Icon sets

An icon set gives the icons on Stillward Display's dock, its own taskbar and Apps one look, and draws the desktop's own icons: the folder, the Recycle Bin, this computer, the network and your folder. It is a folder of SVG or PNG drawings and a short JSON file that says which drawing is which. Nothing in it runs.

The file

icons.json beside the drawings it names:

{{
  "$schema": "https://stillwarddisplay.com/schema/icons.json",
  "name": "Steel plate",
  "paint": {{ "fill": "#a8bdd8", "line": "#2e3646", "acc": "#7d93b2" }},
  "programs": {{ "plate": {{ "shape": "squircle", "fill": "#3a4457", "edge": "#56637a", "size": 0.62 }} }},
  "kinds": {{ "folder": "folder.svg", "bin-empty": "bin-empty.svg", "bin-full": "bin-full.svg",
             "computer": "computer.svg", "network": "network.svg", "user": "user.svg" }},
  "apps": {{ "exe:notepad.exe": "notepad.svg" }}
}}

• kinds: the desktop's own icons, by these words: bin-empty, bin-full, computer, folder, network, user. Each is optional; one a set leaves out stays as it is.
• apps: an icon for a particular program, by its file name (exe:name.exe) or, for a Store app, by its AppUserModelID (app:Publisher.App_id!App). Up to 256.
• programs: what happens to every other program's own icon. plate sets it on a flat plate, a squircle or a circle, in fill, with an optional hairline edge; size is the icon's share of the plate, from 0.4 to 0.8. tint draws it in one colour's shades, its own light and dark kept. Both together put a tinted icon on the plate. With neither, programs keep their icons and the set draws only what it names.
• Colours are #rrggbb, or one of the set's own three: $fill, $line and $acc, which paint defines. A drawing can use the same words for its colours, so one drawing serves a set in any colours. With "accent": true, $acc is the person's Windows accent, drawn again when they change it.

The schema is at /schema/icons.json; an editor that knows JSON Schema offers every field as you type.

The drawings

Draw on a square. An SVG is drawn at the exact size it is shown, from 16 to 256 pixels, so it stays sharp at every scale. A PNG may be up to 1024 pixels a side and is scaled down. Leave a margin like Windows' own icons do: a drawing that fills its square edge to edge looks larger than the icons beside it. Text and pictures inside an SVG are not drawn, and a drawing too heavy to draw at once is refused.

What a set cannot do

It cannot run anything, reach the network or read a file outside its folder. On the dock, the bar and Apps it changes nothing in Windows: those are drawn by Stillward. The desktop's own icons go through Windows' Desktop icon settings, the program records what they were first, and choosing Windows again or uninstalling gives each its old picture.

Sets made for everyone should leave other companies' logos out: a set on the Workshop that draws a product's icon carries that product's mark, and Steam takes down items that are reported for it.

Checking a set

stillward-display.exe --check "My set", given the folder or its icons.json, says whether the program would take the set, what it left out, and which drawings did not draw. Nothing of the program starts.

Importing and publishing

On the Desktop page, under Icon sets, Import takes an icons.json with its drawings beside it, or a .zip of the same. Your own sets have Publish. The Workshop picture is drawn by the program on the same sample desk as every item, with sample programs of its own, and the card carries a small picture of them dressed by your set.