Axialis IconWorkshop 6.3: Create, Edit and Convert Icons for Windows, MacOS and Toolbars

This version now supports creation and edition of icons in Image Strips. These images are wide bitmaps containing several icons placed side-by-site and are used in software development to populate Toolbars, ImageViews and TreeViews. Editing image strips is usually uncomfortable because standard image editing programs are not designed to work with very wide bitmaps.

This new version provides a professional and easy-to-use solution. When opening the strip image, each icon is placed in a list and can be edited individually. All image formats and color depths are supported, as well as alpha channel and color-coded transparency. Using this feature developers don’t have to struggle with wide bitmaps anymore. Additionally, several objects packs permits creating icons without drawing skills, simply by using drag & drops to assemble ready-to-use objects. The latest one “Lite Toolbars” has been designed to create crisp and sharp icons for your Toolbar Image Strips.

Read more about image strips

How to create icons for toolbars

Object pack “Lite Toolbars”

Webmasters will also enjoy version 6.30. A new feature permits creating illustration images by merging symbols with fixed background images of your own. The whole procedure is done in one single batch operation. The resulting illustration images all have the same style and can be easily resized and exported as GIF. The object pack “Web Illustrations” contain hundreds of symbols and base images to help you in this task.

Object Pack “Web Illustrations”

Create Illustration Icons for Websites

You can download the trial version from following link:

Download 30 Days Trial Version

Purchase Full Version

Homepage

What Next?

12 Replies:

Ingnition said:

Hey VG,

That is really cool!!
balaji said:

hi vg,

your hack tutes are just cool. and very easy to follow. i’m always enjoying them. keep ‘em coming!

these days i’m hell bent on trying to replace shell32.dll old xp icons with vista ones that you’d made. the problem is all the icon files are png. so we need to convert them to icos. further problem in xp is shel32.dll is packaged with multires/multisize icons. and that too in a very specific order.

i’ve a trial pack of axialis but it isn’t very good. i guess the full version won’t be good either. it arranges icons in an ascending way starting with 16_16clr, 16_256, 16_65536…then ending upto 48_true (or rgb_alpha if i wanted it that way). now shell32.dll has a unique style of packaging (microsoft has done it in a very clever way probably using masm32 or c ). and every icon has a unique ordinal number too. like 461, 462, 463 … break that order and you get trash. in my system, i tried to replace the single old xp recycle bin icons with those of vista 256clrs. what i got was a result with all the ordinals altered to start from 1, 2, 3…

is there any way in axialis or is there any software that can preserve the order and the ordinal numbers of every icon in the icon group? i even tried the demo of microangelo but that’s even worse!

i’d appreciate a helping e-hand from you!

thanx
VG said:

^^ Yep. It happens cause the icon we use to replace doesnt have all required formats which the original icon has.

Did you try to replace the icon using “Action -> Replace icon” in Resource Hacker?
balaji said:

hi vg,

firstly, i’ve managed to resize the old win9x style file>open dialog that reshacker uses. it was in comdlg32.dll dialog>1547. just resize it and you have what you need. now my system32 folder shows up in reshack faster. job done!

yes, i always did replace my icon group with action>replace icon in reshacker. and not only that, there are some icon groups like 5 (open folder), 16 (computer), 18 (network places) etc. the icon format of which axialis does follow strictly, because they have icons in the format of 48 then 32 then 24 (if required) and then 16 - in strict ascending order of colors.

but many other icon groups have disorderly arrangement. eg these:

15 (web navigate)
48 x 48 (16.8mil colors) - Ordinal name: 109
48 x 48 (256 colors) - Ordinal name: 110
32 x 32 (16.8mil colors) - Ordinal name: 111
32 x 32 (256 colors) - Ordinal name: 112
16 x 16 (16.8mil colors) - Ordinal name: 113
16 x 16 (256 colors) - Ordinal name: 114

26 (sleep computer)
32 x 32 (16 colors) - Ordinal name: 221
16 x 16 (16 colors) - Ordinal name: 222
32 x 32 (256 colors) - Ordinal name: 223
48 x 48 (256 colors) - Ordinal name: 224
48 x 48 (16 colors) - Ordinal name: 225
16 x 16 (256 colors) - Ordinal name: 226

and so on… (breaking the 48,32,[24,]16 order)

also, there’s one strange thing in shell32.dll. microsoft started the icon ordinal numbering from 6 from icon group 1 (see for yourself). so when i added or replaced a new icon group, the ordinal numbering for my icons started from 1, 2, … 5 (because 1-5 were unused) and then the last unused one, probably 1490 or something. so that made a mess of modding shell32. what i did to circumvent this was to replace the icon group 1 (originally, icons 6-11) with my own icons (1-11), in effect, adding icons 1-5 myself (the order of icons 1-5 don’t matter since xp never uses them ). this icon #1 is the ‘default file’ icon. i took the vista equivalent and created 11 icons out of it. this preserved ordinal numbering for me.

although the only thing i’ve to this day not yet been able to do is to create icon groups with customized icon order. axialis doesn’t meet the requirement. neither does realworld icon editor which, sadly, is also priceware. to add further to my dismay, the best free icon editors - icofx and software club’s free icon editor also don’t stand up to the requirement. so i guess i’ve to wait for some other tool that can accomplish what i want.

much help would be appreciated on this front.

thanx.
balaji said:

can visual studio (c ) create custom ordered icon? if yes, then one of my friends who’s doing mca has a student version of visual studio in his university. i can get my job done at his end.
VG said:

^^ Congratulations mate. I’m glad that you have finally managed to resize Resource Hacker browse dialog box. Nice.
Re., to the icon issue, sorry I don’t have mush idea atm.
balaji said:

thanx vg.

it was there always. i just didn’t know where to look but finally stumbled upon it thanx to your innovative revelations

yes, the icon problem is giving me uneasiness. i guess i won’t relax until i’ve replaced all those xp style icons with vista glassy (and classy) ones.

in my modded shell32.dll, i tried to include the windows clock like this (got from timedate.cpl)

CONTROL “”, 712, “ClockWndMain”, 0×50000000, 144, 13, 90, 90

the side effects:
1. start menu links don’t open auto; you’ve to click on them.
2. the run command either clicking start>run or pressing winkey r doesn’t work; neither does the task manager’s file>new task (run…).

i guess i tomfooled myself on something here. was i right in including the clock into the run dialog this way?
VG said:

^^ Since you are using an external resource which is not included in Shell32.dll, you are facing these problems. It’ll not work.
balaji said:

i don’t think it’s a resource. the core system components are coded into shell32.dll including the analog clock. i checked it in process explorer by having the customize date and time dialog running. see for yourself. but i may be wrong. need enlightenment on this one.
VG said:

Mate. Since I have left XP since a long time, I can’t try these things. I’m really sorry about it. If I get my hands on XP, then I’ll try this thing.
balaji said:

that’s alright. anyway, i’ve dropped the idea too. as long as the system’s working fine, it’s fine with me too seeing i’ve already voided the end-user license. but just for your info, i tried including the disorderly shell32 icons with the one icofx creates (in the order of increasing colors by decreasing sizes). to my surprise, it worked fine. explorer shows the associated - filmstrip folder, view sysinfo &c. correctly. also the system is working fine and showed no signs of crashing. so i guess i stumbled upon that one too that worked good for me.
balaji said:

vg, all thanx to your good tutes and methods.