Better Android Apps

BetterCut FAQs – How do I use .ico icons?

Posted in FAQ by betterandroid on February 21, 2009

Many icons you found online are in .ico format. Unfortuantely .ico is a MS Window format which is not yet supported by Android. So how do you put all these wonderful .ico icons as your Home icons? It’s actually not difficult to do. You need to convert the .ico files to .png format images before you copy them over to your G1’s sdcard.

Here’s a quick tutorial:

1. Find your favorite icon package, let’s say you wanted this one http://hybridworks.deviantart.com/art/Yoritsuki-icons-65980168

2. Download (Free) the icon pack then extract everything from the package

3. You should see many .ico files were extracted (this icon pack also include icons in .png format, but let’s pretend that it doesn’t).

4. Download (Free) IcoFx , follow this tutorial to do a batch convert of all .ico to .png

5. Copy all .png to G1 sdcard (copy only the ones you want, too many images will slow down Android’s photo picking process), use them with BetterCut (make sure you unplug G1 from your USB)

Follow the above process you can convert any .ico to png and use them in BetterCut.

.ico demo

.ico demo

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

8 comments

8 Responses

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  1. Chris said, on February 21, 2009 at 12:09 pm

    Great app! Including some icon packs–or direct links to icon packs–would make it even better.

    Reply
  2. Lisa said, on April 27, 2009 at 3:23 am

    Instead of IcoFX, do you know of another trustworthy one I can download? IcoFX doesn’t work on an iMac :(

    Reply
  3. Ashley said, on May 5, 2009 at 1:21 am

    Are you planning on releasing a tutorial to make our own icon packs for Better Cut and Open Home??

    Reply
  4. Brian said, on July 8, 2009 at 8:14 pm

    I created some icons as you described and copied them to my SD Card, but how do I select them for my better cut shortcut. I only see the options…

    - pick picture
    - crop picture
    - pick from iconpack

    and none of these show the png i created.

    Reply
  5. Bill said, on August 10, 2009 at 1:25 am

    Where can I find out how to create my own shortcut. I presume the “Activity” and “Type” fields are merely descriptive, but I don’t know what to put in the “Data” field.

    More generally, is there a manual for Better Cut?

    Reply
  6. John said, on August 11, 2009 at 6:18 pm

    We need a tutorial to create icon packs. Are you ignoring requests on purpose?
    Whats the big deal? Android is open source, and yet after we buy your apps you are refusing to show us how to create our own icon packs. And NO, i don’t want to pick each application though bettercut to change an icon. I want to create icon packs as i please.

    Thanks( for ignoring this comment)

    Reply
  7. Android resources for icons and wallpapers - MSINO | Mobile Sino said, on August 30, 2009 at 11:34 am

    [...] Android uses .png images, but you may occasionally find .ico files that need to be converted (Click here for a tutorial on installing these icons) You can browse the web forever and still not see all of the icons available, but a great place to [...]

    Reply
  8. Alex said, on October 20, 2009 at 12:48 pm

    Hi, nice app. HOWEVER, I recently flashed a new ROM without wiping and now Bettercut is showing my old shortcuts not the ones that are actually there. I was wondering if there was a wa of clearing its “cache”? Manage Applications doesn’t allow me to do this.

    Reply

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