Microangelo Toolset 6 - This "Micro" Icon Editor Is Big

You could pound carpet tacks with a 20-ounce framing hammer and you could tap three-inch sinkers with a tack hammer, but neither of those scenarios would be very user friendly or efficient. As it is with construction, such is the way with all things “development.” We often have magnificent tools that we’ve become comfortable with, but we can’t reasonably and efficiently use them for a very specialized task.

If you need to build, archive, edit, or create icons, you might find yourself looking for a tool just for that task. If you’re lucky or if you’re a diligent researcher, you’ll come across Microangelo (www.microangelo.us). Self-described as “The Grand Daddy of Icon Software,” it has received numerous top rankings from industry standard-bearers like C|net, ZD Net UK, Softpedia, and Softex, and others as well as holding the exclusive distinction of being the first icon program that’s Vista Certified.

It does everything that can be done with icons and nothing else. Well OK, one other thing, animated cursors, but that’s not that far of a leap from its intended and obvious purpose anyway. Besides, who’s using animated cursors in the 21st century?

Microangelo Toolset is more than just a graphics tool for working on tiny pictures. The installation actually consists of four integrated icon utilities: an icon editor (Studio), an icon manager (Librarian), an icon explorer (Explorer), and an animated cursor editor (Animator).

I’ll admit that I didn’t see the purpose of an icon-specific tool at first. I mean, why couldn’t I just work at a size that’s comfortable in Fireworks, Photoshop, or whatever, and then just scale down and save the work in whatever format that’s required for the particular icon? Well, it seems that efficiency, quality, speed, and interoperability are the reasons to use this particular tool for icon work. Just like the hammer analogy at the beginning of this article. Not that you couldn’t use one of the aforementioned graphics editors to create your icon. For many users, they’ll undoubtedly do just that; they’ll draw their icon’s major components in whatever tool they like to use, and then import or paste them into Studio or Animator.

As a web designer/developer, my main interest in the program is for creating “favicons.” If you aren’t familiar with the term, favicons are the icons that show up in the address bar and favorites or bookmarks lists of most browsers. A favicon is probably the lowest common denominator of all the icon types. It must be 16 by 16 pixels, be located in the root of the site and be named favicon.ico. While 16 by 16 is pretty small, it’s amazing what you can do within those 256 pixels with a tool set like Microangelo.

As I blissfully created and edited some favicons, I noticed a few of the sample files that come with Microangelo. Although I’m not the kind of developer who would make desktop, application, or system Icons, the new Vista type icons (256 by 256 pixels in 32-bit color; 24-bit with an 8-bit alpha channel) would make great web page icons; the kind one might also use as buttons.

The more I used Microangelo, the more ideas I began to develop regarding the broad range of tasks it would be appropriate for within the icon-related realm.

What's Hot: 
Microangelo Toolset is actually four applications, which works out to $12.50 each. If you buy it for $50, they throw in Microangelo On Display, a convenient facility to easily change any of your system’s icons (a $25 program if purchased separately). Microangelo is definitely a tremendous value.

What's Not: 
There’s nothing “not hot” about the price to value with this application.

What's Hot: 
Very fast setup and no reboot required! The main download of Microangelo Toolset 6 is just over 5MB, so it’s reasonable even for a slow connection. There’s a “check for updates” feature within the main application as well. The application also didn’t alter file associations on my system in any way.

What's Not: 
There isn’t much about the installation and setup of this application that isn’t good. Maybe it would be nice they’d add the ubiquitous prompt to add a quick-launch or desktop icon for it and possibly have the installer check for updates during the install process.

What's Hot: 
The user interface is very good in each of the application components. I especially like the fact that there aren’t endlessly deep menu options like a lot of graphics tools have. Each of the application components are squarely aimed at the very task they’re designed for.

What's Not: 
It's too bad Studio doesn’t have a more “layers pane”-type interface like Photoshop or Fireworks. This is something that you will find in Microangelo's Creation. I think I’d like to see all of the applications in a common interface using the tabbed user interface style that’s become so popular lately.

What's Hot: 
I think the single strongest point of the toolset’s features is the completeness at which it handles the tasks that it’s aimed at. For instance, there’s even a feature to do screen clippings using either a preset icon-specific size, or a "drag to size" option. That was something I didn’t expect to see, but something that a user would probably need or want at some point in their use of the product. While there is some functional overlap between Librarian and Explorer, each of them does serve a distinct purpose. I don’t think the producers of this product left anything out at all.

What's Not: 
I’d like to see this application set come with a library of shapes you could import into your project and assemble. If the producer supplied a few different folder shapes and some basic object shapes, an end user could assemble them into literally endless combinations; if you leveraged the drop shadow, gradient, and transparency features you would never run out of end results.

What's Hot: 
Every operation from within all of the components of this toolset was fast and smooth. I didn’t experience any system slowdown, lock-ups, or negative impact whatsoever. I even ran multiple components simultaneously to see if that would cause an issue, and it didn’t. These anecdotal tests were conducted on a desktop machine running Windows XP Pro (AMD Athlon 3500+ with 3GB of RAM) and a separate desktop running Windows Vista Ultimate (AMD Athlon 3500+ with 1GB of RAM).

What's Not: 
Extracting all the icons from an entire drive with Librarian is kind of slow, but it’s just slow, not piggish. In other words, the operation takes time, not necessarily resources; you can let it run in the background and work on other things. Obviously, factors such as the capabilities of the specific computer and how stuffed with files the drive is have a distinct effect on operation speed.

What's Hot: 

The application set comes with a single Windows Help file in the .CHM type of typical help. While I’m not a huge fan of CHMs, this one is particularly well-written. As I do with all software I review, I tried the email support option, which was answered promptly, courteously, and concisely (by an actual human being).

What's Not: 
As with almost every program, I would like to see a PDF manual distributed with it so that a user could print a manual or have a good alternative to the .CHM file. A few things I found when testing the support email on the company’s support page that are of note; I hate to see specific instructions on phone support such as hours that support is available, and so on. With virtual PBX and desktop-based answering systems so readily available these days, I think it’s better to let the client call, have the system tell them about hours of operation, and let them call back or leave a message. I also hate to see a parenthetic statement next to a toll free number like (sales only). It just looks “cheesy” to me. VOIP toll-free service is virtually free these days, so I’d like to see that practice disappear. In other words: If it’s worthwhile enough for a company to sell you stuff over a toll-free number, it’s incumbent upon them to support the thing you bought via the same method, if only for reasons of etiquette.

I think besides a tabbed user interface to contain all the application components, the producers would be well served making Microangelo Creation serve as the editor component of the suite to replace Studio. I would also like to see them pre-populate Library with some raw icon elements that users could combine into unique icon creations. I also wonder if there’d be merit in combining Library and Explorer into a common UI.

If you’re going to do any kind of work with icons, from favicons to 256 by 256, 32-bit next-gen Vista-type icons, Microangelo Toolset is a product suite that merits serious consideration. Since you can download a trial version of any of the company’s applications, you really have no risk in taking a good hard look at the features and trying your hand. Personally, I like Microangelo Toolset, I’m keeping it, and I’m glad I found it.