The AIF Icon Designer user interface

The main features of the user interface are as follows:

Menu Bar Menu Item Description File New Creates a new set of icons. For this and other File menu commands, see How to load and save files. Save Saves the icons and masks in a .mbm file. Save As Save the icons and masks in a .mbm file with a new name. Load Opens an .mbm file from disk. Exit Exits the application. Note that this returns you to AIF Builder. Action Clear All Clears the currently displayed icon. Restore Restore the icons to their state at the last save. Generate Saves the icons and masks in a .mbm file. Help Help Opens the main help topic. About Display the About splash screen.

The tool bar provides quick access to commands from the File and Action menus.

The main tabbed panel has a tab for each of the defined size of icon. Each tab has an icon and mask grid. You define an icon by drawing on the icon grid:

• to paint a cell to the current colour, do a left mouse click or drag on the cell

• to make a cell transparent, do a right mouse click or drag on the cell

As you draw, the mask grid is automatically updated.

Initially all cells are transparent: this is indicated by a cross drawn on the cell.

Use the colour picker to select a colour with which to draw in the icon grid.

You do not have to define an icon at every size the UI variant allows. You can specify that an icon should not be included in the generated .mbm file by clearing its check box in the Include in MBM panel.

Click the mask mode button to set large numbers of cells to transparent in the mask. When you then click on a cell in the icon, all cells of that colour are set to transparent on the mask.

Click on the drawing mode button to return to normal drawing.

Click on the select colour mode button to set the drawing colour to that of the selected cell.