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[Kubajzz]

IconCreator for ASL - current version 1.2
You have to roll down or click this link to get the latest version!!!
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I'd like to introduce the first version of IconCreator for ASL, a little program that should help you to create icons for parametric shape plugins.

I want it to be a good alternative to PlugIcon by Tyson Collins. While his program loads a jpg, png or bmp file and generates the code, IconCreator allows you to draw the icon point by point. It's not really a program, in fact it's only a HTML table with a piece of javascript code, but it does exactly what it should do
I've tried it on IE7, Firefox 2 and Google Chrome and it worked; I appreciate any feedback about other browsers.

The current version 0.2 allows you to draw an icon and get the code. There was version 0.1 before, but it didn't worth releasing...

I plan to add much more features like input (so you can edit already existing icons), better drawing tool, UI improvement etc. If you download the current version, be sure to check this topic time to time as there will be updates. (there is not even a ReadMe file, that's one more thing I have to do...)

Right now I don't find IconCreator to be very useful because it's too simple (well, it took about 3 hours to make it all), neither will it be very useful when it's finished because there will never be many people who need to create icons for ASL plugins... But I'll keep improving it anyway, just for fun

Download the file, unwrap it and run IconCreator.htm to launch IconCreator. Maximum icon size is 26x26 - that's the size of icons in Anim8or (in pixels). Draw the icon and press "GO!" to get the code. To draw, simply click and/or drag your mouse; white will be changed to black and vice versa.

I appreciate any feedback, don't hesitate to post feature requests, questions and suggestions.

[neirao]

very cool!!

congratulations!

Neirão-Brazil

[Kubajzz]

very cool!!

congratulations!

Neirão-Brazil

Thanks Neirao, I'm pleased you like it

2 downloads in 5 hors... To be honest, that's better than I expected
Stay tuned, updates are on the way...

[RnDr FOX]

kubajzz this program has great potential!!!!

Have you thought about making the program kind of like paint.

Also color would be nice.

Can you alter the buttons that are already in anim8or?

[Kubajzz]

Thanks RNDr Fox!

I don't plan to add more colors, because Anim8or icons are only black or white. But I'll try to improve the painting tool.

It's only possible to create and change buttons for plugins, not all buttons...

[Kubajzz]

Here is a minor update. There is new preview function, ReadMe file and improved interface.

If you enable preview, you'll see how the button will look in the end (it was pain to make this function work on all browsers...). It's refreshing automatically as you draw, but you can disable this function in case your browser becomes too slow. As far as I know it works alright on Firefox and Chrome, but IExplorer almost stopped responding and I had to disable auto-refresh.

I also did some interface changes, but I'm first trying to focus on the functionality. I plan to replace the default buttons and checkboxes with better ones and change more things, but that'll probably be the last thing I'll do. Next thing on my list is input function which will probably take a lot of time to implement...

[sagedavis]

Excellent tool!!!
I do use plugicon when I want to do use an image (which is most of the time) but, for those other times, I will be using your plugin.

PS... For cross browser compatability, you might try mootools, or prototype (I use both for development at work, and love them).

Sage


edit:: Tested in IE6, IE7, FireFox2, FireFox3... works fine in all except that in IE6, I the preview is a bit messed up. Other than that, it still gives the right code for ASL buttons.
Sage

[Kubajzz]

After 2 more days of work I call this little program finished

I changed the whole interface (no ugly windows-style controls any more!), added Import function and 2 new options for the drawing tool.

Be sure to read the ReadMe file if import doesn't work. Post any questions and error reports here. I recommend not using IE6 - it doesn't fully support PNG so the interface will be really ugly and, as Sagedavis reported, preview function doesn't work correctly.


Sagedavis: thanks for the feedback. I'm using visual studio 2008, which doesn't really have good javascript support... My code is pretty messy as I've been adding new features and changing the old ones, but luckily this whole thing is quite simple... I don't have IE6 and I have no way to try it out. Could you send me a screenshot of the preview problem? I'll probably not be able to fix it, but I can try...

I'm thinking of redoing this whole thing in Silverlight using C#, that would make it cross-browser and cross-platform compatible... But if I ever do, it won't be in the next several months...

[sagedavis]

kubajzz,
I'm a programmer and our customer base uses all sorts of different browsers, so, I do a lot of testing in other browsers. If you are using windows xp, you can have multiple standalone versions of IE for testing. http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE
We use that at work.
Sage

[Kubajzz]

Cool! Thanks, I'll try it....

[Kubajzz]

Ok, I've solved the problem. Thank you very much SageDavis for your help!

IE6 doesn't allow empty "div" tags to be smaller than the line height by default. The preview is formed of 1px X 1px black empty divs and that was the problem, because there were 1px X 13px divs instead. I found a simple workaround on the internet, added 1 line of code and it works OK now.

Although everything works OK now, I still recommend not using Internet Explorer 6. It doesn't support PNG and the interface of this application is based on PNG gradients - it looks really, really ugly in IE6...

New version of IconCreator is attached. There are several more minor problems fixed apart of the IE6 bug and I recommend you to download the new version even if you're not using IE6.

[sagedavis]

Kubajzz,
very cool. I don't know if anim8or works still with older versions of windows (2000 or whatever), but, if it does, for those who might be on anything pre xp, IE 7 is not available to them. So, if you happen to be in that group of people, I highly recommend getting FireFox.
Kubajzz, you may be interested in a project I started a few years ago at www.an8search.com it's a php/mysql site to link to anim8or related programs and tutorials. It's pretty bear bones, but, it's cool.
sage

[Kubajzz]

Oh, that's a nice project! Pity there are not many people who know about it...

I've added IconCreator to the database...

[Thanos]

Cool program! Really useful.
If there is such function, you can have a "Copy to clipboard" button in the export tab. In Visual Basic it is possible, I don't actually know about js...

[Kubajzz]

That's a great idea Thanos! I took a while to find a solution, but it's done.

It's not really possible to copy text to clipboard in javascript, but there is always a way around

I've found a piece of code that does the job. It uses a little Flash application to copy the text to clipboard, so this function will not work unless you have Flash installed. Well, everybody has Flash so it shouldn't be a problem. Thanks to The JavaScript Source for this code!

The new function has been tested on IE6, IE7, Firefox 2 and Google Chrome. Enjoy!