropping a con of a folder into the empty window seem to cause the software to ting I was adding a logo.
Undo or Not to Undo — If there was an Undo feature, I couldn’t find, so every time I made a mistake or a bad design choice, I had to start over – very, very irritating!
No Built-in Help Function or Attached Manual - What help there is only available on the developers website and that help could not be accessed from within the application.
No Ability to Rotate
Logos – Unlike other products I’ve played with such as IconCompo (see
illustration), Folder Icon X does not allow one to rotate a logo, where it is.
That was frustrating because my favorite folder is not squared up in the
generic manner that is usual to the Macintosh GUI interface. I got close using
the distortion tool, but had to live of course with a distorted aligned logo.
Lack of Icon Sources - Unlike the CandyBar, the application only provides a set of generic folders to use as starting points for adding logos to folders. It also provides a few standard graphics, sound and text icons to use as logos. Other starting points, beyond folder include nice disk and media images and some documents related logo icons to use as starting points. These are accessed by control clicking in the main software window. Se the PS for this review for sources of free icons you can use for either the icon frame (folder, disk) or logo,
Conclusions
There are many feature of this feature rich product that I admire, but for now the discomforts: lack of help files, no undo feature, and poor drop and drag interface will limit my icon creation and manipulation, to Folder Brander and IconCompo. This holds until the next revision of Folder Icon X, when I’ll be standing in line to test it again.
I rate this product 3.5 macCs.
Post Script
For chasing icons both for folders and for logos, I suggest.
http://lightsphere.com/kicons/
http://www.iconfactory.com/ware.asp
http://www.iconsplus.com/ http://lightsphere.com/kicons/
http://www.webcom.com/html/icons.shtml
Icons For PC and MAC Fo#10B6611
IconsPLUS - Comic Book,#10B66C0
