Topic       : Documentation for Thing
Author      : Arno Welzel/Thomas Binder/TransAction
Version     : thing.hyp 1.27E (23/8/1998)
Subject     : Documentation/Shells
Nodes       : 269
Index Size  : 6336
HCP-Version : 4
Compiled on : Atari
@charset    : atarist
@lang       : 
@default    : %I
@help       : %Hilfe
@options    : +g -i -s +y +zz -t4 -d10
@width      : 75
@hostname   : THING   
View Ref-FileThing Icon Manager
Format of ICONS.INF
Icons                                                                 Thing

In common with the later Atari desktops Thing takes its icon data from
a resource file. The Thing icons are stored in ICONS.RSC which contains 
normally two object trees as follows:

- Tree 1: 'Normal' icons
- Tree 2: 'Mini-icons'
Monochrome as well as coloured icons can be used.

This file can be loaded and edited in any suitable RSC file editor (e.g. 
Interface, ORCS, ResourceMaster etc.) which means you can edit and create 
your own icons. The suplied icons were created with Interface.

Thing supports 2, 4 and 16 colour bitmap icons (1, 2 and 4 bit-planes); 
additionally 256-colour icons (8 bit-planes) can be used with 256-colour 
screen resolutions only. There is also support for 'animated' icons 
(separate bitmap for normal and selected icon).

'Normal' icons

Each icon in the first object tree can be of any size, depending on what 
the respective resource-editor and the AES can handle, from 16x2 pixels 
upwards -- with Interface I have had no problems producing icons up to 
128*128 pixels and use them successfully in Thing.

ST medium resolution users can use 32x16 icons which look much nicer at 
640x200 (ST medium) resolution.

'Mini-icons'

The 'mini-icons' in the second tree of the resource file have a fixed 
width of 16 pixels and must be between 1 and 16 pixels high. All of these
icons must be the same size -- e.g. all 16x16, all 16x10 etc...

The mini-icons too can be coloured and/or animated!

Text labels

Each icon must include a unique text label (this refers to the text 
rectangle below the icon, and not to some kind of 'label' or 'name' that 
may be assigned to it by the resource editor). The maximum length is 12 
characters -- though position and dimensions of the text rectangle are 
immaterial. Space characters are allowed and case sensitivity is observed.
Thing uses the labels to find the icons in the resource, so it is possible 
to change the order of the icons to suit one's requirements.


      The potential hazards of editing the ICONS.RSC file are
      considerable! For working with colour icons the RSC file editor
      Interface is recommended. Always work on a back up copy!


The following Icons must always be available. These icons should not be 
edited and should not be used for user defined files, folders or programs:

  TRASH           Trashcan
  CLIPBOARD (⇨ *If, due to the lack of a suitable icon editor, you want
to edit the icons using 'IconCons' from the Ease desktop, 
rename the icon to _CLIPBRD, because the program only 
supports a maximum of eight characters for labels. Thing 
looks for _CLIPBRD if CLIPBOARD is not available.
) GEM clipboard
  FILESYS         Drives
  FILE            Files
  APPL            Programs/applications
  FOLDER          Folders
  PARENTDIR (⇨ *If, due to the lack of a suitable icon editor, you want
to edit this icon using 'IconCons' from the Ease desktop,
rename the icon to _PARENT, because the program only 
supports a maximum of eight characters for labels. Thing 
looks for _PARENT if PARENTDIR is not available.
) '..' Object in next highest (parent) directory
  PRINTER         Printer
  DEVICE          Device
  GROUP           Object group

All other icons, available for files, programs, folders and drives, will 
be used only if the file ICONS.INF, is present. This file assigns 
icons in the resource file to file and folder objects. It is in ASCII 
format and may be edited in any ASCII text editor (e.g. Everest) or, more 
easily, using the Thing Icon Manager.

The connection between 'normal' and 'mini-icons'

On starting Thing searches the second object tree examining the text label 
for each icon in turn to find a match for each 'normal' icon in the first 
object tree. If no matching icon is found, the standard icons for files 
('FILE'), programs ('APPL') and folder/s ('FOLDER') are used instead. If 
the standard icons are missing as well, or if only one object tree exists 
in ICONS.INF, then empty placeholders will be displayed instead.



This example shows three matching pairs of 'normal' and 'mini-icons' taken 
from the two object trees. It is crucial the 'mini-icon' text labels are 
identical to the corresponding 'normal' icons but they do not have to be 
in the same order within their respective object trees.