Magnetic Pages Article | 1993-10-14 | 33KB | 96 lines
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INFO
Title : IconAuthor v1.8%Author : Bernd (Koessi) Koesling
Country : Germany#Source : See Shareware Column.$Conditions : Shareware - DM 30, $30
USA,
20 UK.
Category : Utility
Released : 1993
Opinion : ***
REQUIREMENTS
Drives : 1
Memory :
meg.
COMPATIBILITY#A500 wb 1.3.2 : No. - Needs wb 2.x.
A600 wb 2.05 : YES
Multi-tasks : YES
Display : Workbench& Does one need another icon editor?&And would any shareware icon editor&really be worth paying $60 NZ for?&Those are the thoughts I had when I&received IconAuthor. (Thanks Koessi.)
So let's find out.& After quite a hassle getting the&program installed correctly, (see the&panel), I started testing what this&thing could do. It comes with one&large picture in hi-res interlace&containing lots of grey-scale photos&of Marilyn Monroe for making icons out&of. I wonder if the author obtained&permission for their use? Of course he&would have - shareware authors always respect such things. Don't they?& Icons can be made from a whole&picture or by cutting a rectangle out&of one. These are then reduced to four&colours if needs be and they're also&scaled down if larger than the maximum&size of 256 pixels wide by 128 high.&The Monroe picture shown here was cut
from the montage.& The first thing you notice when you&get the program up and running is two&sliders labelled Brightness and&Contrast. Yep, just like on the telly.&And, just like on the telly, it's hard&to get things right. But they are a&useful addition as I found out when&altering the Marilyn photos. The look&of the icons can be changed
In The Stall
[23m& Gee I hate install programs.&IconAuthor's docs are in AmigaGuide&format so they are not too easy to&read unless you use AmigaGuide or the&supplied Hyper. Of course you don't&know to use the supplied Hyper until&you've read it's docs, also in
AmigaGuide format!& No matter I thought. I'll just&install IconAuthor and get at the docs&from the program. I know there's&enough room in my system drawer on my&hard-disk as I've just removed&Microprose Grand Prix from it to make&some room. The game was in the system#dramatically by playing with these.& What else? Well there's a couple of&sliders for scaling or trimming your&icons and of course a button to get at&the second image used for icons. Then&there's a row of buttons on the right&hand side of which the most important&is for editing your icons. The&Contrast and Brightness controls are
just the start.& As you would expect there are the&usual freehand, line, rectangle and&circle buttons. These all work as&expected but one major oversight is&the omission of filled rectangles and&circles. There's a fill button so you&can fill them easily enough but I find&I use filled rectangles mostly for&erasing stuff. Brushes can be made&also and that's what I used for
drawer as it's install program"wouldn't let me put it in the Work$drawer. Gee I hate install programs.# So, with my heart in my mouth, I#double clicked on the install icon.!That seemed to work OK I thought."Running the program caused lots of%problems and crashes though and there&was no Help available. Sometime during$this hassle the hard-disk decided to&do some work on itself. This is also a"bit heart-stopping as you wait and$hope that it's just repairing itself&after the last crash and it's not some!virus that has somehow been given#forty megs to play with. Gee I hate
install programs.& After doing this for way too long I
erasing but it's hardly ideal.& The four Workbench colours can of&course be selected and also available&for most of the above are four half-&tones. Only four-colour icons can be&made however as there's no sixteen
colour option I'm afraid.& Text can also be added using any&font with bold, italics and underline&also supported. And there's one&feature with the text that I instantly&took a liking too and that's a 3D&option. This can have either a raised&or sunken look and produces excellent&results if the right colours are used.&Topaz has never looked so good! Yes&folks, that is Topaz. This 3D effect&can also be added to rectangles.&Instant raised or lowered buttons. As&you can save the icon images as IFF&brushes I can imagine the 3D feature$being used for more than just icons.& That about covers the editing of&icons apart for a few other options&available from the menus for swapping&and centering the images and suchlike.& Saving the icons is a breeze too&with easy text entry for the default&tool, stack and tool-types and buttons&decided to do the sensible thing and&look at the install script. Ah! It's&designed to run from df0 only! I'd&been using the external drive. That&fixed it I thought. Help available and
everything.& The next time I ran it though Help&was gone again. Install it again!&Help's there again! To cut a long&story short it needs an assign in the&startup-sequence as well. Moral or the&story? Document install programs
simply!
! Gee I hate install programs!
----
&to select the icon type. There's&buttons also for Complement, Highlight&and Backfill. And you can test the&icon's style by holding down the right&mouse button. I need this as I can'
[3mAn overscan interlace HAM picture# after being reduced automatically" to a four-colour icon image by
Icon Author.
[23m&never remember which style gives which
results!& Extensive Help is available through&the use of Hyper, also by the same&author and supplied with IconAuthor.&It was reviewed in issue three of APDR&and has an update in this issue.&Everything is explained very well with&the only quibble being that there's no&button to take you to the Menu's Help&screen. You have to press I for the&Index which then allows you to get to&it and everything else about the
program.& It's not all roses though. There&are quite a few bugs in the program&which crash the program quite®ularly on my A600. This leaves a&huge and unshrinkable window covering&most of my (non-interlace) workbench.&To his credit the author lists the&known bugs in the docs. Well four of&them anyway. He's working on version&two so perhaps that will be a bit more
robust.& The program's also quite slow in&parts with the cross-hairs, which are&used extensively for the editing,&being very sluggish. Those with&accelerated machines probably won't
notice it I guess.& So is it worth the asking price?&There's no doubt that a mighty lot of&work has gone into it but you can't&help getting away from the fact that&it's only an icon editor after all. I
paid less for Magnetic Pages!& That said, being able to make an&icon automatically out of any IFF&picture, alter it's Contrast and&Brightness and add that neat 3D text&sure is great. Anyone who is making&icons on a regular basis should check&it out. It's just a pity about those&bugs. Without them it would be a$four-star or more program with ease.
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