Axialis Icon Workshop

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Posted by 22111
Oct 12, 2013 at 02:34 PM

Two years ago (meaning at exactly this time of the year, but not last year), AIW was last on sale at bits, so for the last some weeks, I looked out there for it in the hope of it perhaps reappearing there. It’s in the “next to come” section now, and I urge people to buy it. It’s winner of all the “10 best icon software” comparisons, and so on, and I did not buy it two years ago for its lack of really good icon collections management, but for (re)designing icons, it’s top (I trialled then).

So I’ll certainly buy, this time, and I also encourage people here to do the same, because in the end, you’ll more and more see how many things can be done within the file system, and then, both more appropriate icons and the same icons but in multiple color variants are of big help. This is not to deviate you from outliners, but as I said before, trying to put all your stuff into the outliner is not that good an idea after all, and so, you’ll need “parallels” between your outlined stuff and your other stuff, in outliner and file system, which is another outliner, even if for the time being, you need to “synch” by hand.

Some days ago there was another icon tool at bits, for replacing existant icons with others, 35 dollars (original price, and then 40 p.c. off I think) for nothing, since you can reassign icons by macro, don’t need an expensive tool for it, and those icons that went with the tool, were mostly really ugly, and not broad enough a selection, so I didn’t recommend that tool.

But there are many free icon collections out there, often with really beautiful icons, but which you need to manage/import, and especially often need to combine or alter, for example by putting numbers or characters on icons, and especially for creating the same, but in other colors.

And for such icon editing work, at this price, it’s an absolute steal - in many cases, it’s minor contenders of some software category that appear on bits, here it’s the leader of the pack.

Posted by 22111
Oct 12, 2013 at 02:53 PM

I forgot to mention AIW always has a user lifetime licence.

Also, if you need ace icon management, the second choice in toptenreview, Icon Craft, is absolutely outstanding (I trialled, don’t just say from hearsay, or to be more precise, I didn’t trial IC, but their dedicated icon manager, which will be the AIW owner’s second icon tool of choice, of course). It comes from a Russian company that makes many very similar such software, creating a real mess of choice for the prospect, but you’ll make some dime on AIW, so have those to buy a second program, for all the shifting around your icons.

The thing is, in the file system, there is no bolding or coloring of entries (why not, after all?!), so you have to replace that with a better icon system, in the same way you use different icons in outliners like Ultra Recall which don’t permit bolding, italicising, etc. of items within their tree. And it goes without saying that you could use the very same icons within your file system and within your outliner tree(s).

Smart icon assignment even can replace other metadata, to a degree.

Posted by 22111
Oct 12, 2013 at 03:19 PM

To be more specific: Icon Craft is from iconempire.com (50$, not trialled), when Sib Icon Craft (40$, trialled) is from sibcode.com, and then it shows “Icon Maker” there, and on both sites you can buy lots of very similar programs with all different names, one is Russian, and one is Canadian, or the other way round, and in the web, you find some comments about “with all this mix-up, I wouldn’t touch those softwares”, and all this was like this years ago, and will possibly never be straightened out.

What is more, all those things permit, in trial, for some, 7 times saving, or 77 times saving (no joke!), so if you install the right trial, you never need to buy the software…!

Anyway, AIW is 35$, Icon Craft is 50, makes 85$, instead of 99$ for AIW alone, and you’ll be able to create and use your own icons everywhere, with the best programs you can get for that, so that’s certainly something of interest for your enhancing your information management, and even for some outliners, like UR (where you can import icons; I’m not so sure about Maple, but who uses Maple, then?).

Posted by 22111
Oct 12, 2013 at 04:24 PM

Just to complete the picture: they also work under aha-soft.com, under which they sell their stuff under again different names and at different prices, and on those, you’ll get even 20 p.c. off under biggestcouponcode.com, so the end price for the whole package will be around 70$. So much for voodoo marketing by which you’ll tear down any good software in the end. But you cannot pretend I didn’t try hard to sell it to you.

Posted by 22111
Oct 14, 2013 at 11:44 AM

Update after buying AIW today:

Collecting functionality is not much better than two years ago (or as bad as then?): This program is extremely slow in collecting the existing 20,000 or 30,000 icons on your system (to be more precise: in then replacing placeholders with the actual icons, in that collection), when Icon Craft does this in a breeze. Also, it has one of the most cumbersome activation processes I ever encountered, with creating an “account”, telephone number, and all this stuff. Also, they try to sell you additional icons (they all do), but you simply will not follow the respective links (which are quite prominent though).

But then, editing of icons (and the possible raw material for them) is outstanding (as said from my trial then), and it’s also possible to create sub-collections from “all selected icons”, and to work smoothly in them and from them (I’m not sure if this grouping functionality was there at the time, but it is now). So, except for that single task of checking all your current icons, for their possible use (“as is”, from collections you create, or for changing something about them, color, shape, elements), this program is almost perfect, and you will not need any other to supplement it. It’s just that very first day when you have to register, and when you “collect” “usable” icons from among all your existing icons, that this fine program will a little bit go on your nerves. Buy!

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