New (registered) WSX user (11.1) problem using anim icons

aprilia1k · **Posted:** Tue Dec 06, 2011 3:54 am

Greetings - I started using WinStep Xtreme in September, and soon after the trial I sported for the full version.

I'm totally new to the configurable, skinnable i/f, but with the very well laid-out navigation in preferences/configuration ui, I figured out pretty much everything I wanted to make happen. Really like WS, very cool stuff. So, my PNG issue: I just downloaded the animated icons zips and figured I see how cool that was (and if it ended up being distracting or whatever), and was going to dig through menus to do replace of icons, but then I read the blurb to simply "drop the animated icon PNG strip directly into a dock item ", thinking "cool, ez". So, I unzipped and located the PNG for Firefox. Dragged the png to the Firefox launcher on the workshelf and the mouse pointer changed to the word "link" with the little arrow for a sym-link. I thought "oh oh, I have a feeling this isn't going correctly...". I finished dropping the png on to the FF dock entry, and .. the PNG was opened IN FIREFOX (This is what I feared it might be about to do). From what I recall, this dock entry was automatically created for me when I installed and first ran WinStep, so it's not that I defined the dock entry incorrectly (I didn't define it at all). So -- I hesitate to admit it, but I've no idea what I am doing wrong. Any help or suggestions are greatly appreciated IA ;-)

I really like using WS by the way. Really slick bit of code (no small bit I'm sure). When I first was using it, I had noticed one or two issues/bugs but figured I'd wait until I'd been using WS for a few months before starting to log bugs. Fortunately, one of the biggest was fixed with 11.1 it seems (WorkShelf was going cpu-bound after waking from sleep on my Gateway P7805u-FX. I had done some diag, mini-dumps, etc.. to file a bug-report (after checking for a dup) then, voila, installed 11.10 and problem went away.

So - what am I missing with drag-n-drop of png on to dock entry? I tried dropping the Thunderbird png on thunderbird dock entry and sure enough it launched TB and constructed an email with the png as an attachment. I am clearly misinterpreting the insrtuctions.

Cheers,

Stephen F

EDIT: I _did_ go in to dock entry properties and just replace the icon via the menus -- just trying to understand why it's choosing to do program invocation with drop as program arg (that's not entirely uncool btw, it's just .. you know, different than expected behavior. I also tried defining a dock entry using a "Hotspot" instead of the Program entries that were created at install, but then it disallows dropping _anything_ on the entry at all)

winstep · **Joined:** Thu Feb 26, 2004 8:30 pm **Posts:** 12288

I just tried dropping an animated icon into a shortcut to Firefox on the dock and it worked as it should.

There are a few things you should be aware of, however: animated icons only work on WorkShelf (i.e.; shortcuts on docks and in the Shelf), not in NextSTART menus. Furthermore, you cannot customize the icons for items in non-regular Shelf tabs (for instance, the Desktop or Control Panel tabs).

Also, are you sure the icon you are trying to customize doesn't belong to a 'running' application icon (i.e.; that particular Firefox icon only appears on the dock if FireFox is running)?

Not sure if that is the problem there?

What happens if you drop a normal ICO, PNG or TIF file into the shortcut instead of dropping an animated icon?

aprilia1k · **Posted:** Tue Dec 13, 2011 12:37 am

winstep wrote:

I just tried dropping an animated icon into a shortcut to Firefox on the dock and it worked as it should.

There are a few things you should be aware of, however: animated icons only work on WorkShelf (i.e.; shortcuts on docks and in the Shelf), not in NextSTART menus. Furthermore, you cannot customize the icons for items in non-regular Shelf tabs (for instance, the Desktop or Control Panel tabs).

Thanks for the reply, Jorge. I am using it exactly as you say, for the Firefox shortcut on the WorkShelf dock.

Specifically, I am using it on the default (top of screen) dock, which was created as part of install or first-time run of WorkShelf. I am using the animated icon for Firefox ("Firefox big fire 1.png") from the collection offered on the Winstep themes page, here:

http://www.winstep.net/animatediconpak.zip

I successfully replaced the icon for Firefox and Thunderbird with those from that collection, but since Drag-n-Drop still does as my original post describes (launches app with icon's png file as argument), I did it via
"Dock Entry Properties"-->"Change Icon", and entered the path "C:\Users\Public\Documents\Winstep\Icons\animatediconpak\Firefox big fire 1.png"
Which installed the animated icon perfectly and it works great.

It is just the drag-n-drop action which differs from yours and as documented. I urge you to consider that this is not user error or newbie syndrome (I am a s/w dev too) It is clearly not a bug in WinStep, IMO, but rather is some configuration delta with my installation. Something which is somehow overriding the behavior that you've programmed. I'm not familiar with current GUI api's and not even sure what you use anyway.
It's interesting, to be sure.

winstep wrote:

Also, are you sure the icon you are trying to customize doesn't belong to a 'running' application icon (i.e.; that particular Firefox icon only appears on the dock if FireFox is running)?

Neither Firefox nor Thunderbird were running when I tried the DragnDrop method of replacing ICON. Not sure what you mean with "only appears on dock if FireFox is running". In both cases, the "original" icon is just that, the default icon of the application. Probably contained within .exe or maybe .dll, haven't checked - don't think it matters ). In my experience, the dock entries behave just as icons on the old "Quick-Launch" bar did (XP, etc...) -- they are launch buttons, and I don't think I've used an app which updated it's icon while running to indicate state. I've seen such dynamic/"state-driven" icons in the Task List and Notification area, but we're just talking about browser & email apps run from WinShelf dock entries, with normal static icon behavior. That is, until I started using WinShelf and had these animated icons, or mouse-over sensitive dock entries (WAY cool, btw). Anyway, this is probably off-topic and not of importance anyway. My usage is the normal, typical usage; Just that the drag-n-drop icon replacement is somehow overridden on my machine, replaced with a more traditional "launch with argument" behavior. I wonder if somewhere in my registry there is some "Quick Launch" type of behavior configured which is altering the actions for drag/drop target & dest. Hmmm...

winstep wrote:

Not sure if that is the problem there?

What happens if you drop a normal ICO, PNG or TIF file into the shortcut instead of dropping an animated icon?

No difference. I dropped a Vim .ico file on the Thunderbird dock entry, and I ended up in Thunderbird, in edit of a new email, with the .ico file as an attachment.
Interesting.

Thanks again,

Stephen

winstep · **Joined:** Thu Feb 26, 2004 8:30 pm **Posts:** 12288

Stephen, any chance you can make a video of the drag & drop issue and post it on YouTube (or somewhere else)?

In the video the source of the icon should be seen, as well as the dock, the drag & drop operation itself and what happens next.

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New (registered) WSX user (11.1) problem using anim icons