Desktop shortcuts.

[James Silverton]

Can anyone tell what are the necessary parameters for a shortcut icon?
Possibly enough to use Paint to design an icon would suffice. I don't
really care enough to download programs to let me do it. I know there
are collections of free icons but usually I find myself wanting to
change them.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Bruce Hagen]

Can anyone tell what are the necessary parameters for a shortcut icon?
Possibly enough to use Paint to design an icon would suffice. I don't
really care enough to download programs to let me do it. I know there are
collections of free icons but usually I find myself wanting to change
them.

Thanks in advance.

Do you have JPG or GIF images you want to use? Just change the file
extension to .ico. There are online sites where you can change them so
nothing to download.

 

[philo]

Can anyone tell what are the necessary parameters for a shortcut icon?
Possibly enough to use Paint to design an icon would suffice. I don't
really care enough to download programs to let me do it. I know there
are collections of free icons but usually I find myself wanting to
change them.

Thanks in advance.

This was written for XP but should be about the same for Win7



http://www.techrepublic.com/article/create-your-own-windows-xp-icons-in-paint/6134550

 

[James Silverton]

Do you have JPG or GIF images you want to use? Just change the file
extension to .ico. There are online sites where you can change them so
nothing to download.

Thanks Bruce! That is useful but how would I start from scratch to draw
my own?

 

[Bruce Hagen]

Thanks Bruce! That is useful but how would I start from scratch to draw my
own?

Paint is your only non third party program. Not very practical IMO.

I made some from graphics I found on Web pages using the Snipping Tool to
grab what I wanted as an icon.

 

[Ashton Crusher]

Do you have JPG or GIF images you want to use? Just change the file
extension to .ico. There are online sites where you can change them so
nothing to download.

I thought they also needed to be resized to the correct "icon size".
Or does windows simply resize them for display?

 

[Bruce Hagen]

I thought they also needed to be resized to the correct "icon size".
Or does windows simply resize them for display?

They have to be resized, but converters like this one will do it
automatically if you do not enter a size of your own.
http://image.online-convert.com/convert-to-ico

 

[Ken Springer]

Can anyone tell what are the necessary parameters for a shortcut icon?
Possibly enough to use Paint to design an icon would suffice. I don't
really care enough to download programs to let me do it. I know there
are collections of free icons but usually I find myself wanting to
change them.

Thanks in advance.

Well, you could sort of reverse engineer for the info.

Free programs like Irfanview read and write the .ico format. Load in a
couple sample .ico files, look at the properties. I would think that
you would have a decent idea of what the parameters are.

Then, use a free paint type program, like Gimp, to create your own.
Inkscape can save to bitmapped formats even thought it's a vector
drawing program. Both may be overkill for what you want.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.3
Firefox 20.0
Thunderbird 17.0.5
LibreOffice 4.0.1.2

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

Can anyone tell what are the necessary parameters for a shortcut icon?
Possibly enough to use Paint to design an icon would suffice. I don't

[]
Well, you could sort of reverse engineer for the info.

Free programs like Irfanview read and write the .ico format. Load in a
couple sample .ico files, look at the properties. I would think that
you would have a decent idea of what the parameters are.

Then, use a free paint type program, like Gimp, to create your own.

If "Paint type" is what you want (handful of drawing tools), and you
have IrfanView, then it has a Paint-type sub-menu already included: this
was added a few versions ago, and it took me some while to realise it
was there. (Not sure if you have to install the plugin set or not; I
always do when I update IV anyway.) Edit | Show p_a_int dialog, or F12;
only works if you have an image loaded.
[]

 

[Zanqeutil]

James Silverton schreef:

Can anyone tell what are the necessary parameters for a shortcut icon?
Possibly enough to use Paint to design an icon would suffice. I don't
really care enough to download programs to let me do it. I know there
are collections of free icons but usually I find myself wanting to
change them.

Thanks in advance.

Well you can use IcoFX Portable to create/edit icons.
The Portable version 1.6.4 is still available as Freeware.

http://portableapps.com/apps/graphics_pictures/icofx_portable

Zanqeutil

 

[Philip Herlihy]

Do you have JPG or GIF images you want to use? Just change the file
extension to .ico. There are online sites where you can change them so
nothing to download.

I've always understood that an icon is more than that:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICO_(file_format)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa511280.aspx
.... although I doubt many people get into the details.

However, in practice all you need is a suitable image and a utility
(like the excellent free irfanview) which can save it in the right
format.

If you want to play with creating more interesting icon images you could
do a lot worse than try DrawPlus from Serif.com. There's a free version
available:
http://www.freeserifsoftware.com/
.... and the full-price version's not that expensive:
http://www.serif.com/drawplus/

 

[James Silverton]

Can anyone tell what are the necessary parameters for a shortcut icon?
Possibly enough to use Paint to design an icon would suffice. I don't

[]
Well, you could sort of reverse engineer for the info.

Free programs like Irfanview read and write the .ico format. Load in
a couple sample .ico files, look at the properties. I would think
that you would have a decent idea of what the parameters are.

Then, use a free paint type program, like Gimp, to create your own.

If "Paint type" is what you want (handful of drawing tools), and you
have IrfanView, then it has a Paint-type sub-menu already included: this
was added a few versions ago, and it took me some while to realise it
was there. (Not sure if you have to install the plugin set or not; I
always do when I update IV anyway.) Edit | Show p_a_int dialog, or F12;
only works if you have an image loaded.
[]

As was suggested, I found and examined a couple of *.ico files in Paint.
One is 32x32 pixels and the other is 16x16. Both seem to function as
icons. I was a little surprised to see how good was the 16x16. Next
step: make two of my own. I am particularly interested in the technique
to produce apparently curved lines that uses both a full depth primary
color and a weaker one; for example black and grey.

My version of IrfanView may be a little old.

 

[James Silverton]

On 5/10/13 10:24 AM, James Silverton wrote:

Can anyone tell what are the necessary parameters for a shortcut icon?
Possibly enough to use Paint to design an icon would suffice. I don't []
Well, you could sort of reverse engineer for the info.

Free programs like Irfanview read and write the .ico format. Load in
a couple sample .ico files, look at the properties. I would think
that you would have a decent idea of what the parameters are.

Then, use a free paint type program, like Gimp, to create your own.

If "Paint type" is what you want (handful of drawing tools), and you
have IrfanView, then it has a Paint-type sub-menu already included: this
was added a few versions ago, and it took me some while to realise it
was there. (Not sure if you have to install the plugin set or not; I
always do when I update IV anyway.) Edit | Show p_a_int dialog, or F12;
only works if you have an image loaded.
[]

As was suggested, I found and examined a couple of *.ico files in Paint.
One is 32x32 pixels and the other is 16x16. Both seem to function as
icons. I was a little surprised to see how good was the 16x16. Next
step: make two of my own. I am particularly interested in the technique
to produce apparently curved lines that uses both a full depth primary
color and a weaker one; for example black and grey.

My version of IrfanView may be a little old.

Oh! I see IrfanView does have the option to save as a Windows icon.

 

[Mike Barnes]

I am particularly interested in the technique to produce apparently
curved lines that uses both a full depth primary color and a weaker
one; for example black and grey.

That's "anti-aliasing". More than you wanted to know here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spatial_anti-aliasing

Effectively you want a pixel that's part white and part black, but a
pixel has to be all one colour so you make it a shade of grey according
to the proportions of white and black. Tedious to do manually, but good
software makes it very easy.

 

[Philip Herlihy]

I've always understood that an icon is more than that:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICO_(file_format)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa511280.aspx
... although I doubt many people get into the details.

However, in practice all you need is a suitable image and a utility
(like the excellent free irfanview) which can save it in the right
format.

If you want to play with creating more interesting icon images you could
do a lot worse than try DrawPlus from Serif.com. There's a free version
available:
http://www.freeserifsoftware.com/
... and the full-price version's not that expensive:
http://www.serif.com/drawplus/

Just (!) received a link to a promotion, offering the previous full
version of DrawPlus for £10 (also the excellent PhotoPlus - a good
alternative to Photoshop).
http://www.serif.com/sale/?mc=SEMTWBt100