Name	NewIcons 4
Description	Icon Replacement System
Author/Group	Team NewIcons (Eric Sauvageau, Phil Vedovatti, Ariel Magnum, Roger McVey and Nicola Salmoria)
Price	Freeware
System Requirements	AmigaOS 2.0+

Getting Amiga Format through the door, I ripped open the indesctructible plastic cover to see what was in-store today. Newicons? Thats the pretty icon system that fills up your hard drive and slows down your computer? No thanks - I'll stay with my dependable pink & gray MagicWB. And so life went on for several days, until, when I was sitting around one night, rather bored (actually, looking for something to do instead of my maths assignment!) and decided to install the "revolution for your workbench" as David Taylor so nicely put it.....

Using a standard installer, after asking a few probing questions, it set to work. Cliiiick, Whirrr, Clickety Click, (very furious disk activity). Oh my god, OH MY GOD - WHAT HAVE I DONE?? I sit, rather worried, wondering what my brother will do to me for wrecking the computer (It's my computer - but I get hell when I wreck it? Where's the logic in that?). As nothing much is happening on screen, but a HELL of a lot is happening in the computer, you get the impression that it is formatting SYS: or something similar. What it is actually doing is copying NewIcons all throughout the system. This may be seen as a good or bad thing: it is good as, once completed you will have an almost ready icon system but, if you are not serious about using NewIcons, it only makes the program a pain in the backside to un-install. Eventually, you are asked a few more questions and after a bit more disk thrashing the install is complete.

First Impressions? A load of crap!! At first the system looks awful with Icons unsnapshotted all over the place, and a mixture of New and old icons everywhere (the installer is not that thorough, despite all the working). But hold on, reset, change a few variables, copy a few icons and you have a very pretty icon system that doesn't chew up the resources it is rumoured to do.

The first thing that must be enabled is all the "transparency" options in the prefs. Unfortunately this makes the remaining MagicWB icons look awful but hey, that's life - you can't have everything. With these options set, and after downloading about 4mb more Newicons from the Aminet (which is reason alone for you to get some sort of Internet access) it looks damn good. Another program supplied with it, Deficon, also streamlines the Newicons system by allowing default commands to be given to files with no icons. For example, I am working on a script to automatically unpack .lha's to a directory of your choice, chosen by an ASL requestor! Saves a lot of time. Once I get the script wokring perfectly, it may be released with the next DoubleClick, space permitting. Deficon also creates default icons for these different filetypes - it's all very friendly and intuitive once set up.

The standard of the Newicons is really superb (including those from the Aminet). Unlike MWB, there are very few shovelled together Icon sets, with the dedication of the artists shown by their intricate designs (thats not to say that MWB is full of shovelware - there are also some highly detailed sets for that system). The colours are all bright and vibrant, unlike the mellow tones of MagicWB, which has a colour palette of washy-blue, washy-pink and dark- washy-pink - but still better than C= original efforts!!

I've always believed that you can tell when an icon is correct for the job if you can almost certainly tell from the icon what the file is - this is especially true for Newicons as some images are so detailed you'd swear you're running a very high res. Workbench. There's even a different icon for a PC0: disk than a standard AmigaDOS floppy - put in a MS-DOS formatted disk (and mount PC0:) and you will get a disk with a windows logo on it. Its the nice touches that count.

Of course, I wouldn't recommend Newicons for users without at least some extra memory, and more likely an accelerator and Hard Drive. I have noticed a slight decrease in Workbench performance, mostly in the opening of new windows while Newicons decodes the icons. I only have a mildly expanded A1200 (Apollo 1220@28mhz with 4Mb fast RAM & 260mb Hard Drive) but there is only mild slow-down. I would assume that this may become excessive on lower spec. machines (although I am using the NewIcons "high-end" libraries instead of "crap machine" libraries - I have no idea if this makes a difference) especially if memory was in short supply as you do need at least a 32 colour Workbench to make full use of the system.

A hard drive is almost essential - using it from floppy disk would be a nightmare for two reasons:

1. Floppies are slow enough without having to decode images into the bargain.
2. By the time you have created a bootable disk that runs Newicons, you might have space for..er.. emh...The Shell!!

As a typical example of extra disk space used, a normal MWB icon is just over 1k in length, while Newicons are usually over 2k, so icons tend to take up twice as much room as before. This may be a worry if you have a drive breaching 85% capacity as the Newicons may fill it right up!

Another point I noticed was that a lot of "def_icons" were added to ENVARC: and, thus, usually have to be copied over into RAM: on bootup. Not only does this waste precious memory, but would add a few seconds to the bootup. To get round this, I used a program called HappyENV (given away on AF a few months back). It only copies files into ENV: after they have been asked for for the first time, thus saving memory in the long run.

Briefly then, DO install Newicons if you think your computer can hack it (KS1.3 512k A500s need not apply!!) but DON'T install if you are: low on disk space, low in memory, have a poor-spec. processor etc. To those that do install it, I hope you enjoy what is a wonderful and picturesque icon replacement package. All I need know is someone to buy me a copy of Dopus Magellan instead of my rather aged 5.11 to get Newicon support!!

Alan Graham

NewIcons
Speed	N/A
Interface	N/A
Documentation	Amigaguide Format - 89%
Features	93%
Value For Money	N/A
Overall -92%