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AGA_Icons.readme
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AGA 16-Color Icons
*** IF YOU DON'T READ THIS ENTIRE POST, AT LEAST READ THE CAUTIONS,
VIEWING THE ICONS, AND INSTALLATION SECTIONS OR YOU MAY BE DISAPPOINTED
IN HOW THESE ICONS LOOK ON YOUR SCREEN. ***
Hello World,
After posting a message on Usenet regarding the icons I was using
on my A4000/40, I received a number of inquiries asking me if I
would upload them. Well, here they are!
INTRODUCTION
------------
These icons were beautifully drawn by Roger McVey, and I must add
that the originals are the best icons I have seen on any system.
However, I tried them out on my 3.0 A4000 and the colors were all
messed up. I attempted to fix them using the 3.0 IconEdit, but
since it doesn't allow you to use 16 colors, I didn't have much
success.
Undaunted, I came up with the idea of using IconEdit from the WB
2.04 release. Voila! It worked, and after MANY hours of
recoloring, Mr. McVey's icons are now a part of my 3.0 system.
CAUTIONS
--------
Personally, I think they look great on my Workbench, but I must
warn you that they do not look quite as good as the original
coloring scheme that McVey used for the following reasons:
* With WB 3.0 it is only possible to configure the first 8
colors on the Workbench screen. That left me having to
use the default upper 8 colors to make up the remaining
colors. Therefore, it was not possible to get the exact
same colors and perfect shading of the original design,
and I had to improvise in many cases with dithering and
such. Since some of the default Workbench upper 8 colors were
unappealing for icons, most, if not all of these icons are not
truly 16 colors, but 8 colors with a few of the upper 8
colors thrown in.
* Secondly, I do not profess to be an artist by any sense
of the word, (Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor!) and therefore my color
selections may not be to your liking. Sorry but that's all
I'll say about it. These icons were recolored by me for
my own personal use, and I hadn't intended to release them
for others to use. But since there seemed to be interest out
there, I decided to go ahead and upload them, hoping that some
will find them useful.
Another caution I must give: Workbench 3.0, as it is, uses a
shared-palette concept. That is, except for the first 8 colors,
the other 8, 24, 56, 120, or 248 colors (depending on how many
colors your WB is configured to) are not preset, and can be
changed by the system to display pictures on the Workbench screen.
As such, IT IS POSSIBLE THAT THESE ICONS MAY CHANGE FROM THEIR
ORIGINAL INTENDED COLORS. I have not had this happen to me with
normal use, but you have been warned if the color scheme should
happen to get screwed up while using these icons. If the colors
get changed on your Workbench, use the procedure below to restore
the icon colors to their proper ones. Also, the more colors you have
set on your workbench, the slimmer chance that the palette will change
on you.
VIEWING THE ICONS
-----------------
After you have unpacked the icons in this archive, they probably
will not look very good, due to the screen colors that are set on
your Workbench screen. I have included the proper palette
settings in this archive. If you simply click on the icon
"AGA_Palette" you will NOT necessarily get the proper colors to
appear in the icons. For some reason I haven't figured out yet,
the 3.0 palette preferences screws up the coloring scheme of the
icons. Follow the steps below:
1) Click on the "AGA_Palette" icon included in this archive.
2) Next, open the Screenmode program in the Prefs drawer of your
Workbench partition or disk. Change the number of available
colors to something other than what you were originally using.
For example, if you were using 256 colors, change it to 128. Then
click on the "USE" gadget. The WB will close and reopen,
restoring the icons to their intended colors.
3) Now, reopen the Screenmode Preferences program again, and
restore the number of available colors to what you were originally
using. Make sure you are using more than 16 colors on your WB,
preferably 32 or greater.
Remember, this above procedure is only necessary to view the icons for
the first time, or if you have changed the palette on your
workbench using the Palette Prefs program. During normal use, I
haven't had any problems with the colors of these icons, and they
will boot up in their proper colors. I've only tested these icons
on my A4000 system so I cannot guarantee them working on all AGA
systems. I haven't tried using them on a pre-AGA machine, but since
technically they are 2.04 icons, I suppose they would work. You would
need to adjust the colors of your workbench manually though, I think.
If you like these icons and want to permanently use them, Open the
Palette program in your prefs drawer, load the "AGA_Palette" and
click on the "SAVE" button. Then follow the outlined fix above,
or alternatively, reboot, and the icons should appear properly.
INSTALLATION
------------
To replace your current icons with these ones, I have included the
program "SwapIcon". Just click on the icon for instructions. Do
NOT use the 3.0 icon edit program to replace the images or the
colors won't look properly since it does not support 16 color
icons. Use "SwapIcon" or the 2.0 IconEdit program. I have also
included an IFF file of my Workbench screen so you can get a
preview of what they are supposed to look like.
These icons have been used on my A4000 for 2 months now, and I
have not encountered any problems with them. However, if for some
strange reason they induce a malfunction on your computer, I am
not responsible. I make no warantees as to the fitness or safety
of your computing environment while using these icons. Obviously,
the 2.0 IconEdit was not designed for use on 3.0, so this is why I
have to make this disclaimer.
OTHER GOODIES
-------------
In addition to the original designs by Mr. McVey I have added a
few other icons that I have modified to accommodate the new 3.0
programs. They are essentially images taken from other McVey
icons with some different colors or minor alterations. There may
be a few duplicates in the archive. I have also added some icons
for other programs that I use, and you may find them useful as
well for your wordprocessing progam icons, etc. On my system I
have changed ALL my icons to these nice 3-D ones. The icons at
the top level of this archive are the disk.info icons I use for my
partitions, RAMDisk, and default disk. In this archive they are
"drawer" type icons and if you want to use them as disk icons, you
must rename them to "Disk.info". I did not name them this way
because you wouldn't be able to see them then! They are the ones
with the big Amiga "A" on them and are originally by Chris
Brenner.
ACKNOWLEGEMENTS
---------------
Special thanks to Roger McVey for his wonderful aesthetic
contribution to the Amiga community. Commodore should hire you
for their next OS release, IMHO! Also, Roger, I hope you don't
mind me tinkering with your icons! =B^)
If anyone out there has managed to get McVey's digitized photo
icons to look right on OS 3.0 please let me know. I'm not going
to even attempt to recolor those. :)
Please drop me an e-mail or snail mail line and let me know if these
icons work for you, or if there are any problems.
Sincerely,
Philip A. Vedovatti
231-26th Ave. E. #211
Seattle, WA 98105
Email: vedovatt@u.washington.edu