New Application Icon

[petermad]

2StickyNomad
I think it looks great now !

Once you settled on the look, could you please provide it as a single icon file?

[PeaceMaker]

2StickyNomad

Best of the best I hope the new icon will be included in pb2...

[ghisler(Author)]

I'm not yet sure which one I should use, some people will always complain. Perhaps we should make a poll?

[StickyNomad]

2ghisler(Author)

Perhaps we should make a poll?

Yes, that's a good idea. I can also try if I can find a few further pixels to retouch and make a 3rd version for this poll, but I consider my new variation as quite suitable already...

Thanks to the suggestions made here, the new Icons looks quite a bit more clean, straight and modern than the current version IMO. If I had to choose, I'd pick the new one

[Flint]

Hm... When it was on the white background it looked acceptable. But now I noticed that in the standard WinXP theme it looks ugly. Just look at the screenshot:
http://flint-inc.ru/Temp/Clip164.png
The shadow does not look like shadow at all. Instead, it seems that the icon itself is smeared. The previous icon in pb1 looked much better, it was clearer and more accurate.

[petermad]

2Flint
I agree.

[StickyNomad]

Well, I darkened the shadow to makle it more visible on dark backgrounds after user remarks. Without alpha transparency, I have to make compromises, and it is nearly impossible to have a fitting look with _all_ possible BG-colors.

But I see your point and will try to find a better shadow color. Perhaps it helps if I make it a tiny little bit brighter again...

[Flint]

StickyNomad
What if just create an additional 16x16 icon with alpha channel? 32x32 and 48x48 are not needed, they look fine, so the size of the icon will not grow significantly. And of course, leave 256 and 16 color variants for Windows pre-XP.

[StickyNomad]

2Flint

I'm not against that and I already proposed to Christian to include the application icon also in with alpha channel (in all sizes), but he worried about installer size.

But I think only providing the 16x16 Icon with Alpha Channel could be a solution.

Would this be OK for you Christian?

But I will try to find a solution without the necessity of an alpha channel first, maybe I can figure sth out...

[StickyNomad]

Have a look here.

I tried to make a 256 color version with lighter shadow (version b.). It indeed looks better on bright backgrounds, but is unfortunately quite ugly on dark BGs. And the shadow of the current version also looks bad under some conditions.

Especially when used on the desktop, the icon is quite optically present and therefore it should look OK with possibly all BG colors. With a fixed shadow color, there always will be combinations where it looks ugly.

So I also did a version with alpha shadow (version a.). I have to admit that this version iondeed looks best (I might try around more with the shadow's opacity though). So I think the main Icon with alpha transparency should definitely be included.

I checked it and an additional main-icon with alpha in all current formats (16,32 and 48 ) would occupy about 15 KB uncompressed. Quite a bit for one Icon, but I think it's bearable and this icon would have a much nicer appearance and better visibility independent from the used BG-color.

If those 15 KB should be too much, then at least the 16x16 alpha-icon should be added, this will 'cost' only one KB (uncompressed ). But I'd vote to include all sizes.

[Flint]

I agree that the variant with alpha is the best. The new 256-color variant looks better in XP titlebar, but worse in Classic titlebar. So, I just don't see any way of solving the problem except for including the alpha-icon. I hope it will be added.

[Hacker]

I vote for a).

Roman

[Stitscher]

I vote for a).

Me too.

Stitscher

[nsp]

I vote for (c) as i only use classic style and even without explorer as shell...

[HolgerK]

Code: Select all

MainIconSupport* pSupport;
DWORD dwVersion = GetVersion();
 
// Get the Windows version.

DWORD dwWindowsMajorVersion = (DWORD)(LOBYTE(LOWORD(dwVersion)));
DWORD dwWindowsMinorVersion = (DWORD)(HIBYTE(LOWORD(dwVersion)));

if( dwWindowsMajorVersion > 5 || dwWindowsMajorVersion == 5 && dwWindowsMinorVersion >=1 )
      pSupport = &IconA;  // Running XP or better
else
      pSupport = &IconC;  // Sorry, no alpha transparency available

(*pSupport)++;

Holger