Changing icons for many macros?

[terrypin]

The procedure I'm using for changing the icon of a single macro seems quite long-winded:

 

1. D-click the macro in ME Explorer

 

2. L-click the current icon near the top left to display the Select an Icon dialog. By default this always seems to revert to C:\Program Files\Macro Express Pro\macexp.exe, the standard ME icon, even if the previous setting was something else.

 

3. Click Browse

 

4. Navigate to appropriate file, e.g. C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\EXCEL.EXE if I want the familiar Excel icon.

 

5. Choose the preferred option if several are available and click OK

 

6. Click Save and Close

 

Is there a smart alternative way to do this for an entire category please? For 50 or so macro icons in a particular category the above will take forever!

 

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Terry, East Grinstead, UK

[kunkel321]

I'm not aware of any way to do bulk changes, but one thing that helps a little is to collect the icons you want (there's a free app called IcoFX that will do bulk extractions) and put them in a folder. Then move the folder to Prog Files/MacroExpress/. When you go to change an icon, the browser will always start at this location.

[terrypin]

I'm not aware of any way to do bulk changes, but one thing that helps a little is to collect the icons you want (there's a free app called IcoFX that will do bulk extractions) and put them in a folder. Then move the folder to Prog Files/MacroExpress/. When you go to change an icon, the browser will always start at this location.

 

Thanks Steve. At present I do indeed have all my icons in a fixed location, C:\Docs\My Pictures\Icons. (A trivial ME macro with the shortkey 'ic' gets me to it quickly for Explorer operations.) That's handy sometimes, for assigning icons from several other applications, like waypoints for my mapping programs. But for ME icons I mainly need executables, like Excel.exe in the example I mentioned, which are located in various places, typically within \Program Files or \Windows. So unless someone comes up with a clever hack then I think I'll have to write a macro to make these bulk changes.

 

A suggestion to the developers which would solve the issue: show the last used path and filename by default.

 

BTW, I'm curious whether other ME users actually bother customising icons?

 

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Terry, East Grinstead, UK

[stevecasper]

BTW, I'm curious whether other ME users actually bother customising icons?

 

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Terry, East Grinstead, UK

 

Hey Terry,

 

I've tried in the past, especially when building floating menus for people who aren't particularly computer-savvy, and I've found it a bit

cumbersome. I finally gave up when building them for myself. As far as building macros for others, I was always disappointed in the

icons that came with ME, and didn't even think to go exploring for icons in other programs. You've actually opened that door up to me,

which might make icon customization more rewarding.

[kevin]

A suggestion to the developers which would solve the issue: show the last used path and filename by default.

Submit feature requests on our Request a Feature web page. The only issues that are guaranteed to be considered are those in our tracking system.

[terrypin]

Submit feature requests on our Request a Feature web page. The only issues that are guaranteed to be considered are those in our tracking system.

 

OK, duly done.

 

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Terry, East Grinstead, UK

[kevin]

Terry,

 

Thank you for entering this into our Request a Feature web page. This issue has been assigned the tracking number [iSS6329].

[kunkel321]

Folks who want to tinker with custom icons can also checkout my previous 'Geek tip' R2D2 post.

The afore mentioned IcoFX (free) will allow you to save images as .ico files and is more powerful than FormatFactory (also free), but FF is easier to use. Unfortunately anyone who makes their own icons will (as far as I know) need to seek a third party application that can SaveAs .ico format. No vanilla Windows utility will let you do this. Of course MacExp has a pretty big library of ready-to-use icons. There are also some third party sets in the download package that you can use (WhistlerXP and WinXP are my faves -sk

[kevin]

I was always disappointed in the

icons that came with ME, and didn't even think to go exploring for icons in other programs.

The icons included with Macro Express 3 are pretty dated. We purchased the rights to distribute new icons with Macro Express Pro. They are installed in the icons folder under the folder where the Macro Express Pro program files are installed. Due to the license agreements, the icons are stored in .dll files.

[terrypin]

Folks who want to tinker with custom icons can also checkout my previous 'Geek tip' R2D2 post.

The afore mentioned IcoFX (free) will allow you to save images as .ico files and is more powerful than FormatFactory (also free), but FF is easier to use.

 

I've recently installed a couple of Icon utilities.

Icons from File from http://www.vlsoftware.net/exico/ lets you drag an EXE or DLL onto it and then save all the icons as .ICO files (or as several other types) in one quick operation, choosing your destination folder.

 

IconViewer from http://www.botproductions.com/iconview/iconview.html adds an Icon tab to a file's Properties, as I've shown here:

 

 

Unfortunately anyone who makes their own icons will (as far as I know) need to seek a third party application that can SaveAs .ico format. No vanilla Windows utility will let you do this. Of course MacExp has a pretty big library of ready-to-use icons. There are also some third party sets in the download package that you can use (WhistlerXP and WinXP are my faves -sk

 

As mentioned, in my case I'm usually just assigning the icon associated with that application, so I need to extract it from say Excel.exe.

 

But if I wanted to make an icon from any of my own images then I could use IrfanView, resize to 32x32, and save as .ICO.

 

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Terry, East Grinstead, UK

[aoz]

I PREFER icons, but they are a pain.

the problem is designing them.

I have a medical practice, and I create icons for our scanning, that relate to how to store the final docmnent (example, EKG would store the document as DATE_EKG_Patient_Name_.pdf

CLN for Colonoscopiy, etc.

about 3 letters per icon.

 

BUT, again, to design them is a pain

 

I now am experimenting with a program, MountFocus Keyboard, which allows custom keyboards, some macro function, BUT it ALSO allows you to EDIT what is shown on the key/buttons, so that I can

 

1. create a blank template, 6 rows across, 6 columns down,

2. create a text documnent that allows me to thype in what I want for the end-value, and for the button display

3. staff then uses this, just like the macroexpress buttons.

 

I would LOVE for macroexpress to have a generic icon, in which the TEXT of the icon button could be overwrittten from a table/text. Tis could then be an option for how the staff uses th button

 

ANOTHER option is that instead of having the macro table show up (for pop-up buton sets) woul be to have a NICKNAME table that comes up, rather than the "macro-Name-scope".

I name my macro's with lengthy name, to allow a correct sort, by group, BUT I'd rather have the list come up, for users to select, by a NICKNAME, about 3 or 4 characters

 

example

CLN (nickname) is macro TFT-2400-Colonoscopy_scan

EKG (nickname) is macro TFT-2400-EKG-scan

 

this keeps all my testing in a group (the TFT-2400), AND I have a full name to identify, for MYSELF, that the test is a colonoscopy, and this is what will bet printed in the SCANNED DOCUMENT name, BUT the staff could just seect CLN, or EKG

 

I've posted this before, I think, in requested features, in some frm or another

 

Nick