ZLauncher IconSet Specification | v 0.02

Index

1. Tools
2. Icon Mapping Table
3. The Order of Items
4. Release History

Note:

> When you select a theme/icon set which is stored on expansion card with the Theme Manager in ZLauncher, ZLauncher will copy it to RAM, and add a flag to the selected item, and the item will be deleted automatically when it's no longer being used. So you can not create your theme/iconset basing on the ones selected from the Theme Manager, or they will be deleted once ZLauncher starts.

Tools

If you want to create your own ZLauncher iconset, you should obtain the following tools before starting making iconsets:

1. Graphics editing tools on the desktop computer such as Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, etc.
2. PRCExplorer, a PRC viewer/resource extract tool, by Regis Nicolas. It's available for download it at PalmGear:
   http://www.palmgear.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=software.showsoftware&prodID=40542.
   It's a freeware.
3. PilRC, a Palm resource compiler, by Wes Cherry & Aaron Ardiri. It's available for download it at www.ardiri.com:
   http://www.ardiri.com/index.php?redir=palm&cat=pilrc
   It's a freeware.
4. Constructor, the resource editor of CodeWarrior. The demo version of CodeWarrior 8 for PalmOS is available for download at Metrowerks:
   http://www.metrowerks.com/MW/Secure/Eval/Palm/default.htm. The demo version is OK for editing the existent themes/iconsets.
5. If you want to edit the High-Density bitmaps, the version of Constructor must be v1.8 or higher. Constructor v1.8 can be found in the PalmOS5 SDK. PalmOS5 SDK is available for download at PalmSource:
   http://www.palmos.com/cgi-bin/sdk50.cgi. It's free for download.

ZL Iconset Factory by Robert Eaton:(Highly Recommended!)
ZL Iconset Factory allows you to easily change any icon on your PDA. ZL Iconset Factory isn¡¯t an icon editor, rather it¡¯s a specialized compiler that allows you to easily import and assign icons to the programs on your PDA.

Some of ZL Iconset Factory¡¯s Features:

- Replace program, Palm system, and ZLauncher icons
- Replace shortcut icons for programs stored on your memory card
- Edit existing iconsets or create new ones
- Create iconsets with only icons you need
- Identifies icons in existing iconsets using it¡¯s associated program name (EX: Palm Date Book, not tAIB3506)
- Automatically searches your Palm Desktop directory and adds the programs you have installed on your PDA to it¡¯s database so they¡¯ll be available in the program
- When importing graphics, automatically chooses the transparent colors, or change them easily from within the program.
- View the icons using their transparent colors, and with variable background colors
- Supports drag and drop for both icons and ZL iconsets.
- Supports copy and paste to and from your paint program, or from PalmBMX (see below)
- Automatically creates low-res icons from the high-res icons.
- Supports saving and loading user templates of your favorite program icons
- Supports 4, 8, and 16-bit icons
- Automatically converts from one color depth to another
- Automatically converts icons to the correct color depth when added
- No programming knowledge required and no manual editing
- Supports all Palm OS compression types and automatically selects the best compression for each icon so that files are small as possible, with option to compile for Palm OS 3.5 (no packbits compression)

PalmGear: http://www.palmgear.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=software.showsoftware&prodID=52897
ZLthemes: http://www.zlthemes.com/UtilityDetail.php?PID=24

For more details and more useful tools, visit Robert Eaton's homepage:
http://festus440.happypalm.com/

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Icon Mapping Table

ZLauncher contains an icon mapping table that records the corresponding icon of a certain item.

The resource type of the icon mapping table is 'iTbl', its resource ID is 1000. Each content of the icon mapping table contains 16 bytes, it describes icon bitmaps' ID:

- Byte 1 to Byte 4: TypeID of the specific item. For example, if the item is an application, the four-byte is 1634758764(0x6170706C), the corresponding bytes are: 0x61('a'), 0x70('p'), 0x70('p'), 0x6C('l').
- Byte 5 to Byte 8: CreatorID of the specific item. For example, if the item is Address Book, the four-byte is 1634758764(0x61646472), the corresponding bytes are: 0x61('a'), 0x64('d'), 0x64('d'), 0x72('r').
- Byte 9 to Byte 10: The bitmap resource ID of the large icon. For example, the resource ID of Adress Book's large icon is 3500(0x0DAC).
- Byte 11 to Byte 12: The bitmap resource ID of the small icon. For example, the resource ID of Adress Book's small icon is 3501(0x0DAD). If you don't want to specify the small icon, set it to zero.
- Byte 13 to Byte 16: Reserved for future use, must be zero.

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The Order of Items

All icons in the IconSet must follow the order rule of icons:

The item which has a larger TypeID must be followed by the one which has a smaller TypeID. If the TypeIDs of two items are same, the item which has the larger CreatorID will be followed by the one which has a smaller CreatorID. Note, capital letter is less than lower case letter. For example, '0' < '9' < 'A' < 'Z' < 'a' < 'z'.

For example:

Item | Type ID | Creator ID
Address Book | appl | addr
Clie Demo | appl | CLie
Data Book | appl | date
Owner(panel) | panl | ownr
Sony HiRes(panel) | panl | SnHp
Todo List | panl | todo

The order of the above items is:
Clie Demo < Address Book < Date Book < Todo List < Sony HiRes(panel) < Owner(panel)

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Release History

0.02 - Dec 15, 2003

- Added introductions for ZL Iconset Factory by Robert Eaton.
- Updated several links.
- Corrected some descriptions.

0.01 - Mar 17, 2003

- First version.

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