Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!mailrus!uwmcsd1!nic.MR.NET!shamash!nis!ems!srcsip!shankar
From: shankar@src.honeywell.COM (Subash Shankar)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: GS Icons
Message-ID: <10490@srcsip.UUCP>
Date: 19 Oct 88 18:43:00 GMT
Reply-To: shankar@haarlem.UUCP (Subash Shankar)
Organization: Honeywell Systems & Research Center, Camden, MN
Lines: 20

Does anybody know how icons are drawn by the GS Finder?  I know
that files in the ICONS directory are read to retrieve bitmaps
for the approrpiate icons, but I was wondering what kind of
pixel masking is used.  

Since I'm not particularly clear above, I'll give an example.
If I edit the diamond application icon so that it is colored
red inside the diamond, I get a different looking icon then
what I get by using the Finder to color the icon Red - namely
the outline is grey rather then black.  What algorithm does
the Finder use to display and color icons, and is there a way
to emulate the Finder color commands by editing icons.

In case you're wondering, I was doing this to color code by file
types automatically.

Oh yeah, does anybody know of any good PD or inexpensive shareware
icon editors?  I have a copy of something called TIE, but it
crashes much too often - perhaps I have a bad copy.  Better yet,
if somebody knows of a good icon editor, can you post it to
comp.binaries.apple2?  Thanks.