There is another thread for this theme at MacThemes2.net.
This theme started as an extension to the
Mystique theme. The original author requested that i give it my own name, so i did.
I started a requests page that quickly filled up and squashed my motivation, so i created a set of
GIMP scripts to automate and standardize the process of creating icons for this theme. This theme has
over 650 icons, and with these scripts i expect that number to rise very quickly.
Gruppled:
Gruppled Dark:
Download: [
via Mediafire ] (.zip)
How to make your own icons:
- Install
The GIMP, a powerful, free, multi-platform image editor
- Download
gruppled.scm and place it in your GIMP scripts folder
-- To find your scripts folder, open GIMP preferences, go to the "Folders" section at the bottom, and select "Scripts"
- You now have access to 6 scripts:
-- Grupple!
-- Dim Icon
-- Dark Icon
-- grupple-batch
-- gruppled-dim-batch
-- gruppled-dark-batch
The first three are for creating one icon at a time, inside GIMP under the Script-Fu menu. The last three are for creating many icons at once.
NOTE: "Grupple!" and "grupple-batch" are meant to be used on images that have been cropped and are ready for conversion, but "Dim Icon" and "Dark Icon" and their related batch scripts are meant to be used on
Gruppled (normal) Icons.
Single Scripts:
To execute the "Grupple!" script, just open the image in the GIMP, crop it if necessary (the script will resize it, but you should crop away any borders), remove the background if possible (the "Color to Alpha" tool is usually handy for this), and select
Script-Fu>Gruppled Icons>Grupple!
NOTE: If the image you want to convert to an icon does not have an alpha channel, the scripts will be disabled in the menu. To fix this, just select
Layer>Transparency>Add Alpha Channel.
Batch Scripts:
These are useful if you have many icons you want to create at once. To execute the "grupple-batch" script, for example, run the following command in a shell after entering the directory containing all the cropped and ready .png files:
Code:
gimp -i -b '(grupple-batch)' -b '(gimp-quit 0)'
Guidelines:
- If an image doesn't make a good icon (e.g. too much tiny detail to tell what it is) find a simple iconic representation of the app from another source, or make one yourself
- Try to remove the background if possible
- If the icon has a definite foreground, try to leave some space around the edges (at least 5px seems good)
- Icons with a glossy highlight over the whole thing do not look good when converted
- If you post an icon, please post the normal, dim, and dark versions.
Finding/Preparing Images:
Usually, the app's iTunesArtwork file is the best image to use for the icon. The easiest way to find it is install AppLinks via Cydia. Run it, then go to
/User/Your App.app/ and the iTunesArtwork file should be there. It is a jpeg so open it in GIMP, and if it complains that it doesn't know how to read it, just copy it to your desktop and add ".jpg" to the filename.
Then use
Color>Color to Alpha to remove the background if it's a solid color that's not in the foreground. If that doesn't work well, try using the
Fuzzy Select Tool (the "Magic Wand") and playing with the threshold to get a good selection, adding an alpha channel if necessary, and deleting the background. The
Selection Editor window is handy for this. You can find it in the
Windows>Dockable Dialogs menu.
If there is a thick border around the edge and it doesn't look good when you convert it to an icon, just crop it out and don't worry about the corners since they will be rounded off by the script.
Whenever you crop, make sure you end up with a square, or the image will be stretched when you run the script.
07-26-2009, 12:55 AM
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