*ICON Hardly Wait* finds and shows a variety of graphic resources that are used in Macintosh programs. _ICON Hardly Wait_ will read though a drive, a folder, or a single file looking for these little pictures. It is possible to see these icons with other programs, such as ResEdit, and to change them, but ResEdit is useful only if one knows where the icons are. _ICON Hardly Wait_ can find them.
The types of graphic resources which ICON Hardly Wait can find include:
ICON--These are black and white pictures 32 pixels by 32 pixels. They go back to the earliest days of the Macintosh.
SICN These are black and white pictures 16 pixels by 16 pixels. They also date back to the earliest days of the Macintosh. (SICN is short for Small ICoN.)
cicn These are color pictures that can have a variety of sizes, but the largest is 64 pixels by 64 pixels. (At least this is the largest one can create in ResEdit, where many of them are drawn.) They pretty much replace both ICONs an SICNs in today's world where almost all new Macs can display colors--or at least shades of gray.
PAT These are black and white patterns that where very important in the early days of the Macintosh. They are only 8 pixels by 8 pixels. Largely obsolete in the world of color.
PAT# These are pattern lists, which contain the same information as PAT s, but are stored in groups instead of one by one. Largely obsolete in the world of color.
ppat These are color patterns, which make the PAT s and PAT# unnecessary on modern Macs. They can be of several sizes, with the largest 64 pixels by 64 pixels. Desktop patterns on color Macs usually are made up of ppats.
ppt# This is another way of storing color patterns, but seems to be little used compared to ppats. In fact, I have never found a program that uses them, but ResEdit allows one to create them.
ICN# This is a Finder icon, which the Finder displays on the desktop when the color of the monitor is set to black and white.
icl4 This is a Finder icon, which the Finder displays on the desktop when the number of colors on the monitor is set to 16 but less than 256.
icl8 This is a Finder icon, which the Finder displays on the desktop when the number of colors on the monitor is set to 256 or more.
ics# This is the small black and white icon the Finder uses on black and white monitors, or if a small color icon is not available.
ics4 This is the small Finder icon used when the number of colors on the monitor is set to 16.
ics4 This is the small Finder icon used when the number of colors on the monitor is set to 256 or more.
Believe it or not, there are several other graphic resources that the Mac uses. Several still challenge my programming abilities, while others are displayed by other programs I have written. To see black and white cursors, use Cursors on Your Mac, to see PICTs, use the Last PICT Show, and to see fonts, use The Show Must Go FOND.
_ICON Hardly Wait_ has only one basic command which scans and shows the icons it finds. When one chooses the Find ICONs... command, the program presents an open-file dialog so that the user can select where one wants to look for icons. If one selects a folder, the program will search that folder. If one selects a file, the program looks for icons in that file.
You determine whether the program searches for ICONs, SICNs, or cicns (or PAT s, PAT#s, ppats or ppt#s) by selecting one or them in the second menu.
When the program finds a file which has a icon of the sort you selected in the second menu, it prints the name of the file and then prints out all the icons it finds. It then waits about three seconds before beginning to search for more icons. During that time the user can pause the program by pressing the p key, which will make the program stay where it is until a key or the mouse is pressed. To make the program move as quickly as possible, hold down a key, or set the caps lock key. If one decides that one has seen enough and wants to stop the showing of icons, press the escape key. (Command-period will also work.) This action may not have immediate results, but do not give up. Keep the escape key depressed until the loop is broken. (However, make sure that you do not have the caps lock key down, or else the program will not notice that you have the escape key down.) If one holds down the c key while the program is paused after finishing a file (when cursor has the picture of a happy face, not the wide eyes of the searching face), a picture of the screen will be placed on the clipboard. Neat, huh? A really good programmer named Jonathan Durkee showed me how to do that.
If you are running an old black and white Macintosh, the cicn, ppat, and ppt# options may be dimmed. If you are running from a locked disk, such as a CD-ROM, or if the program is locked, you should find the ppt# option dimmed. This is intended to prevent crashes.
Unlike some of the other programs in this series, this program does not build a list of files that have icons. If you want such a list, use the related program called "Census Taker."
*ICON Hardly Wait* is Copyrighted 1995, 1996 by Robert Schenk.
The standard software disclaimers about liability apply. Those basically are that you use this program at your own risk and I am not liable for anything. There is no guarantee that it is bug free.
Report any bugs or suggestions for improvement to Robert Schenk. Contact him at
bobs@kagi.com
This program is shareware ($5). See the instructions for paying in the registration program that comes with this program.
August 1996
(In testing the program I ran into cicns which do not display. Naturally I tried to see what was going on by looking at them using ResEdit, but ResEdit would not show them either. So there are cicn tricks that I do not know about.)
