Does anybody here can help me?

from WinCustomize Forums
I am having troubles with the frame transparency of the icons, I can fix them to look good on the light backgrounds or on the dark ones, but not with both of them! I know that is a limitation of Windows that does not support 32 bit icons, to allow me make the frame mask gradient, so the frame of the icons look nice transparent and not jagged, (I am talking about the round shapes not the square ones).
Does anybody here have any idea?
If you send me just a round shape icon with nice transparent frame, i will understand.
Thank you for your attention.

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8,590 views 21 replies
Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top
craeonics,
I don't understand what you mean, the black border does not have jagged edges? I am talking about round shapes.
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Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top
As am I. Black edges are _way_ less noticable than gray or white edges. The other option is to do it all manually pixel by pixel. Now if icons could be anti-aliased... =sigh=
Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Thank you craeonics, for your time and your advice, but this not what I am asking for.
Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Icon's are kind of like Sprites for a game, the edges HAVE to be jagged, there isn't any way around this because icon's don't have the ability to be transparent just yet. This means you can't put a nice fading gradient or shadow on it cause it will look all screwed up on your background depending on if you made the icon with a white background base or a dark background base. Putting a one or two pixel thick border around the icon does help, it makes it so you can use it on light and dark backgrounds but it isn't the same. As of this time, it is the only thing you can do.
Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top
the only way I saw to have nice icons with anti-alias is with DesktopX. It will not skin all your icons, only your desktop, but it's doing a great job. You can have degree of trans, shadows....
Reply #7 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Thank you Alexandrie and Lord_Zelo,
For answering my message and for your advices.
I just find out that the Windows XP use some icons with nice transparent frame, but with double mask (!)
Icon Editors programs, can see this second mask but with obscurity and there is not any command, that allow you to create a second mask. I am trying to find out how they have accomplished that.
Reply #8 from WinCustomize Forums Top
32 bit icons are not supported prior to Windows XP. All masks in previous versions of Windows are 1 bit (on and off) (technically they're 2 bit, but the "inverse" style pixel doesn't relate to what you want). There's no way to exceed this limitation (no, DesktopX doesn't count, as it doesn't affect .ICO files and their limitations).

/me goes off to play with 32 bit icons on his Mac, which have been around since MacOS 8.5
Reply #9 from WinCustomize Forums Top
The mask is 1-bit. Transparency is obtained by a white pixel in the mask and a black pixel in the image; inverse colour uses a white pixel in the image instead. You could hack around with the ICO format and put other colours in the masked area, but it would not get you anything good.
Reply #10 from WinCustomize Forums Top
ess-vid,
Your right, but what about the XP version? Some round shaped icons are not jagget at all in Windows XP.
Maxim, Thank you.
Reply #11 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Maxim: Interesting about the inverse pixel thing... I haven't spent the time at MSDN to learn the heavy tech on the format. And I do know you can increase the mask. You can make them dance about and go "hey! hey! hey!" too. Neither is a reasonable expenditure of effort.

adni: Hence my use of the word "prior"... Windows XP supports 32 bit icons. All Windows versions before it do not.
Reply #12 from WinCustomize Forums Top
As far as I know, a program that can make 32 bit icons for the Windows platform does not exists or am I missing something?
Reply #13 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Since only XP supports them, and it's not released yet, it's hardly surprising. I imagine they'll appear fairly soon after release, it'll be harder work for the existing icon editors to add the ability to create an alpha channel than it will to support the new file format which is (probably) undocumented anyway.
Reply #14 from WinCustomize Forums Top
You are right Maxim
Reply #15 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Yes you are right. I did the WinXPSET Hoping to do the same as you Adni18, but was not able to because of the limitations of current icon Editors. it is basically impossible to recreate icons as they are seen in windows XP. for now at least I think. but there are ways around it. Much of which has been mentioned already here.
Reply #16 from WinCustomize Forums Top
If you look on MSDN you'll find this link:

http://www.gamani.com/foricons/

A program for making XP-type icons... 30 day trial to download, fully functional, and it will convert PSDs. I expect MicroAngelo et al will support them pretty soon, though.
Reply #17 from WinCustomize Forums Top
More to the point:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnwxp/html/winxpicons.asp

How to make Windows XP icons, even to the point of telling you what the MS designers did in Photoshop to make them.
Reply #18 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Hey cool this is nice news Maxim I'll have a look at this.
Reply #20 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I've used that, it sucks. It's an animated gif maker repurposed. I don't really trust it.

That said, it's still not useful for any Windows OS before XP.

(btw, about the "new format", all they did was up the mask on the 24 bit colour icons to 8 bits)
Reply #21 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Τhank you Maxim, you are a treasure!