1. Copy the Kineticon extension to your Extensions folder.
2. Make sure that the "Kines" folder and the "Kines (Disabled)" folder are located somewhere on your startup drive (this is the same drive that has your System Folder). Inside either the Application Support folder (only with system 8.0 or higher), the Preferences folder or the folder that contains Kineticon Editor are good choices.
3. Open Kineticon Editor.
4. In Kineticon Editor, enable the kines that you wish to have animating on your desktop.
5. Also in Kineticon Editor, for each enabled kine, copy its "replacement" icon (next to the enable check-box) onto the file or folder on your desktop that you wish to have the kine's animation appear in place of. If a kine's icon already matches an icon on your desktop, you don't need to copy the kine's icon to the file or folder's icon.
6. Restart your Macintosh.
More complete instructions...
What does Kineticon do?
Kineticon replaces static (non-animating) icons on your desktop with animation. In order to do this, Kineticon attempts to learn where the icons that you've requested it animate are located, it then plays the requested animation in place of the icons. Because Kineticon is only concerned with what the replacement icon looks like while it's trying to figure out where to put an animation, there's no need to "tell" Kineticon which file or folder has an animating icon. Whenever an icon that matches a kine's replacement icon is drawn, it will be replaced by the kine's animation; all that's necessary is to give the file or folder the correct icon.
Installing Kineticon
To install Kineticon, place the “Kineticon” file into your Extensions folder and restart your Macintosh. You can locate Kineticon Editor anywhere that you find convenient. The "Kines" (pronounced as "kinnys" like in "skinnys") folder and the "Kines (Disabled)" folder can be located anywhere as well as long as they are somewhere on your startup drive. The first time you launch Kineticon Editor it will ask you to locate the Kines folder; if the Kines folder is in the same folder as Kineticon Editor it will find it without your help. In addition, if located in either the Applications Support folder (only with system 8.0 or higher) or the Preferences folder inside your System folder, Kineticon Editor will automatically locate the Kines folder.
Removing Kineticon
To disable Kineticon, just take the “Kineticon” file out of your Extensions folder (either by dragging it out yourself or by disabling it with an extensions manager) and restart your Macintosh. Kineticon does not make any permanent changes to your system, so once you disable it, it will no longer have any effect.
Kineticon Editor is the application that you use to create and edit your kines. Kineticon comes with a small collection of kines (inside the "Kines" and "Kines (Disabled)" folders).
Using Kineticon Edtior to configure Kineticon (choosing your kines)
Kineticon will only animate those kines that you have enabled with Kineticon Editor.
To enable a kine, check the "enable" checkbox to the left of the kine in Kineticon Editor. To disable a kine, un-check the "enable" checkbox to the left of the kine in Kineticon Editor.
To add new kines place them either into the Kines folder or into the Kines (Disabled) folder and launch Kineticon Editor to enable/disable them.
Copy the replacement icons from your enabled kines (see Figure 1) and paste them onto the files and folders that you wish Kineticon to animate (see Figure 2). When you quit Kineticon Editor the files' or folders' icons will begin to animate.
Kineticon Editor will display all the kines that are located in either the Kines folder or the Kines (Disabled) folder. You should enable and disable kines directly from Kineticon Editor rather than moving the files between the two folders manually. Simply dragging a kine from the Kines folder to the Kines (Disabled) folder will not activate it. Kineticon needs to be re-started to stop or start kines. When you launch Kineticon Editor, Kineticon is stopped. Kineticon is re-started with your new kine selections when you quit Kineticon Editor.
Note/caveat: Enabling two or more kines with the same replacement icon image will have unpredictable results.
Using Kineticon Editor to edit kines and create new kines
To edit a kine simply double-click it in the Kines window or choose "Open" from the file menu to open it and change its settings (speed, etc.). Some kines allow you to change the icon that they replace on your desktop (the Warp Hole kine will not allow this). To modify the icon that a kine replaces, simply paste an icon picture onto the upper left hand icon image in the kine's window.
Note: you can get a file or folder's icon image onto the clipboard by using "Get Info..." in the Finder, clicking on the icon in the upper left hand corner of the Info window and choosing "Copy" from the edit menu. This puts a picture of the file or folder's icon into the clipboard where you can paste it onto a kine's icon image.
If you would like to create your own kine, choose "New Kine" from the File menu. You can edit this new kine to create the animation that you want. You can cut and paste the sequence of icons displayed in the lower portion of the new kine's window with icon images of your own creation. Once the new kine has been saved and enabled, the images displayed in the lower portion of the kine's window will be animated from left to right (and possibly back again) replacing the kine's replacement icon (in the upper-left of the kine's window) on your desktop according to the kine's other settings.
In addition, you can use a graphics editor (PhotoShop, ResEdit, etc.) to create your icons and then paste them into the appropriate places in the kine's window. When you paste a picture onto an icon, Kineticon Editor will create an appropriate mask for that icon image by trying to "fill" the space around the icon image that is white (whatever it can't fill becomes the mask - this works just like the Finder's pasting of icons onto files and folders). If you would like to change the mask of an icon, use the "Paste Mask" command in the Edit menu. Also, sometimes it's useful to be able to paste a series of icons all at one time; if your icon image is more than 32 pixels wide it will be interpreted as a collection of icons. Pasting such an image into the Sequence portion of a kine window will paste multiple icons into the sequence. For example if your icon image was 128 by 32 pixels, that would be interpreted as 4 icons (32 times 4 equals 128). If you want to see what such an image looks like, open one of the editable kines (the Trash Flies kine for example) and select four of the icons in the animation sequence, choose "Copy" from the Edit menu, go to the Finder and choose "Show Clipboard" from the Edit menu - there's the icon image. If you want to see what the masks of the four icons would like like, choose "Copy Mask" from the Edit menu then look at the clipboard in the Finder.
Note: if you plan to have the kine's replacement image copied from Kineticon Editor and pasted onto a file or folder in the Finder, you should try to create an image that has an "obvious mask". The Finder doesn't copy the masks of icons (it trys to re-create them from the image) so if you have an icon with a hole in it, or with white edges on it, the Finder-pasted icon will not be the same as the kine replacement icon and the kine will not animate. Since the replacement icon isn't part of the animating sequence, there is no problem with it looking somehow different from the rest of the "frames" of the animation; it should be a simple matter to modify the icon to have an "obvious mask".
Trouble-shooting (just in case Kineticon doesn't perform flawlessly)
If a kine that was animating on your desktop mysteriously stops, try either selecting and de-selecting it or moving it around. If the kine is in a window, using the "window shade" tool (at the right of the window's title bar) to collapse and expand the window or closing and re-opening the window will usually restart the kine.
Sometimes it may take a few seconds for Kineticon to start or restart an animation - wait a few seconds and Kineticon may surprise you.
If you've created a kine that just won't animate, make sure that the icon in the Finder is exactly the same as the kine's replacement icon. As noted in the above section, the Finder may modify the kine's replacement icon's mask when it's pasted onto a file or folder - if the icons don't match *exactly* no animation will take place. If the Finder is changing the icon, try removing any holes in the kine's replacement icon or making the edges of the replacement icon "more obvious" (see above).
Registration Information
BY FAR the easiest way to pay for Kineticon is with a credit card on the web. Go to <http://order.kagi.com/?3U6>, fill in the form with your credit card information and you'll receive your registration code right then and there.
Otherwise, paying for Kineticon is still fairly simple. Open the Register Kineticon program that accompanies Kineticon. Enter your name, your email address, and the number of single user licenses you desire. Save, Copy or Print the data from the Register program and send the data and payment to "Kagi". More specifics on the Register program to follow. Kagi handles my payment processing.
If paying with Credit Card or First Virtual, you can email or fax the data to Kagi. Their email address is sales@kagi.com and their fax number is +1 510 652-6589. You can either Copy the data from Register and paste into the body of an email message or you can Save the
data to a file and you can attach that file to an email message. There is no need to compress the data file, it's already pretty small. If you have a fax modem, just Print the data to the Kagi fax number.
Payments sent via email are processed within 3 to 4 days. You will receive an email acknowledgement when it is processed. Payments sent via fax take up to 10 days and if you provide a correct internet email address you will receive an email acknowledgement.
If you are paying with Cash or USD Check you should print the data using the Register application and send it to the address shown on the form, which is:
Kagi
1442-A Walnut Street #392-3U6
Berkeley, California 94709-1405
USA
You can pay with a wide variety of cash from different countries but at present if you pay via check, it must be a check drawn in US Dollars. Kagi cannot accept checks in other currencies, the conversion rate for non-USD checks is around USD 15 per check and that is just not practical.
If you have a purchasing department, you can enter all the data into the Register program and then select Invoice as your payment method. Print three copies of the form and send it to your accounts payable people. You might want to highlight the line that mentions that they must include a copy of the form with their payment. Kagi can not invoice your company, you need to act on my behalf and generate the invoice and handle all the paperwork on your end. Please do not fax or email payment forms that indicate Cash, Check or Invoice as the payment method. As far as we know, there is still no technology to transfer physical objects via fax or email and without the payment, the form cannot be processed. Payments send via postal mail take time to reach Kagi and then up to 10 days for processing. Again, if you include a correct email address, you will hear from Kagi when the form is processed.
