DCage
10.06.2001, 09:38
A continuation of an earlier thread --
So -- what are the programs you use that are good enough to recommend to others? Let us know. Preferably the little-known stuff, but if a major one does it for you, that's fine. And if you want to critique someone else's offering, have at it, a little tussling makes the discussion interesting. But spare us the I'm a Two-Fisted Script Poobah Because I Use Tape and Chickenwire posturing.
I'll start: VueIcons.
This little (180K) program turns the icons for .gif, .jpg, .tif, .bmp, .tga, and .pcx files in Windows Explorer into scaled-down versions of the pics themselves. Have a look:
http://home.attmil.ne.jp/a/nikzhowz/vueicons.gif
It makes things a lot easier when you're scratching around your drive looking for an image but can't remember the name. If that border piece you made weeks ago is lost in a sea of bleft.jpg, bdr1.gif, top_border.gif, and EX_BORD_BLUR_0.gif files, you can do an eyeball search and snag it pretty quick. When I'm coding a page I don't even reserve much headspace for the image names anymore, I just keep an Explorer window open and scan for what I need.
It's a friendly install, only deposits these files:
vueicons.dll
vueicons.ico
vueicons.ini
vueicons.txt
into the Windows directory and adds a few registry keys. It also uninstalls cleanly, I've done it a number of times and never had trouble with remnants.
One thing you'll need to consider if you're going to use it is whether you have enough system resources to make it practical. If it's used heavily, all those little pictures can overrun your icon cache and slow WinExplorer down as images are purged and new ones added. If you exceed the cache often enough, it can trigger the Windows bug where system icons are temporarily replaced with random images. There's a way to expand the cache, a web search will get you the info on how it's done, but if your box is underpowered and light on memory it may not help much. However, I used to run VueIcons concurrently with Photoshop, a text editor, and a couple of browser instances on my old PII 266mhz 64meg system and usually got away with it.
One other thing. This program used to be standalone freeware. Now it's distributed as a component of the company's commercial PhotoVue program. It's still listed as freeware at most download sites, but what's offered is usually a trialware version of PhotoVue. From what I gather, when the trial expires you can decouple VueIcons and continue using it, but I've heard complaints that this isn't so. I dunno. But the original standalone is still available, you'll just have to dig around. This page on the maker's site:
http://www.imagedisk.com/vueicons.htm
may well have the one I've been dragging around forever, the name's identical, but I can't be sure. The way you'll know is if the program you download is around 180K. Anything much larger is the trialware.
So -- what are the programs you use that are good enough to recommend to others? Let us know. Preferably the little-known stuff, but if a major one does it for you, that's fine. And if you want to critique someone else's offering, have at it, a little tussling makes the discussion interesting. But spare us the I'm a Two-Fisted Script Poobah Because I Use Tape and Chickenwire posturing.
I'll start: VueIcons.
This little (180K) program turns the icons for .gif, .jpg, .tif, .bmp, .tga, and .pcx files in Windows Explorer into scaled-down versions of the pics themselves. Have a look:
http://home.attmil.ne.jp/a/nikzhowz/vueicons.gif
It makes things a lot easier when you're scratching around your drive looking for an image but can't remember the name. If that border piece you made weeks ago is lost in a sea of bleft.jpg, bdr1.gif, top_border.gif, and EX_BORD_BLUR_0.gif files, you can do an eyeball search and snag it pretty quick. When I'm coding a page I don't even reserve much headspace for the image names anymore, I just keep an Explorer window open and scan for what I need.
It's a friendly install, only deposits these files:
vueicons.dll
vueicons.ico
vueicons.ini
vueicons.txt
into the Windows directory and adds a few registry keys. It also uninstalls cleanly, I've done it a number of times and never had trouble with remnants.
One thing you'll need to consider if you're going to use it is whether you have enough system resources to make it practical. If it's used heavily, all those little pictures can overrun your icon cache and slow WinExplorer down as images are purged and new ones added. If you exceed the cache often enough, it can trigger the Windows bug where system icons are temporarily replaced with random images. There's a way to expand the cache, a web search will get you the info on how it's done, but if your box is underpowered and light on memory it may not help much. However, I used to run VueIcons concurrently with Photoshop, a text editor, and a couple of browser instances on my old PII 266mhz 64meg system and usually got away with it.
One other thing. This program used to be standalone freeware. Now it's distributed as a component of the company's commercial PhotoVue program. It's still listed as freeware at most download sites, but what's offered is usually a trialware version of PhotoVue. From what I gather, when the trial expires you can decouple VueIcons and continue using it, but I've heard complaints that this isn't so. I dunno. But the original standalone is still available, you'll just have to dig around. This page on the maker's site:
http://www.imagedisk.com/vueicons.htm
may well have the one I've been dragging around forever, the name's identical, but I can't be sure. The way you'll know is if the program you download is around 180K. Anything much larger is the trialware.