NewDeal Hot Tip 1531

[Hot Tips for...] General Use

Tips For Creating Icons

Creating icons for NewDeal requires the use of two programs: Iconmake (available for download from the NewDeal web site) and a graphics program. For the graphics program, it's possible to use NewDraw, but many icon designers prefer using an external program like Deluxe Paint.

Making Icons From Deluxe Paint II PCX Files

Iconmake will convert PCX images to NewDeal icons. Following are instructions to make a VGA icon using Deluxe Paint II Enhanced. Other bitmap editors will work, but you will want to use the standard IBM 16 color pallete.
  1. Boot up in Deluxe Paint II Enhanced using the 640x480x16 mode.
  2. Set your page to 48x30 in Deluxe Paint. This will produce a tiny drawing area in the upper left corner of the screen.
  3. To make this area more accessible, click on the magnifier, position the cursor in the extreme upper left corner of the tiny drawing area and click. This will produce a zoomed-up view of the drawing area on the right side of the screen.
  4. There is no need to hide the menu bar (F10); you'll neither gain nor lose anything either way.
  5. Since the picture needs to start at 0,0 (extreme upper left corner, i.e. the very first pixel), for Iconmake to recognize the presence of a graphic, the best thing to do is give your drawing a full background. You can choose any of the 16 colors you want, but since Iconmake translates light magenta as transparent, choose light magenta as your drawing color, click on the paint can and flood the area. You now have a transparent background that starts at 0,0 on which to draw. You can change the transparent color later --see below.
  6. Draw your picture on top of the light magenta background. Use the zoomed area to draw, and the normal view as a preview to what you're doing.
  7. When you're done, make sure you save the picture as a PCX file and not an .LBM file. Just click on the .PCX radio button.
  8. Run Iconmake as follows:
    C:\{dir}\Iconmake m XXXX,111 ZZZZZ.PCX
    The m is the switch that tells Iconmake you're making an icon from a PCX file. XXXX is the 4-character name of your token, whatever you want. 111 represents the manufacturer's ID, any number in the range noted in the Iconmake documentation. If you use 5 for your Mfg ID, then your icon will be available in the Launcher Maker in NewDeal. ZZZZZ.PCX is the name of your .PCX file.
Now... to complicate things:

In the command string, instead of m you can place mX, where X is one of the color numbers in the documentation. If you don't place any number after the m, Iconmake will convert all instances of light magenta to transparent, whether it's the background or a foreground color. If you do place a number after the m, Iconmake will convert every instance of light magenta to the color the number represents, whether it finds light magenta in the background or in the foreground. Iconmake will not accept images created with Screen Dumper, supposedly because of an extra header the Dumper places in the file.

Converting Windows(tm) Icons Into NewDeal Icons

Let's assume you have a Windows icon file named HELP.ICO and you want to convert it to a NewDeal icon named HELP with a Manufacturer's ID 345:
ICONMAKE w HELP,345 HELP.ICO
In DOS, Iconmake will pad the file name with 00FF and add .000 as the extension. It will appear as HELP.345 from within NewDeal. Note, the Manufacturer's ID parameter is optional, in both converting from ICO and PCX files. Iconmake will, by default, assign 255.

Making Icons From PCX Files

If you're trying to create an icon from a PCX file named PIC, and you want to name the icon Test, and give it the Manufacturer's ID of 123:
ICONMAKE m TEST,123 PIC.PCX

Extracting Icons from NewDeal Files

If you want to convert icons from NewDeal files into PCX files, here's the command. Let's assume you want to take the icon from GeoComm:
ICONMAKE x GeoComm
Iconmake will create, in this instance, three PCX files. They correspond to the three types of icons stored in the application: EGA/VGA, HGC(mono) and CGA. If you extract a file from a GEOS icon, you may or may not find all three video modes. Iconmake will extract as many as it can find.
Return to Index

Last Modified 9 Mar 1999