tiny pictures (icons)

[bjwe]

I can recommend Sean's NT version of Bmp2Ico - its terrific.

But the problem is worse than just 16x16 bits - the lowest common denominator here is 4 bit colour depth. The default windows setting for icon display is for just 16 colours; you have to go to Control Panel|Display|Effects and tick the box for "Show icons using all possible colours" to see them in glowing 8/24 bit technicolour. The chances are most users will either not know about this or will not have bothered to change it. I am aware of this because having created a very nice bitmap in 256 colours and converted it to an icon with Sean's program, I then tested the program on a friend's PC to discover that my lovingly created icon was displayed as a splodgy mess - the answer of course was that I was seeing it in 4 bit colour for the first time - moral create icons in both 256 and 16 colour versions as well as the array of various size options. Windows in 4 bit icon display mode will just choose the nearest available colour - the chances are this will not be what you intended.

Here is a palette file I use which contains just the 16 system colours. If you copy it to the Xara X palette directory it will appear in the colour gallery next time you start up Xara X.

Brian

[Sean Sedwards]

The feature that makes BMP-2-ICO crash on NT4 (but not Win2K) is the facility to change the number of desktop colours. Can all versions of NT4 set these colours independently? If so, I needn't bother trying to re-implement the feature.

Regards - Sean

[juergen]

Brian,

your post made me sweat .....
all who use my software must be pretty polite or use their systems showing all colors.

I just removed that little flag and saw the icon of my program in 16 colors (blush)...

(Ross if you read that look at that horrible thingie on your screen [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_frown.gif[/img](

Guess its time to design a nice icon quickly.

Juergen

[bjwe]

Sean,

I use NT4 Sp6a and the option to change the Icon display colour depth is in "Start|Settings|Control Panel|Display|Plus!" where the option is to choose "show icons in all possible colours" or not.

Brian

[jens g.r. benthien]

Sean,

looks like that. I can change the icon color in NT 4 SP 5 as well - on my machines it's always turned on.

Does it help? Do I have to turn it off to make BMP-2-ICO work?

jens

[Sean Sedwards]

Rather than make you wait for a new one, here's the NT4 version of BMP-2-ICO which stays on top. Anybody that likes the 'stay on top' feature can use it on other platforms too. The only thing it lacks is the ability to change the number of colours the desktop uses, but that seems to be available separately anyway.

Regards - Sean

[Ross Macintosh]

I can't contribute much to this thread except with regards to Juergen's maple leaf icons that reside on my desktop and its toolbar. They of course are shortcuts to Juergen's excellent program named Topics.

I like the leaf and find it pleasantly distinctive. I do find it looks small relative to my other shortcuts. If the long leafstem were reduced or eliminated, I presume that you could get a significantly larger leaf in the same icon size. IMHO I think you should just make them larger and forget adding the line around the icon.

Regards, Ross

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