Picon lets you pick an icon for a folder based on the contents of that folder. Drag and drop a folder onto Picon and it will let you select one of the top ten icons that reside in that folder. These icons can be copied verbatim, or optionally "folder-ized" (ala Folder Icon Maker).
For example, dragging my plain old Documents folder onto Picon brings up a list of icons including the Microsoft Word documents icon, the MacPaint document icon, the ClarisWorks text document icon, and various other things. I select the MacPaint document icon and check "Make Folders" to see what the folderized version looks like. Satisfied, I click "Set Icon". My Documents folder now has a little MacPaint document on the front.
Thanks to everyone who has given me feedback on previous versions!
Changes Since Last Release
— You can now choose the background folder! Normal, copland, diskette, etc. (see "Editing Background Folders")
— Fixed bug which prevented creating new preferences file.
The Skinny
1) Drag and drop a folder onto Picon. A dialog pops up with a list of icons contained in that folder. More about this list later.
2) Select an icon which you find descriptive, yet aesthetically pleasing. Optionally check "Make Folders" to have Picon create a "folder-ized" version of that icon.
3) Pick a background folder from the list of folders just below the "Make Folders" checkbox.
4) Hit "Set Icon" to copy the selected icon to the folder, or hit "Cancel" to exit, leaving the folder unchanged. The new icon may not appear until the next time the Finder starts up.
The Icon List
Picon displays a list of ten icons contained within the folder. How does it pick these icons? First, applications float to the top of the list. Second, the icons are sorted by frequency. For example, if there is a folder with 114 icons, only one of which is an application, and 100 of which are the same, the application and 100x icon will definitely appear on the list.
Editing Background Folders
New with Picon 1.3 is the ability to select from a list of possible background folders. By default, these backgrounds include a couple of normal folders, a couple of Copland-style folders, and a diskette. However, you can change these icons using your favorite resource editor. To change a folder, pop open Picon with ResEdit or some such utility, and edit one of the icons with an ID between 1000 and 1004. The new icon will now appear in Picon's list.
You might also wish to edit the "target" rectangle which Picon pastes the reduced icon into. For example, the first Copland icon has a target rectangle slightly above and to the left of center. These rectangles are stored in resource type 'RECT', with the same ID as the folder's icon. For example, if you edit icon 1003, you might also want to edit 'RECT' 1003. Each RECT resource is four bytes in the form of top, left, bottom, right. Use this feature at your own risk - there isn't much error handling.
Other Features
When an icon is selected, hit Command-C to copy it to the clipboard. You can then paste it in later using the Finder's Get Info command.
Potential Problems
Picon has been tested on a few configurations. These include a PowerBook 180, a PowerMac 6100, and also System 7.0, 7.1, and 7.5.
The only known problem involves updating the icon in the Finder. In most cases (except when creating a custom icon for the first time) the Finder will not realize the icon has been updated. This may be solved in the future using AppleScript, but that is a limited solution. I don't think there is much I can do about this problem. The new icon will definitely appear the next time the Finder starts up. Quitting and restarting the Finder will also update the icon.
With the default memory partition of 350k, Picon can read a directory with 55 distinct icons. Above that, you should probably give it more memory - it might crash. The next version will have better error handling in this case.
Known Bugs
— Long folder names don't appear in main dialog (with thanks to Matt).
— Multiple drags could be better.
— Always gets icon of alias's original, not alias's icon.
About Picon And Me
Picon is freeware. It can be distributed anywhere by anyone, as long as this Readme travels with.
I'm a junior at Brown University. While this is not my first exposure to Macintosh programming, this is my first freeware release. I would like to spend more time developing Mac software, but my current schedule does not allow it. However, look for my software to pop on other platforms, or possibly inside HotJava.
