ICOLIB01 (Icon Library version 1)
                    =================================
               Steve Balogh  (steve@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au)

A collection of over 1800 icons in 50 categories. This collection includes
most, if not all, of the icons found in other collections on cica. It also
includes icons from other sources, such as shareware and commercial products.
Perhaps this collection might supercede these other collections? :-)

Share and Enjoy,
Steve


Copying and Credits
-------------------

- Feel free to copy these Icon Libraries. I do not require any royalties for
  this product. Most of the value in this collection are the icons themselves.
  I did not design any of the icons so no royalties required by me.

- If you create new libraries using my method, I would appreciate if you would
  send me a copy, so I can add it to my master distibution copy. Obviously, if
  you have a collection of icons which you don't wish to distibute you are free
  to keep them to yourself.

- The programs for storing these icons are based on a listing in Petzold's book
  "Programming Windows". I have made slight modifications to the .RC file 
  allowing several different library sizes to be created. If anyone wants a copy
  of the programs, I will send you a copy via INTERNET.

- Are any of the icons in this collection copyrighted? Is it possible to
  place a copyright on an icon? I know that some of the icons, in particular,
  the ones in the PRODUCTS collections, relate to specific commercial products.
  Many of these would be trademarks, but does that prevent me from distributing
  them in this manner. If the owners of any of the distributed icons object, I
  will remove them from the collection.

What is the point of this Icon Library
--------------------------------------

- Grouping icons into logical catagories so that a particular type of icon is
  easier to find.

- The Icon Libraries are very easy to display. Just run the approriate .EXE
  file and a small window will display all the contained icons. These windows
  can be resized, moved, or minimized, just like any other window. You can
  display many Icon Library windows simultaneously.

  If you have set up the Icon Libraries in a program group, you only need to
  click on the icon to display the full set. The first icon in each library
  is used as the default to be displayed in the program group. This can be
  changed by using the "Properties..." menu option.

- By collecting many icons together into a single library, quite a lot of disk
  space can be saved. Each individual icon only uses 766 bytes, but if your
  disk cluster size is 4096 bytes, you waste 3330 bytes for each icon. If you
  are storing the 1800 icons in this collection as individual files, you would
  be wasting nearly 6 Mbytes of disk space. There can be some wastage if an
  icon set is not full, but I ffel that this more than offset by the overall
  savings.

- You only need to keep the categories you are interested in. There is no need
  to store hundreds of games related icons if you are only interested in office
  related ones.

- The access speed is also vastly improved by using icon libraries because there
  are less entries in the disk directory, and the directory does not have to be
  accessed for each individual icon.

- These libraries can be easily expanded by either adding new categories, or by
  adding new (or improved) icons in existing categories.

- Using this ICON Library has provided me with the opportunity to eliminate
  hundreds of duplicate icons which I had collected from various sources. Many
  of the icons in several collections available on cica are duplicates of each
  other. Sometimes the icon names are different, but the pictures are the same.
  This actually makes it harder to find duplicates. Duplicates are very wasteful
  of disk space.

- This product is far from perfect. There are several things which need to be
  done to make it more useful:

  - Meaningful category names need to be included for libraries which are
    displayed as an icon in a program group. Currently, the name defaults to
    "Icon". This can be changed by the user with the "Properties..." menu
    option, but I feel that the program should default to the XXXXX part of
    the XXXXX.EXE program name. I will do this in a future version, but it
    required manually building each library again, once the programs have been
    re-written.

  - Different library sizes can be added as required. Each size requires a
    seperate empty library .EXE file, however, this does not present a problem.
    After collecting all the icons together, I noticed that some categories
    may contain a couple of hundred icons. A library size of 100 may be useful
    for these large collections.

  - Ideally, the library sizes should be variable so that there is always room
    to add an extra member, but without the waste of empty slots. Does anyone
    volunteer to write such a program? This program would eliminate the need
    to have several different sizes of empty library files.

  - More catagories can be added to the Icon Library.

  - More icons to each catagory.

  - I have an interest in animated icons. An inimation sequence could be stored
    in its own library category.

  - This method (or a similar one) may become a "standard" way of storing
    large collections of icons.

Installing this Icon Library
----------------------------

- Using WinSetup

  - Unzip the Icon Library file into a seperate subdirectory.
  - Click on the Windows Setup program.
  - Select the "Setup Applications..." menu option.
  - Select the disk drive that the icons have been stored on.
  - Select all the "Icon" products from the left window to the right window.
  - Click OK.
  - All the icon library files will be set up into the Windows Applications
    program group.
  - Rename the Windows Applications group to whatever you want to call it.
    eg. Icon Library
  - OPTIONAL: If you are not satisfied with each category being called "Icon",
    you can change these names using the Program Manager "Properties..." menu
    option.
  - You are limited by Windows to a maximum of 50 categroies per windows
    program group. If you have more than 50 categories, you will have to split
    them into 2 or more program groups.

- If you do not wish to set these libraries up permanently, you can run an
  Icon Library using the Program Manager "Run..." menu option.


How to use this Icon Library
----------------------------

On its own, this product can only display the icons contained within each
category. In order to use the individual icons, you will need other tools to
extract, update, or install an icon. Suitable tools are available as shareware
products from other authors. These can be found in the icon subdirectory on the
cica windows archive.

- Updating tools allow the user to add, delete, or modify entries in the Icon
  Library categories. The following shareware products can be used to achieve
  this purpose.
  - Iconmaster runs under Windows
  - geticon, puticon run under DOS and do not require Windows.

- Installation tools allow the user to allocate an icon to another specified
  Windows program. The icon that exists in the original version of the program
  can be replaced with a new icon. This feature eliminates the need to associate
  a .ICO file with the .EXE file. Iconmaster and {geticon, puticon} provide this
  facility.

- Displaying the Icon Libraries can be done by the self-contained program with
  each category. Just double click on the required icon and the whole category
  will be displayed in a seperate window. This window can be sized, moved, and
  monimized just like any other such window.

  Viewicon, which comes with {geticon, puticon} can be used to display the icons
  in each category if windows is not available. Viewicon can be run directly
  from DOS.


Contents of this Icon Library
-----------------------------

Currently 50 groups and approx 1800 icons (more to come?)

ANIMALS.EXE ....... Animals, Fish, Animal Cartoon Characters
ARROWS.EXE ........ Various styles of arrows
BOOKS.EXE ......... Books, Notepads, Bundles of Paper
BUTTONS.EXE ....... Icons on "grey" buttons (Button icons also found elsewhere)
CARDFILE.EXE ...... Card index files and cards to go in them
CARDS.EXE ......... Playing cards and suit symbols (not a set of 52 cards)
CLOCKCAL.EXE ...... Clocks, Watches, and Calendars
COMMS.EXE ......... Communications, Modems, Port Connectors (not phone handsets)
CURSICON.EXE ...... Simple 2 color icons which can be used as cursors
DICE.EXE .......... A set of six dice faces, and a few assorted dice icons
DISKS1.EXE ........ Mainly floppy disks
DISKS2.EXE ........ Mainly hard disks, and virus tool icons
DOS.EXE ........... C: prompts, and "DOS" icons
EYES.EXE .......... A set of eyes from "Ralph", and a few assorted "eye"cons
FILES.EXE ......... Filing Cabinets, Drawers, Folders
FLAGS.EXE ......... Small collection of national flags
GAMES.EXE ......... Icons belonging to various windows games
GRAPHS.EXE ........ Graphs and Charts
HANDS.EXE ......... Human hands pointing & holding (hands also found elsewhere)
HOURGLAS.EXE ...... Sequence of hourglasses from full to empty
ICON10.EXE ........ Blank icon file with 10 slots (create your own catagory)
ICON20.EXE ........ Blank icon file with 20 slots
ICON50.EXE ........ Blank icon file with 50 slots
KEYBOARD.EXE ...... Computer keyboards and keys
LOCKS.EXE ......... Padlocks and keys
MAIL.EXE .......... Mailboxes, Letters, Envelopes
MISC.EXE .......... I could not think of where else to put these
MOUSE.EXE ......... Computer Mice, Scanners, Joysticks
OBJECTS1.EXE ...... Everydays objects #1
OBJECTS2.EXE ...... Everydays objects #2
OFFICE.EXE ........ Things to do with the office (also FILES, PHONES, BOOKS,etc)
PEOPLE.EXE ........ Humans and Human Cartoon Characters
PHONES.EXE ........ Telephones and Telephone Poles
PLANES.EXE ........ Airplanes, Helicopters, Rockets, and Balloons
PLANTS.EXE ........ Flowers and Trees
PRINTING.EXE ...... Printers, Labels, Paper, Font Icons
PRODUCT1.EXE ...... Commercial Icons #1
PRODUCT2.EXE ...... Commercial Icons #2
PRODUCT3.EXE ...... Commercial Icons #3
PRODUCT4.EXE ...... Commercial Icons #4
SCREENS1.EXE ...... Pictures of computer screens
SCREENS2.EXE ...... Stylised computer screens
SOFTWARE.EXE ...... Generic software icons (includes some shareware icons)
SOUNDS.EXE ........ Music, Loudspeakers, Ears, Instruments
STARS.EXE ......... Astronomy, Telescope, Binocular
SYMBOLS1.EXE ...... Signs and Symbols #1
SYSMOLS2.EXE ...... Signs and Symbols #2
TRAFFIC.EXE ....... Traffic Signs, Traffic Lights
WORLD.EXE ......... Rotating globe sequence, and a few extra earth globes
WRITING.EXE ....... Pens, Pencils, and related materials

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