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Junior & mAqua icons & toolbar themes

FOOOD

By FOOOD
in User Interface Design

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FOOOD Advanced Member

FOOOD

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Thanks for posting those, they really help yes.gif

I know why the mAqua ones look crappy. uTorrent is diplaying the icons in the system tray, taskbar & top left of the program in 8 bit (256 colour) format not 32 bit. I didn't make an 8 bit version for the mAqua app icons as the alpha blended shadows in the icons wouldn't show up properly in this format.

I could make 8 bit versions of the mAqua app icons (without the shadows). They'd (probably) look better, but they still wouldn't look great.

What would be much better is if uTorrent would display these icons as 32 bit ones, not just 8 bit.

One thing I'm a little confused about the with the uTorrent Junior ones....

Did you edit it so that it diplays the 3D version? (made from one of the larger sizes).

My 16x16 versions of those icons are flat (face on) so it should show those, not the 2D version.

The uTorrent Junior icons (& the uTorrent mAqua file types) have 8 bit versions included so should display OK even in the places in your pics.

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h0rnytoad1 Advanced Member

h0rnytoad1

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hi foood,

i just skipped to the 6th page, dunno if this was mentioned before:

the .ico files in your archive's folder "app & file type icons" don't work.

all 8 are blank 357 and 348kb files, even acdsee doesnt show any information for them

but the bmp files in "Toolbar & Status Icons" are good.

i read a trick a long time ago to make a simple .ico file, just make a 16x16 or 32x32 bmp file and rename it .ico

However the quality might suffer.

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FOOOD Advanced Member

FOOOD

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The icons I made have custom sizes.

Standard icons only have 48x48,32x32 & 16x16 sizes.

Mine have 256x256, 128x128, 48x48, 32x32, 24x24 & 16x16.

Maybe this causes a problem on your computer? What OS are you using? They have 32 bit formats (as well as 8 bit formats). Only Windows XP (& maybe Windows 2000, can't remember) support 32 bit icons.

You have to set your graphics card setting the highest setting. I haven't heard any other reports that the icons don't display (in a normal enviroment)

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Darrian Advanced Member

Darrian

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I haven't heard any other reports that the icons don't display (in a normal enviroment)

That's because there's nothing wrong with them. Either his download was corrupted somehow (but if that was the case, how could he unzip the icons?), or he's using a pre-XP version of Windows (probably windows 95 or 98 or NT4?). I wanted to respond directly to his post when I first read it, but I was so overwhelmed with sarcasm that I felt if I didn't restrain myself I would have been unnecessarily mean. So I'll avoid that, but don't worry, the icons work perfectly fine.

Hornytoad, try IconPhile (http://www.virtualplastic.net/scrow/iphile.html), IconPackager (http://www.stardock.com) or IconWorkshop (http://http://www.axialis.com/). All of those are either freeware or have a trial period, and unlike ACDSee are actually intended to manipulate icons.

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Xilon Advanced Member

Xilon

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i read a trick a long time ago to make a simple .ico file, just make a 16x16 or 32x32 bmp file and rename it .ico

However the quality might suffer.

That doesn't actually change the BMP to an icon. The file's MIME type will still be bitmap, it's just a way to get around some thing that require icons.

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FOOOD Advanced Member

FOOOD

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I've been meaning to ask you in email or other communications medium.

What do you use anyway?

I always figured it was IconWorkshop by Axalias.

(it works and integrates extremely well with Photoshop.)

I mainly use a Mac & turn the images into icons using IconBuilder (a Photoshop plugin). But when I'm using a PC then yes, I use IconWorkshop yes.gif (including the Photoshop plugin). It's an awsome piece of software!

That doesn't actually change the BMP to an icon. The file's MIME type will still be bitmap' date=' it's just a way to get around some thing that require icons.[/quote']

True...but you could easily import this fake ICO into any ICO Edit Program and save it as a "real" ICO ;)

-DG

But bitmaps don't support transparency so it would have to be a square icon with no transparency which is pretty limiting (unless it's a 32 bit bitmap, & you don't often come across image files saved in this format which are suitable to turn into icons).

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h0rnytoad1 Advanced Member

h0rnytoad1

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i read a trick a long time ago to make a simple .ico file' date=' just make a 16x16 or 32x32 bmp file and rename it .ico

However the quality might suffer.[/quote']

That doesn't actually change the BMP to an icon. The file's MIME type will still be bitmap, it's just a way to get around some thing that require icons.

its actually the m$ suggested way to easilly make standard icons : open mspaint make a 16x16 or 32x32 bmp, save/rename to .ico

the ico dont work on one of my puters, but do on my other one, my laptop can see them.

its strange i can only see them on the 2nd puter if the folder is set to use miniatures view, not details view. both windows xp sp2 with all updates.

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Ultima Advanced Member

Ultima

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@h0rnytoad1: It only works like that because Windows is set to display the contents of *.ICO files as their icons, if I'm not mistaken (or something to that effect =P). If you tried those "ICO" files in say, web servers to use as favicons, it wouldn't work, since browsers (or is it the server?) don't recognize it as a true ICO file. Depending on the program you're using, the file might (or might not) be seen as an icon. I personally think that ICO's should stay as ICO's, and BMP's as BMP's. Bleh, enough thread hijacking =P

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Darrian Advanced Member

Darrian

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its strange i can only see them on the 2nd puter if the folder is set to use miniatures view, not details view. both windows xp sp2 with all updates.

If you are running XP and you haven't changed any settings that may affect how icons are displayed then that is indeed quite odd. I'm stumped, I've built several computers since XP came out and not once did I have any trouble displaying an icon correctly, so I've never had to look into ways to fix such a problem. All I can do is assure you that the icons probably work for everybody else, so there must be some other issue that is hindering you from seeing them. The only view where they shouldn't display correctly is thumbnail view, which will still show them, but it has trouble dealing with the transparency and tends to add garbage to the borders.

The only thing I can think of is that you may want to make sure you have the latest drivers for your video card. I don't know if that could cause a problem, but it may. You'll also want to ensure that you're display is set to 32-bit mode and not 16-bit, that might also affect it.

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FOOOD Advanced Member

FOOOD

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its actually the m$ suggested way to easilly make standard icons : open mspaint make a 16x16 or 32x32 bmp, save/rename to .ico

And that's why MS didn't make the icons for Windows XP, they got Dave Brasgalla/The IconFactory to make the icons for them rolleyes.gif

tongue.gif

uTorrent mAqua 100% my ultimate favourite can you make us a nice Dock icon pleasee..

The app icons have sizes up to 256x256. As far as I know all the dock programs support icons (.ico) files so should work fine in the docks. If not you can convert them to PNG.

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SledgeDG Advanced Member

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But bitmaps don't support transparency so it would have to be a square icon with no transparency which is pretty limiting (unless it's a 32 bit bitmap, & you don't often come across image files saved in this format which are suitable to turn into icons).

Also true

but nobody keeps you from "finetuning" your bitmap in the icon program

I merely pointed out the way to go to convert a bitmap into a proper ICO

It's up to you to fit the looks to your preferences

-DG

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