Review: Folder Icon

Score:
70%

Author: LanternSoft

Version Reviewed: 1.0

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Organising applications into a preferred folder layout is one the staples of most Nokia powers users. Long time users often have a preferred layout they stick to, even as they move from phone to phone. It has become even more important in recent years, as the number of applications have proliferated. However, if you get too carried away then you'll end up with row upon row of identical icons... It's not the end of the world - there's still a text label to identify the folder. However, if you are using a folder as one of your homescreen shortcuts, it is a more serious issue. The homescreen shortcuts don't have text labels and therefore there's no way to tell them apart. Yes, it is possible to memorise which folder is which, but half the reason I have a smartphone is because my short term memory isn't very good...

Thankfully, this is where Folder Icon, a smaller helper utility from LanternSoft, comes in. This automatically scans the app launcher for folders and presents them in a list. Note that some of these (e.g. Music, Video & TV, Games, Office and Tools in Symbian^3 phones) may already have custom icons, which are probably best left alone, but the folders you've created yourself will not.

Any folder can have its icon replaced with either a pre-defined image (Options -> Select predefined image) or a custom image file (Options -> Set image from disk). In the case of the latter you'll need to provide a .png image with a resolution of 88 x 88 pixels and place it in your phone's internal memory. It's also a good idea to have the image transparency set correctly, so that the background shows through the empty spaces in the icon (e.g. rounded corners).  

Helpfully, there's also an option to revert any customised icons to their default state (Options -> Restore default), which is useful if you make a mistake or wish to go back to the standard folder look. Folder Icon's UI isn't very attractive and it would be better if current and customised icons were shown at a larger scale, but it does get the job done.

The 50 or so predefined icons that are included with the application are of decent quality, but do have some 'rough' edges. This is down to the .png format, rather any issue with the icons themselves. Using the .png based icons isn't quite as smooth as the built in .svg icons, but unless you're using a 4" screen device (E7, X7) you'll be hard pressed to spot this, especially mixed in with third party icons. 

The application would benefit from having additional pre-defined icons; one way to do this would be to partner with one of the theme creators, many of whom create their own icon sets as part of the theming process. Even so, there's still a decent range of iconography, sufficient to give a decent match to most possible folder names and enough colour variations to fit in with most themes. 

Once you've applied the new icons, you can admire the finished results in both the app launcher and on the homescreen. The real benefit is on the latter, where it's now easy to differentiate between folders... though you do have to remember which icons represents which folder...

If you're looking to customise folder icons in the app launcher view then it's a purely cosmetic issue, but if you're looking to differentiate them on the homescreen there's a large element of usability too. For the latter, it is easy to justify Folder Icon's £1 purchase price. But, given the popularity of theming and phone customisation, I think there will be plenty of people who will happily to pay the cost purely for cosmetic reasons alone.

Folder Icon is available for all Symbian^3 (N8, C7, C6-01, E7, E6, X7) handsets from the Ovi Store.

Rafe Blandford, AAS, 14 July 2011

Reviewed by Rafe Blandford at 7:49 UTC, July 14th 2011