Application/Document Icon

warrenk · Post by **warrenk** » Mon Oct 06, 2008 12:02 am

In the standalone application settings, there is a area for the application and document icons. Is there a specific size I should use to create each icon? What about colors? (ie. 256 Colors 8 bit, 16 colors 4 bits, etc)?

I am trying to create a Windows Application.

Thanks for any help!
Warren

malte · Post by **malte** » Mon Oct 06, 2008 8:24 am

Hi Warren,

these icons must be in a specific file format. (.ico on Windows, .icns for the Mac). So you will need a program that is able to export those.

Hth,

Malte

SparkOut · Post by **SparkOut** » Mon Oct 06, 2008 9:28 am

HI Warren, try IcoFx from http://icofx.ro/ it's freeware. Personally I use the icon builder plugin for Photoshop from Iconfactory, but it's not a freeware thing. The icon editor should be able to create (inside the same .ico file) a range of bitmap sizes and colour depths so that programs will use the appropriate icon image automatically from the single file, so your question should hopefully be answered simply by using the right sort of editor.

warrenk · Post by **warrenk** » Mon Oct 06, 2008 1:05 pm

I have been using http://icofx.ro/. The problem is everytime I create an icon (ico format), I keep getting the error message "picture.ico does not include 8 required image formats". When I create the icon, I am selecting one of the "8 required image formats" and keep getting the same error message. I can't figure out what I am doing wrong.

Warren

SparkOut · Post by **SparkOut** » Mon Oct 06, 2008 1:57 pm

Are you creating one image file and then trying to save it as .ico format?
I can't reproduce the problem here, but maybe it's telling you that to be a valid icon format it needs a minimum of 9 images (although testing just now I've used IcoFx to save a single image icon with no errors).
3 images of 16 x 16 pixels, 3 of 32 x 32 pixels and 3 of 48 x 48, with each size having one of 4 bit, 8 bit and 32 bit colour depth seems to be the "standard" icon file content up to Windows XP. Vista type icons can also include 4, 8 and 32 bit colour depth images at 256 x 256 pixels, although

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms997538.aspx wrote:While Windows imposes no restrictions on the sizes of icons, common sizes include 16, 32, and 48 pixels square. For this reason, developers are encouraged to include a minimum of the following sizes and color depths in their icon resources:

16 x 16 16 colors
32 x 32 16 colors
48 x 48 256 colors

(Of course that was written before Vista format).

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms997636.aspx gives a lot of info about icon design, you may get some useful things from there.

Unfortunately though, I can't really help with the issue that you seem to have - my copy of IcoFx works to save an icon file with just one sized image at one bit depth, so I don't know why it tells you you need 8 more.

warrenk · Post by **warrenk** » Mon Oct 06, 2008 2:05 pm

SparkOut,

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. I didn't realize I needed to create multiple formats in a icon. I thought I just needed to pick one of the 9 formats. Everything is working now.

Thanks again!
Warren

Mark · Post by **Mark** » Mon Oct 06, 2008 2:13 pm

Hi,

By default, IcoFX creates 12 icons in your ico file when you choose Icon FromImage from the Icon menu. This default setting works fine for me, butI believe you can change this at will, as long as you keep a number of 12 icons.

Best,

Mark

SparkOut · Post by **SparkOut** » Mon Oct 06, 2008 2:29 pm

Well there you go! Thanks, Mark. I never realised it would make all the icon images in one go either - that's why I never really got into it and just stuck with the Photoshop plug-in.