Icon-A-Day, Icon # 65, Program Group Folder
Not as simple as I planed it to be.
Sunday, March 6, 2005 by mormegil | Discussion: Icons
| Icon 65 (Program Group) I wanted to do another simple icon today, but it turned out a bit more of a project then I had expected. So here we go, lets make a Programs Folder. | ||
| Step 1: We will start with a copy of our Active X folder. I remove the X and its shadow and reflection. .jpg) |
Step 2: Now I want to make a little Explorer Window with some programs in it. So I draw the simple shapes with boxes. .jpg) |
Step 3: I take those boxes and group them, then I slant them back against the folder with the perspective tool. .jpg) |
| Step 4: Now I take some new boxes and with the Mesh tool start going over the title bar area of my Explorer window. I give it the same sort of look we are using on the folders. .jpg) |
Step 5: You can see here that I end up with 5 Mesh fill objects, "Skinning" my Explorer window. .jpg) |
Step 6: Now I copy a few of my earlier icons and make a sort of "List View" to go in the icon area of the Explorer window.
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| Step 4: To save a bit of time I convert my new "List View" Into a bitmap. Using The Bitmap Effects I give it a bit of perspective. Then I tweak it a bit with size and skew to make it fit in the icon Area. .jpg) |
Step 4: To polish off our Explorer Window I give it 3 Command buttons and some boxes to flesh out the Shellstyle area. I also give the frame of the window some texture, copied from the folder. Last I give the Window a little Gloss. .jpg) |
Step 4: I don't think it is showing up well, so I go back in with the Mesh tool and darken some of the colors for a bit more contrast. I also give the icon our standard Reflection. .jpg) |
| Step 4: To finish up we go in and give the new Explorer window a nice drop shadow. .jpg) |
Finished Icon design. |
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Well, that's one more folder down, tomorrow we will try and finish up another. See ya then. | ||
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Icon-A-Day, Icon # 64, Workgroup
The last of the "Other" Icons.
Saturday, March 5, 2005 by mormegil | Discussion: Icons
| Icon 64 (Workgroup) Well, I spent all day moving so I am quite beat, but luckily there is a pretty simple icon that needs to be done. I'm in luck. This is the last of the icons in the "Other" section of IconPackager; we will have the satisfaction finishing up anther section. So lets do it. | ||
| Step 1: We will start by copying yesterdays "Entire Network" icon, and removing the globe and cable, as well as the reflections. .jpg) |
Step 2: Now since this is a "workgroup" I want to ad one more computer. So I copy the front computer, and put a new picture on it. In this case a copy of our globe. .jpg) |
Step 3: Now I size the new monitor down a bit, and place it behind the two monitors. I also give the new one a bit of Gloss on its screen. .jpg) |
| Step 4: Now we give the monitors a new reflection. I copy the two front most monitors and mirror them for our Reflections. .jpg) |
Step 5: Using the Interactive Transparency tool, I I fade out the two reflection bitmaps. See the Reflections Video for more on this. .jpg) |
Finished Icon design.
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There we go, one more lose end tied up. I will be doing more moving tomorrow so we will be doing another simple icon tomorrow night as well. Not sure which one yet. | ||
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Icon-A-Day, Icon # 63, Entire Network
This one is really the last of the "Network" Icons.
Friday, March 4, 2005 by mormegil | Discussion: Icons
| Icon 63 (Entire Network) Since it is Friday night, and I have just gotten home from a nice date with my beautiful wife, I am going to once again cheap out and do another simple icon. Yesterday we did the Network Services icon, today we will finish off once and for all the "Network" icons by doing the Entire Network icon. This icon used to be more important, but you almost never see it anymore, unless you poke around in your My Network Places folder for a bit. But it is supported, and therefore we need to take care of it. I like to do this one as a few computers, and a globe, this is to represent that the entire network can consist of just about any size of network, form a LAN to the entire Internet. Having said that, lets do it. | ||
| Step 1: To start with I will simply copy the My Network Places icon. .jpg) |
Step 2: Now I copy the monitor, flip it, and remove the shadows and the screen image and gloss. .jpg) |
Step 3: Now I copy our "Bliss" like image form our my Pictures folder, and use it as our wallpaper for this monitor. I also give the monitor some new gloss. .jpg) |
| Step 4: Now we make a new shadow for the monitor, with the shadow falling off to the left, to match our other objects. .jpg) |
Step 5: Now I take the original monitor from the Network Places icon and size it down a bit, and place it in front of the new monitor. .jpg) |
Step 6: I move the globe and cable back in front, and make sure it will fit. I tweak the cable a bit to make it longer. .jpg) |
| Step 7: Now we forgot to make a new reflection for the front monitor, so I move the globe away again, and give it a nice new reflection. .jpg) |
Step 8: Now I move the globe back, and clip the cable a bit to make it look like it is going behind the front monitor. .jpg) |
Finished Icon design. .jpg) |
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That was pretty simple. I used to spend a lot more time on this icon in the old days, but now I seam to have settled on this formula. It works well and conveys the meaning I want. Besides, how often will it be seen? | ||
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Icon-A-Day, Icon # 62, Network Service
Loose ends.
Thursday, March 3, 2005 by mormegil | Discussion: Icons
| Icon 62 (Network Services) Yesterday I said I would be be doing the Printer icon tonight. However I am running late today do to the fact that I am in the process of moving over the next week or so. So tonight I am going to cheap out and take care of some lose edges. A while back we did a series of network icons, now that we are getting closer to the end of the pack I realized that we skipped a few. The first of these is the Network Services icon. | ||
| Step 1: Lets start by copying the Internet icon. .jpg) |
Step 2: Now I size the globe down and tweak the cable to make it stretch further around the edge of the icon area. .jpg) |
Step 3: Now we take a copy of the gear from the admin folder and place it in front of the globe. .jpg) |
| Step 4: Now using our reflection techniques I give the gear a new reflection. .jpg) |
Step 5: Now using the Shadows techniques I give the gear the new shadow. .jpg) |
Finished Icon design. .jpg) |
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Well, I still want to get to the printer icon, hopefully we will be able to take care of it tomorrow. | ||
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Icon-A-Day, Icon # 61, Subscription Folder
lets polish off the obscure folders.
Wednesday, March 2, 2005 by mormegil | Discussion: Icons
| Icon 61 (Subscription Folder) As we move through the rest of the folder icons, there are a few obscure icons left, one of which is the Subscription Folder icon. So I thought we would get it taken care of tonight. | ||
| Step 1: We will start with by copying the web folder, and removing the globe and cord. .jpg) |
Step 2: Now we are use a few circles and triangles to make a "sync" symbol. .jpg) |
Step 3: Now using the Perspective tool, we lean the symbol against the folder. .jpg) |
| Step 4: Now with the contour tool we do a "poor mans bevel". See the contour video for more on this. .jpg) |
Step 5: Once more using the contour tool we fade the inside of the symbol to a lighter green. .jpg) |
Step 6: Now we quickly give the symbol a little gloss. .jpg) |
| Step 4: Now using our Reflection Techniques I give the symbol a reflection. .jpg) |
Step 5: Now using our Shadow Techniques I give the symbol a shadow. .jpg) |
Completed Icon Image. .jpg) |
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Tomorrow we will tackle the Printers folder, which will be a bit of work. So check in then. | ||
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Icon-A-Day, Icon # 60, Scheduled Tasks Folders
lets use our clock on last time.
Tuesday, March 1, 2005 by mormegil | Discussion: Icons
| Icon 60 (Scheduled Tasks Folder) Today we will once more re-use our clock from the last two days. We will need a new Calendar graphic, but other than that we have everything we need already. | ||
| Step 1: First thing is to copy the Admin Folder and remove everything but one gear, and the folder itself. .jpg) |
Step 2: Now using a series of boxes we make a simple calendar. .jpg) |
Step 3: Now I fill in the cells of the calendar, with some colors to make it look more "calender-ish". I also Group it, and use the Perspective tool to lean it on the folder. .jpg) |
| Step 4: Now I move the calendar inside the folder. I then copy the Checkbox from the Folder Options icon and shrink it a bit, and set it in front of our folder. .jpg) |
Step 5: Now we copy our clock one last time and place it in front of the folder, but behind the checkbox. .jpg) |
Completed Icon Image. .jpg) |
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This should be the last of the "clock" icons, at least the ones I can think of at the moment. Tomorrow we will finish off another folder. | ||
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Icon-A-Day, Icon # 59, Recent Documents Folder
Let us reuse our clock form yesterday.
Monday, February 28, 2005 by mormegil | Discussion: Icons
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Icon 59 (Recent Documents)
Yesterday while we were doing the URL History folder we made a nice clock face. Today we will use it, as well as some elements from past icons to make a new one with only one new graphic. |
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Step 1: First thing we do is copy the My Documents folder, and remove the file and pen. .jpg)
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Step 2: Now we take our clock, and its reflection and shadows from the URL History folder. .jpg)
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Step 3: Now we will make our one new element and create a new reflection of the folder. Using our Reflection Techniques. .jpg)
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Step 4: Now we move our clock in front of our folder. .jpg)
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Step 5: For our finishing touch we copy the pen from our RTF File icon, and place it on the floor in front of the folder. .jpg)
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Completed Icon Image..jpg)
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Well, I thinkwe will find more uses for our clock as we move though the latter half of our pack. Check back in tomorrow to see what's next. |
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Blog: DesktopX 3, Photo albums, furniture, and ObjectBar 2
The calm before the March storm..
Sunday, February 27, 2005 by Frogboy | Discussion: Community
Tomorrow is a big day for us. It's the release of Multiplicity which we've been working towards for over a year. It's one of the most useful programs I've ever used and we made it! Hopefully with a trial version of it available, people will be able to see why it's not the same as some open source program or whatever alternative one might imagine. We'll see. I'm using it right now to do this blog. I have one machine that doesn't have hardly anything on it (not even WindowBlinds) which I'm using to test things and then this one which is my "work" machine which is currently running the Dream theme update.
Spent a lot of time going over Galactic Civilizations II's alpha. Lots of good stuff but we have our work cut out for us. Luckily we have time but as a very lazy guy, I lament how much work is in store for me and the team to get through.
Hopefully tomorrow afternoon we'll be able to hand out betas of DesktopX 3 to key developers. I've been trying out different things today to see what can be done. I think one of the biggest features is the ability to have preferences dialogs in your widgets (and no XML is needed to do this).
Personally, I wish more of the samples used JavaScript. I positively hate VB Script. It's so..yucky. But I'm biased since I come from the C++ world of things.
I got a new internal build of ObjectBar 2 to play around with. The Mini Skin editor for it is ready and I'm going to try to reproduce the OS/2 Control Center exactly - pixel for pixel. DesktopX 3 widgets/gadgets can be seamlessly embedded into an ObjectBar bar. And ObjectBar 2 can export its bars as EXEs as well. So you could make your own Longhorn bar or Mac Finder bar or whatever and then have it be a program you can distribute with the user only needing the ObjectBar run-times to use it (i.e. you don't have to load up ObjectBar and fish for the .obtheme). The combination of being able to use DesktopX 3 widgets and being able to export its content as a program should hopefully be pretty compelling.
Imagine it - instead of people having to write complicated plugins or wait for the "bar developer" to come up with some feature (RSS feed, MP3 player, weather, etc.) like you do with other bar programs, you can just stick in there a widget. Widgets, in essence, take on the role plugins do in other programs except anyone can make a widget. And it's a lot easier to "Skin" a widget than it is to make a skin for some bar program.
The final touches on ObjectDock 1.11 and WindowBlinds 4.51 were finished up and we're just waiting to catch our breath to release those. We also have a fantastic new skin pack from Essorant that is about to be released. Same as the others, we're just waiting to catch our breath. March is going to be crazy.
My wife had a scrap booking party. Those primitives with their paper and scissors. 
Canon bundles (or used to anyway) this wonderful program called "Photo Record". Has both Mac and PC versions (I have both) and it's just fantastic for creating your own photo albums.
Of course it doesn't have the social aspect of scrap booking parties or the tactile satisfaction of actually making stuff. But I still find it pretty neat to use and the results are fantastic.
I have a bit over a month to find a new car. No luck so far. I currently have a Bonneville and they've discontinued that. So I'm off looking for something else. Want something with GPS, adaptive cruise control, and heads up display. Not terribly price sensitive on the issue but I'm pretty cheap.
Speaking of being cheap, Stardock is going to be moving to a whole new office this May. It'll have twice the square footage as what we currently have and we'll own it (we currently lease). But the interior decorating bill..oye. We're looking at around $150k to do what we want to do. So we're going to be cutting out some things. Quite a few things. Note that this doesn't include carpeting, wallpaper, acoustical ceiling tiles, natural lighting, and all the other fancy stuff we're doing to make our new office really slick. The $150k range is just for the desks and other furniture. We're going to get rid of some stuff that was mostly cosmetic and hopefully by the time we're done we'll be closer to $100k. We want to get everyone new furniture since what we have now is kind of falling apart except for the central development lab furniture which we're keeping and the WinCustomize team will upgrade to that.
Icon-A-Day, Icon # 58, URL History Folder
Back into the folders.
Sunday, February 27, 2005 by mormegil | Discussion: Icons
| Icon 58 (URL History Folder) Today we will start back up on the folders. In the process we will make a clock that we can use in several other places in our Icon Pack. Here we go. So with no further ado, I give you the URL History folder. |
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| Step 1:
We will start by copying the Web Folder, and removing the globe and cable. .jpg) |
Step 2: Now I use traditional drawing tools, a few circles and the Bezier Drawing tool to make a clock face. .jpg) |
Step 3: Now I group our clock together and lean it back with the perspective tool. .jpg) |
| Step 4: I use the Interactive Transparency tool to make the body of the clock appear like glass. .jpg) |
Step 5: With a series of gradients I fill out the hands. I also give them some standard drop shadows to give them some depth. .jpg) |
Step 5: Now using our Shadow techniques I give the clock some shadows. .jpg) |
| Step 6 Now I simply move the clock in front of the folder, and give it a new reflection. .jpg) |
Completed Icon Image. |
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Tomorrow we will move on further through the folder
Icons. |
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Icon-A-Day, Icon # 57, Zip File
Last "file" for awhile.
Saturday, February 26, 2005 by mormegil | Discussion: Icons
| Icon 57 (Zip File) Now we come to the last of the default supported file types, the Zip file. I like to do this one as a folder, because the way I use zip files is more like a folder than a file. And Windows, by default, shows them as "compressed folders". This is also an excuse to get us pointed back toward the Folder icons for awhile. Well lets see what we can do. | ||
| Step 1: First I am going to go way back to our Word Document, and copy it. I also delete the Word logo overlay. .jpg) |
Step 2: Next I copy the file in the folder and make 3, with different colored files. This is to imply that there is a lot stuffed in the folder. .jpg) |
Step 3: Now I put my new folders inside the folder by placing them behind the Folder front. .jpg) |
| Step 4: Now I need a zipper. I draw some simple shapes and duplicate them to make the zipper "track" .jpg) |
Step 5: Using the Perspective tool I slant the track back to fit on the folder front. Then I give it a "poor mans bevel" (see the Contour Tutorial for more on that). .jpg) |
Step 6 Now I draw the zipper handle with 3 rectangles and the mesh fill tool. .jpg) |
| Step 7: I spend a little time with the mesh tool giving the handle some detail. I also give the different parts of the zipper their own shadows, to give the handle a more natural look. .jpg) |
Step 8: Now using our Shadow techniques I give the zipper head a new shadow.
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Step 9: Last with the Reflection Techniques to do a nice reflection of the entire image. .jpg) |
Completed Icon Image..jpg) |
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Tomorrow we will dive back into the folder icons, so check back in then. | ||
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