[quote="Xyzzy"][quote="steve"]The icon is important enough to miss out on the myriad of features Opus provides ?
[/quote]
Someone may want a program that looks nice, not plays nice (or playing nice may be added value). [/quote]
Isn't there a company that has made a very nice living out of the "form over content" school of computing?
You know the one, shops with people queuing around the block to pay silly prices for something that, in the next few months, will become available at more sane prices and without being crippled by a control freak's aversion to industry standards?
[quote="steve"]The icon is important enough to miss out on the myriad of features Opus provides ?
Weird...[/quote]
What's weird is an application designed to give users more options than the windows default, but then being restricted on a visual change.
What's weird is how the application is leaving out this option. The toolbar buttons can be changed, the system tray icon can be changed, even the color of the taskbar icon can be changed, but not the taskbar icon itself.
What's weird is being expected to pay so much money (more than a third the cost of windows itself) to move away from windows explorer annoyances only to put up with a different annoyance of Directory Opus.
I appreciate all the options that Directory Opus provides but at the price of AUD $85 it should be providing such a basic option. Clearly the ability to change the icon's color is acknowledgment that some users do not like icon.
There would be nothing wrong with Opus providing the option of changing the taskbar icon, and if the lack of that option is a deal-breaker for you then that's your choice, but it's hardly a "basic option" and not "weird" for a program to not provide it. I'm sure there are some examples* but I cannot think of a single program that lets you change its taskbar icon. (I can think of a handful that let you change their system tray icons, like Opus can, but none where the window/taskbar icons are configurable.)
(*No doubt there's a Firefox extension. )
Seems to me that you're rejecting the entire program because of something very minor that you'd get used to in a very short time. Obviously icons need to look familiar to be useful but new ones quickly become familiar.
Personally -- and I don't speak for GPSoftware; this is a user-run forum -- I find it hard to believe that the icon is the deciding factor in whether or not you buy the program. Still, if you want to send a feature request to GPSoftware then you can contact them (for the duration of your evaluation period) here:
It's not. You can change the colours because they are used to indicate different window states (Source, Destination, Dual and Off) and because they appear on top of the file display border which also has configurable colours to indicate the same states. (If you change one set of colours you'll probably want to change the other set.)
That's not the meaning of the icon. It's just a link to someone else's speculation.
The icon is annoying because it is random and illogical. Almost every icon for any application has some logic to it. No one really knows what the thing is under the sun for directory opus. The icon is not related to files, or directories, or anything muscial (opus is a musical term afterall).
They should add taskicon.ico option. I've not gotten "used to" the icon, and no one should have to "get used to" an icon. If they're going to pick some random icon, they should also give the option to change it.
The icon is a registered trademark that has been in use for over 15 years. If you really can't get past it then I'm sure you can find another file manager with a less distressing 16x16 pixel image.
The Opus icon does have logic to it. You may not like it, and that's a matter of taste, but looking at some other 16x16 icons I can't see why you are singling out the Opus icon.
If you saw those icons for the first time there is no way you'd guess what many of them represented. The only reason you know what any of these tiny pictures means is that you've seen them used with their programs enough times to become familiar with them.
And none of those programs (that I've noticed at least) comes with an option to change its icon.
Lest you think anyone is "attacking" your position, let me just say that based on my familiarity with the folks on this forum - I think many are just explaining their view and not trying to "convince" you to feel differently than you do. You have your opinion and of course are welcome to it...
Personally, I certainly do agree with some of the others in that the lack of the type of option you're looking for seems (to me) to be relatively trivial in comparison to all of the actual usability Opus provides... The one item of taskbar "footprint" customization that you and Leo raised up has a "purpose" behind it's ability to be customized - which as Leo mentioned, is to distinguish the state of that lister (source/dest, etc). And just as I'm not "aware" of any "other" app that lets you customize the footprint icon, I think Opus is also the only app I've ever seen that even makes it's "own" stateful changes to the icon (again, referring to the color changes to denote the "state" of the lister). As Leo alluded to, I think taskbar footprints "in general" really just differentiate between "apps", and I don't think there's much chance of confusing the Opus icon on the taskbar with that of another app, as it's pretty unique. I just can't wrap my mind around the icon being particularly "distracting" though... if anything, the unique feature of Opus of changing the color of the icon to denote lister state could be distracting - and easily removed by configuring all states to use the same color.
Of course, some of the other areas of customization like personalizing button icons have a MUCH broader "purpose" in that a user needs a good visual cue to differentiate one button from another to know what each buttons does "at a glance". That's pretty critical since you can create buttons that do different things, whereas the taskbar footprint is always just an application window anchor.
I do agree it's a little "weird" that there's an option to change the system tray icon and not the taskbar footprint though... . I imagine though that modifying the systray icon is much more easily (or at least commonly) accomplished by an app than messing with the taskbar footprint though.
@ bspeight
Yes, an excellent observation that the Dopus icon could be in imagination a fungi.
It could perhaps represent some of the fungi I've observed on trees, or the remains thereof,
here in North America. I see these often beautiful life forms quite frequently.
The more colorful and robust examples do exist I think in more in the Islands near here.
Ohh my, now I'm going to have to dig in my photo archive for the most perfect DOpus fungi.
Magic, .... ??? Most probably FATAL here.
Got to go now.
Steve may scold me again for going off topic.
Definitely on to something here. This photo shows fungi growing on a dead log in bush near Sydney, Australia. The fungus at the top left is clearly the model for the Opus icon.
Some on this thread seem to have been consuming Psilocybe Cubensis but it's more like Amanita Phalloides the way this conversation has been going![/quote]Ouch!
[quote="leo"]Not sure why this six year old thread was resurrected (the icon and taskbar itself are different these days...), but that's a bad suggestion.
Don't modify the Opus exe files unless you don't mind Opus refusing to run afterwards. [/quote]
Please accept my apologies. I didn't realise this thread was from 2010 ... I must have mistaken some search results for the current posts. And yes, stupid of me to suggest modifying the exe file! Please feel free to delete the comment.
Hello! Are there any news on possibility to change main app icon? The app itself is excellent, I'm loving it, but this icon looks like a guest from the alternative reality, where folders are round. I tried to change the icon with resource editor, but got nag popups saying "Don't you dare to hack our app". No, I'm not trying to hack it, I'm just want to adjust its appearance! Maybe some sort of global theme may change the icon (like it's done in WinRAR)? Anyway thank you for the great app and for the help!
If the program is pinned and the Taskbar is set to the default grouped mode, you can change the taskbar icon for any (non-metro) program by right-clicking the taskbar button, then right-clicking the program's name, and choosing Properties > Change Icon.
)
. I imagine though that modifying the systray icon is much more easily (or at least commonly) accomplished by an app than messing with the taskbar footprint though.
