The members palette displays all of the depths and sizes that an icon contains. To select a member for editing, simply click on it in the scrolling list. It is also possible to drag and drop between members to quickly copy the contents of one to another. The number of members displayed depends on both the format of the current icon and the settings in the icon info (see below). Finally, the palette contains two buttons which are used to control various aspects of the current icon (these functions are also available in the Icon menu).
Info: The info dialog allows you set various options for the icon. Most importantly, you can select the format of the icon. You can also choose which members of this format you would like to use (e.g. if you do not foresee that your icons will be used on a 16 color screen, the 4-bit members are not necessary). Additionally, Mac OS icons are stored as resources, and thus they have an ID, a name and flags.
Add Member: This button provides a shortcut for adding a member to an icon. It also allows you to base that member on another one, in order to obtain an approximation of what it should look like. You can hold down option while clicking this button to select the current member as the source.
The preview palette allows you to quickly see the final form of your icon without having to save it and look at it in the Finder. By default the palette displays the current size and depth, but you can use the slider or text field to change to another size. Below 64 pixels, the only allowed values are 16 x 12, 16 x 16, 32 x 32 and 48 x 48 pixels. Above that, the icon is scaled smoothly to the chosen side (this is the way in which Mac OS X handles icon sizes).
To preview the icon in various conditions, an options menu is provided at the bottom of the palette. You can toggle between displaying the icon in it's normal and selected states, and against different backgrounds (the desktop, a list, and the colors black and white).
In addition to using the color swatch in the icon editor window, Iconographer supports another color picking method. A floating colors palette can be shown (and hidden) from the Windows menu. This palette contains a set of color swatch for selecting between the foreground and background colors, two readouts for the cursor's position and color with respect to the current icon, and a set of color pickers:
RGB (Red, Green, Blue): This is a standard set of red, green and blue sliders. By varying the intensity of each color, additional tones can be obtained (e.g. red and green to the maximum result in yellow). To ease this mixing process, a preview well is placed beneath each slider. These previews show the effect of moving the sliders to that position.
HSV (Hue, Saturation, Value): Another standard color picker, this one presents you with a set of hue, saturation and value sliders. The hue controls the overall shade of the color. The saturation the amount of "color" (that is, saturation runs from neutral gray through pastel to saturated colours). Value represents the lightness of the color. Each of the HSV sliders also have a preview beneath them.
System palette: This picker presents the standard system palette for the current depth and platform. In the case of the Mac OS 8-bit system picker, it is divided in such a way to present the 6x6x6 color cube, standard RGB and gray ramps and Apple Icon Colors that are present in the palette.
Favorites palette: This picker is made up of slots where you can place your favorite colors for later use. Simply click on an empty slot, and the current color will be placed in it. To delete a color, command click.