One function I miss in MorphOS is the ability to add icons for programs/files that lack them. Since MorphOS already can recognise what kind of action should go with what kind of program or file this feature should be not to difficult to add (I hope some of the developers see this and consider it).

But you can actually have the ability to add drawer icons. And this is how I’ve done it.

First, right click in Ambient –> Settings –> Ambient Settings –> MIME:

Click on Internal:

Doubleclick on x-morphos-globalaction-directory:

Now lets click Add…:

I give it the name Add Drawer Icon. Then I click Add… on the right. I choose it as an AmigaDOS program and write the arguments as shown above. The last part: %sp.info, specifies that it will keep the original name of the target file but add .info to it. This mean that it won’t copy over the drawer with the icon, but create a new file with the added ending .info (unless there exist an drawer icon, in which case it will overwrite it). So don’t get it wrong. I choose it as a Menu in Event Type.

If you look at the icon that will be added, then you might notice that it’s not a standard icon. I have changed all the default icons, which is very easy. You just right click in Ambient –> Ambient Settings –> Miscellaneous (or something like that) –> Predefined icons. Here you can change the path if you have an identical set somewhere else. This is the original folder (moved to a different location for convenience):

And here are my default icons:

Here you can see the drawer add_drawer(.info) that I added for this purpose. OK, now we have edited the settings as above, lets save and try it out.

I have created a drawer in RAM: without an icon:

I mark the drawer Unnamed and click on the right mouse button:

And there it is. Click on Add Drawer Icon and now RAM: should look something like this:

When we now change view mode to Icon + Icon (= icons only) then this is what we see:

A very practical solution indeed.

Just a note: when you create a drawer and you add an drawer icon at the same time MorphOS will automatically choose the def_drawer icon. My def_drawer and add_drawer icons look different, so what I do when I create a new drawer is to use Add Drawer Icon as above on that file as well. Then the old .info file will be replaced with the add_drawer icon (like I mentioned above already). This can of course be done to any drawer.

A good thing is that you can’t do this on any other, non drawer files by mistake. Add Drawer Icon simply doesn’t show up.

If you need some icons, then it’s good to know that any PNG picture turns into an icon if you rename the file from name.png to name.info. There are plenty of icon packs out there in PNG format so you should have no problem googling it. My icons are called BUUF and GANT and are made by Mattahan. The icons I’ve used are spread all around the Internet so you may have to look for it a while to find them. Some icons are made/modified by me as well. I may upload them in the future if I can get the blessing of the author.

One last word: don’t forget the ongoing fundraising at WArMUp to support our software developers. Any spare change is very welcome!