Parallax 2023 Product icons (and how to change your icon

Published by Aaron Maller on

If you follow us on Social Media, you may know that a number of years back, we started making our own icons for the Autodesk platforms, to help customers identify which version of Revit they were launching, from their Quick Launch bar.

The icons were created (loosely) to use the Autodesk “Product Letters” and color, with the year placed large enough in the corner so that it would still be legible as a Full Sized icon in the Windows Quick Launch Bar. (If you use the ‘small icons’ you are sort of out of luck, i imagine).

We also had incorporated a “Product Code letter” where necessary, but this wasnt always gracefully fit in, but it got the job done.

These (which we now call the “classic” icons, have been updated to reflect that there is now a 2024 release.

You can download them here.

This year (as i’m sure you know already) Autodesk rebranded all of the product icons, in a new style. While we originally planned to just keep the “classic” icons above, someone did point out that the older style has been around for 8 years, so we thought we would update to something new, as well.

We weren’t able to stay with the exact Autodesk Style, for a number of reasons:

  1. The “Opening Folder” and Drop Shadow make the “main color real estate” smaller already, and the Year Text in our old icons were barely legible as it was.
  2. The ‘Product Code’ text is so small (in the drop shadow), that there wasn’t much room to give, here.
  3. The “white on bold colors” didn’t provide much contrast, when reading these in a small area like the Quick Launch bar.

So, we went in a different direction, and made these versions that are simplified. They use the Product Code, and omit the “big letter.” (The Product Code has more data than the Big Letter, regardless). Also gone is the “Opening Folder/Piece-of-the-A” that was at left, to regain real estate. I *DID* update to the new product colors, though (which i had previously resisted, which is why Navis was still green).

These are all made from 2016-2024, as well. You can download them here.

How do i use these icons?

There are two methods for doing this, of course. Method 1 is very simple:

  1. Go in to the properties of any shortcut
  2. Click “change icon”
  3. Navigate to where you saved them
  4. Select the new icon
  5. Click OK

I dont like this approach, however. Its only altering the icon for that one shortcut instance, and the products show up in other places (Start Menu). Method 2 involves replacing the original Product Icon. To do that, you need to know where they live. For instance, for Revit 2022:

Product Icon: %SystemRoot%\Installer{7346B4A0-2200-0510-0000-705C0D862004}\REVT.ico

Viewer Icon: %SystemRoot%\Installer{7346B4A0-2200-0510-0000-705C0D862004}\RevitViewer.ico

We use Parallax Deploy Toolset for rolling out all software, and we have it take the new icons, change their names to REVT.ico and RevitView.ico, and replace them in that particular folder. We do this for all platforms.

This means even the Start Menu versions of the program (as well as any other shortcuts made by the users) will have the new icon.

One other thing to keep in mind: Subsequent Point Releases / Updates from Autodesk will reset these back to the Factory icons, so its nice to have an automation tool like PX Tools doing this on your behalf, as ours always redoes the process, after any Point release or software update.

(Also, dont be jealous that my Start Menu is properly organized, unlike the Windows 10 hot mess that we get with 2/3 of Adsk products going in the Autodesk folder, but none of Revit doing the same…)

So there you have it. I’m very excited about the 2023 release, as there are a lot of things in it that will be VERY practical and beneficial for our clients and our team (sorry: If you were looking for a hate post on 2023, this isn’t it). I will write more on the release itself, in the next week or so (but there are tons of posts on that already).


Aaron Maller

Aaron has been in Architecture since 2004, and has been working in implementation since 2005. Aaron is great at evaluating practices and looking for efficiencies. He strives to work in “minutes” that can be saved, and is passionate about critiquing workflows.

3 Comments

AW · 2022-04-26 at 14:56

Nice work!!

Derek · 2022-08-25 at 12:32

This is so helpful! Thank you for sharing.

Röben · 2023-07-14 at 11:37

Hey Aaron ! Thanks man… from South Africa, your a Champion for this !

Leave a Reply to AW Cancel reply

Avatar placeholder

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.