Iconpackager - is something missing?

Iconpackager, well actually all stardock software, is built to customize the Windows interface. It is pretty near impossible to know what other software people are running on their computers. Alternatively, you can still right-click on a shortcut and change the icon there through it's properties

Yes people use a wide range of apps, but there's a central core that could be covered reasonably easily (the artistic endeavour required excepted). It certainly doesn't seem to stop Objectdock or many of the DesktopX theme icon artists from providing application icons.

If Iconpackager had a section for apps then it would encourage the icon artists to create icons for it. One definite advantage being that you could get your app icons in the same style as your favourite IP sets. Another being the ease of installing the icons - right click/change icon is so clumsy and difficult for a lazy beast such as myself.

Ultimately it comes down to the artists themselves, would they want the extra burden of more icons in their sets, do they see the need strongly enough to contribute? Well that's why I asked...

regards, Jerry

I know I can't give you a complete answer to what you're asking, Jerry, and to be honest, I debated whether to even comment on this thread until I saw the last paragraph of this post:

Ultimately it comes down to the artists themselves, would they want the extra burden of more icons in their sets, do they see the need strongly enough to contribute?

I honestly don't think it's a matter of the artists not wanting to skin the application icons. If you look at many of the more complete icon sets around by artists like mormegil, yangge, FOOOD, marvilla, James T, adni18, starone, DuoPixels... the list goes on and I don't want to slight anyone but those are all I can think of off the top of my head... most of them have icons for the various types of application files which can be identified by their extension. So it seems to me the issue is not likely the artists being unwilling to skin those icons.

I think the problem is more likely a programming issue in that all those applications have the same file extension for the executable file, .exe. I'm not sure of the in's and out's of the system hooks that Icon Packager uses to change all the icons, but I would imagine that could create some very complex coding to change the icons associated with all those individual .exe files.

Complicating things further, you should remember that the icon files for the application are found within the executable file itself, which I would think brings up several Intellectual Property rights issues that Stardock quite rightly IMHO would not want to tangle with. Especially when you consider that those icons are in many ways each company's/product's sacred cow, the unique symbol which they pay dearly to market and protect.

Again, I'm just making some guesses here, but I wanted to offer another possible explanation. I doubt very much that the problem is really skinners not wanting to produce the icons.

/me hates it when he makes typos!
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