Keeping custom icons?

[Terry Pinnell]

Does anyone know how to ensure that any custom icons carefully added
to the Icon dialog are retained permanently for later sessions of GE
please?

Using Add Custom Icon... I've added half a dozen new ones that I'd
like to be able to use regularly. But on restarting GE they are no
longer displayed. Fairly tedious having to add them all again.

I found all the built-in icons (167 of them in my case) in the folder
C:\Program Files\Google\Google Earth\client\res\shapes
so I thought maybe I could place copies of my new ones there. But
oddly it appears that GE doesn't access them there (or C:\Program Files
\Google\Google Earth\plugin\res\shapes ) but gets them online?

For example, the plane icon is shown as
http://maps.google.com/mapfiles/kml/shapes/airports.png
and that file doesn't appear anywhere on my HD except those two
folders.

Anyone have some insights into how this works and how I might achieve
my aim please?

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

[Grok Lobster]

Well I hope there's a better way than what I am about to describe but
it should meet your needs, even though it isn't what you asked for.

Create a folder in My Places. Create placemarks with your custom
icons. Uncheck the folder so none of them are visible. When you need
to use one, go to that placemarker, right-click and choose Copy,
Paste. Drag it to wherever you want it in the My Places listings and
right-click and choose Properties to adjust location, etc.

On Jun 8, 12:22 pm, Terry Pinnell wrote:
> Does anyone know how to ensure that any custom icons carefully added
> to the Icon dialog are retained permanently for later sessions of GE
> please?
>
> Using Add Custom Icon... I've added half a dozen new ones that I'd
> like to be able to use regularly. But on restarting GE they are no
> longer displayed. Fairly tedious having to add them all again.
>
> I found all the built-in icons (167 of them in my case) in the folder
> C:\Program Files\Google\Google Earth\client\res\shapes
> so I thought maybe I could place copies of my new ones there. But
> oddly it appears that GE doesn't access them there (or C:\Program Files
> \Google\Google Earth\plugin\res\shapes ) but gets them online?
>

> For example, the plane icon is shown ashttp://maps.google.com/mapfiles/kml/shapes/airports.png

[Terry Pinnell]

Many thanks Grok. In fact around midnight last night that's pretty
well what I came up with as my preferred working solution for now!

One small difference is that when I want one of the icons in my My
Places > Custom Icons folder, it seems I can:
1. Open its properties and close again (with OK, not Cancel).
2. Make the new placemark in the usual way (navigating to its location
and hitting Ctrl+Shift+P.
3. The custom icon from step 1 will be the default, so I just accept
that.

I have also used Macro Express Pro to write a macro (the closest I get
to programming!) that I can trigger from the Icon dialog. It browses
to a folder called \Favourite GE icons, awaiting a choice. Although
that's a bit faster than doing it entirely manually, on balance I
prefer the My Places method.

But neither are as good as adding icons permanently to the built-in
dialog display. So I'm still keen to hear from anyone who knows how to
do that please.