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by Maxim in 2000

maxim@mwos.cjb.net

http://mwos.cjb.net


 Introduction 


The growth of >16 colour icons took place after most of the world had switched to Win95. This is why there are very few 16-bit icon editors that can handle 8- and 24-bit icons.

Strictly speaking, this isn't one either. You probably have a perfectly good image editor, and Delphi is pretty useless for making one. So, this program just takes a standard 4-, 8- or 24-bit bitmap and converts it into an icon.


 How to use it 


1. Don't run it yet! You've got to make your icon in another program first. I would recommend Paint Shop Pro 3.12 - you can get it from my website (http://mwos.cjb.net/custom/software).

2. Create a 32x32 image. It can be 4-, 8- or 24-bit (which is 16, 256 or 16 million colours). Make sure it is the right size. You don't have to use the standard palettes.

3. THIS IS IMPORTANT! Make the bits that you want transparent BLACK - that's red 0, green 0, blue 0. Otherwise you get ugly inversion and stuff going on. That means black must be in the palette if it's not 24-bit. If you don't want transparency then don't worry about this.

4. Save it as a .bmp file - no compression! (ie. don't choose anything resembling "compression" or "RLE".)

5. Run bmp2ico.exe. When you run it, you see this (ascii screenshot time!):

 ___________________________________________
|-|      Bitmap to icon converter       |,|^|
|^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^|
|  ___  ___  ___  ___                       |  1 = open
| | 1 || 2 || 3 || 4 |  Original image:     |  2 = auto
| |___||___||___||___| x,y                  |      transparency
|  _______________________________________  |  3 = clear
| |                                       | |      transparency
| |                                       | |  4 = save
| |                                       | |
| |                                       | |
| |                                       | |
| |                                       | |
| |                                       | |
| |                                       | |
| |                                       | |
| |                                       | |
| |                                       | |
| |                                       | |
| |                                       | |
| |                                       | |
| |_______________________________________| |
|___________________________________________|

6. Click on the Open button. You'll be asked for your .bmp, which will load in the big box that takes up most of the window.

7. You can now draw on this with your mouse. The left mouse button will place a cyan (light turquoisey blue) pixel, which corresponds to a pixel that will be transparent in the final icon. You can only place these over black pixels, like I said before. Of course, you can leave black pixels uncovered.

8. If you make a mistake, the right mouse button turns the transparency pixels back off again.

9. Alternatively, just click on the auto transparency button. This will set every black pixel to transparent. If you have some black pixels you want to show then uncover them.

10. You can also click on the clear transparency button to, well, clear the transparency.

11. When you finish, click on the save button. It'll ask for a filename, and will create the icon. You can look at it easily with Calmira - press F5 to refresh the file window.


 Q&A 


Q. Can't you put in a proper image editor?
A. Nope. Delphi sucks at making them and PSP is great and free.

Q. I think you should put in an undo feature.
A. I don't. Basically, this would be difficult, resource hungry and difficult. Three good reasons not to do it as far as I'm concerned.

Q. Hey, that last one wasn't a question, it was a statement. Why'd you put "Q."?
A. Hey, I can do what I want, it's my readme.

Q. How come I can't paint on some of the image? The pixels look black to me!
A. Ah, but they aren't absolutely black. I did make this point before, but you obvoiusly weren't listening, so here it is again. The bits you want transparent must be black = rgb 0,0,0 = #000000 = $00000000. Enough colour formats for you? Don't forget to make sure it's in the palette for 4- and 8-bit images (or do what I do and just work in 24-bit).

Q. How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb?
A. Two. One to hold the giraffe and the other to fill the bathtub with brightly colored machine tools.

Q. Why the rubbish joke?
A. Ach, I dunno.

Q. I deleted the BMP before creating the icon. Then it didn't work. Why?
A. The program works with the raw bitmap data directly from the file, so don't do a silly thing like what you just did.

Q. What are all these bitmaps that came with it?
A. They're some of the good ones I came up with while testing. You might want to give them a go to try out the program. Psycho Fox came from Meka (http://www.smspower.org), Scratchy from KGen, Gromit from a TV grab, and Earth from Webshots. All four are probably copyrighted, but never mind.

Q. I have a suggestion...
A. OK, mail me at maxim@mwos.cjb.net.



 One more thing... 


You use this at your own risk. It shouldn't be able to break anything but still, it ain't my fault if it does.

Made with Eels:

"My beloved monster and me,
We go everywhere together;
Wearing a raincoat that has four sleeves,
Gets us through all kinds of weather"