Change appearance of folders

Q & A for the old 2X Explorer file manager. For other topics, please use the corresponding forum.

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slipz42
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Post by slipz42 »

Would you know how to change the appearance of the folder icons? They're like little manila folder replicas.
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nikos
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Post by nikos »

2x should show the same icons as your normal explorer. I never tried it myself but you can try changing a particular folder's appearance (esp. icon) through explorer's menu and see if 2x will pick it up
danphillips
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Post by danphillips »

I don't think the the folder icon is changeable through explorer's menu. I am still using Win 98, so is this a feature in Win XP?

I use AiryFolders (http://airysoft.hypermart.net/). You can use this to change the icons for any of your folders.

If you want to just change the icon for a hard drive, you can use this registry tweak:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\DriveIcons\C\DefaultIcon

Where "C" ( \C\DefaultIcon ) is the drive letter

Name: ab (standard)
Type: REG_SZ
Value: "C:\drive.ico" (i.e. the pathname to the icon you want to use)

Both of the above work with 2xExplorer.
Darren
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Post by Darren »

nikos wrote:2x should show the same icons as your normal explorer. I never tried it myself but you can try changing a particular folder's appearance (esp. icon) through explorer's menu and see if 2x will pick it up
2xExplorer won't pick up the changes in XP, but it will in 98.
I use a program called E-Icons to change folder icons. This, as I said, all worked well with 98, however using XP, 2xExplorer still displays the default icons.
Interestingly though, when I browse through folders looking for a location (such as when looking for a file to open or when saving a file via a programs 'save as' menu) XP displays the default icons rather than the modified ones it will display using Windows Explorer, so I assume it's an XP problem.
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mimeryme
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Post by mimeryme »

(Using WinXP) I only recently looked for such a tweak to have custom drive icons and though they do not work in Open/Save dialogs, they do work in 2xExplorer. There is one hitch however, you must have opened an instance of Explorer first and keep it open to have 2xExplorer show the custom drive icons both on the drive bar and the folder tree.

This behavior is the same in xplorer², which is coming along nicely btw.
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nikos
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Post by nikos »

which program have you used for icon customization?
Last time I tried to change a folder icon in XP (using the standard XP property dialog) it worked fine, even in 2x/x2
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mimeryme
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Post by mimeryme »

The icon for folders work well, using the desktop.ini customization. I was referring to the drive icons.

I changed the drive icons using the registry tweak mentioned above. Similarly, the autorun.ini icon does not work in 2xExplorer w/o Explorer being run first and kept running. I notice those on optical drives.

However, I am using an alternate shell.
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nikos
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Post by nikos »

i think i know what you're talking about
there was one way to change drive icons with registry tweaks i saw in the documentation, but i think that i tried and it didn't even work for explorer!
i'll have another look...
Starsurfer
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Post by Starsurfer »

slipz42 wrote:
>Would you know how to change the appearance of the folder icons? They're >ike little manila folder replicas.

Hi .

There are many apps that will do that for you.
& a whole lot of other different Icons.
Don't know whether you meant individual ones but I'm writing in that context...
That's the best & easiest way I think...
you need to have active desktop enabled...think

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Starsurfer
deframondj
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Post by deframondj »

The way I do it under NT or W2K is by setting the folder as a system folder, then by creating a desktop.ini file in the folder with the following data:

[.ShellClassInfo]
iconFile=.\Enfants.ico
iconIndex=0

The iconFile can be any file containing an icon.
As far as I know it works also under W98.

Sometime ago I wrote a small VisualBasic program allowing to select the icon in a few click. If interested I can send you the project.
Zimluura
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quirks with the 2in2k icon subsystem

Post by Zimluura »

yeah, i hate those default folders too

to get the registry keys to work for any system icons in win2k you need to be using the explorer shell (no dice here, i use litestep) and have explorer set to not open any new processes (if i did use explorer shell i wouldn't want to do that). it's probably pretty similar in winxp.

feature request: have xplorer^2 seek out the registry keys of each system icon (i think most apps use a GetSystemImageList function or something which in many cases gives you the shell32.dll resources regardless of registry keys).

a painful work-around i've found is to hack the shell32.dll file with your own custom icons. it's not quite as bad as it sounds. if you would like instrustions letme know.

thanks for the sweet program nikos
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zippit
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Windows version please

Post by zippit »

How about it slipz42
Might save a lot of posting an guessing.
:roll:
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nikos
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Post by nikos »

Zimluura

x2 is following the function over form principle, which may be rather offensive for you litestep skin folk :) Something like UK-spec hi-fi equipment that look like bricks but sound like a dream

Perhaps a few of you cosmetic experts could one day volunteer to create an artistic and handsome UI (buttons etc) for x2

but i believe that you can still use the desktop.ini approach for individual folder customization (?) It's only drive icons that suffer
Zimluura
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Post by Zimluura »

nikos

i totally understand that the visuals are not at all your priority. and, even in the cosmetic realm, xplorer^2 is at least as pretty as normal explorer (which has the exact same problem with custom system icons). so please forgive me when i put in feature requests that would make it look better. my reasoning is that some of them might be low-work, high (visual) yield features.

i'm with you (and sullivan) on the "form ever follows function". but i think it's even better when you can have both :)

but i understand that inclusion is for you to decide, because you're the one doing all of the work.

the desktop.ini thing works great, but it doesn't replace the default folder look (which is the most frequently seen and, imo, most displeasing of the windows icons). so for now i'll stick with the modified shell32.dll. it does sound good when i talk about the little mods i've done to this install of win2k.

i'd be happy to create some widget graphics for xplorer^2. but, the first step in pretty buttons is coding a theme interface. and that's even further into the visual features. if my win32 api & mfc skills were stronger i might ask for the sourcecode, but i'm pretty sure right now even the icon feature request i submitted would be too much for me to implement.

as always, thanks for making your work available.
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medic5608d
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Folder Appearance

Post by medic5608d »

I wanted to change the COLORS of my folders and found both of the following shareware/freeware programs useful. I belive that you can find both programs at www.download.com.

The first, "Folder Icon" allows you to pick other color folders, or folders with designs on them. Very simple to use.

The second is called "Custom Folder" and basically allows you to chose from a standard array of icons that I believe are a part of the Windows platform library files.

Both of these programs, once installed, are immediately available by right clicking the folder that you want to change. You simply pick either "customize" (or "uncustomize"), or "ChangeIcon" from the pull down menu.

Hope this is close to what you are looking for.

Dave
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