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The Alpha Software Forum Participation Guidelines

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Bonus TIPS for Successful Posting

Try a Search First
It is highly recommended that a Search be done on your topic before posting, as many questions have been answered in prior posts. As with any search engine, the shorter the search term, the more "hits" will be returned, but the more specific the search term is, the greater the relevance of those "hits". Searching for "table" might well return every message on the board while "tablesum" would greatly restrict the number of messages returned.

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Custom toolbar bitmaps

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    Custom toolbar bitmaps

    Hi everyone,

    I'm creating toolbar buttons for a new application and I just can't find the button face I'm looking for in A5's built-in list of 16x16 bitmaps. I have searched this message board and the Internet for toolbar button bitmaps (a library of them would be nice) and can't find anything, which I can't believe. What is everyone else using when they need custom 16x16 toolbar buttons? Do I have to buy an icon editor and make my own bitmaps?

    TIA
    Eric Matthews

    #2
    RE: Custom toolbar bitmaps

    Eric:

    I fooled around with this a bit before I got too busy to have fun with it anymore.

    I used bitmaps. An icon editor can be used but then you have to convert it to a bitmap. (If there is another way, I don't know it.) I have a nice (very cheap) icon editor called Microangelo (my favorite name for a program) and I remember I would design an icon there, open it in Corel Photopaint and save as a bitmap.

    So when you ask "Do I have to buy an icon editor and make my own bitmaps?" for me the answer was yes. I'd love to know if others have come up with a better solution. The one thing I've gained from the little I've done in this area is a respect for the graphic artists who design icons!

    Bill
    Bill Hanigsberg

    Comment


      #3
      RE: Custom toolbar bitmaps

      Eric,
      Bill is right. The best way to create custom icons is to use some type of graphics editor and make your own. I use Adobe Photoshop since I have it loaded for other purposes. Even if you find pre made icons, they may not display with transparent backgrounds. Some time ago, I posted some information on transparent bitmaps in the code archive. Search by "transparent bitmap" and you will see a way to create bitmaps that display correctly.

      Jerry

      Comment


        #4
        RE: Custom toolbar bitmaps

        Thank you for the responses.

        I was REALLY hoping for a library or something that I could just plug in but I see now that isn't a reality. So be it.

        Now I'm stuck between two choices. I would like to use the small, nice "Office"-like icons that A5 has in its' internal list but the list is limited. The second choice is to import a custom bitmap for a toolbar button - the button is large and clumpy but at least it's the picture you want. I'm not sure which compromise to accept. I could almost live with the custom bitmap "preschool" size buttons but the button seperator is still small as if the small size buttons were there.

        Has anyone else made this difficult choice? I'd love to see how others are doing this (maybe a screen shot of a program written in Alpha Five on a web page somewhere...)

        Thx,
        Eric

        Comment


          #5
          RE: Custom toolbar bitmaps

          Eric,
          There are a lot of shareware programs to "borrow" icons from other programs. I have used IconThief which I got from someware, probably ZDNet. Most will allow you to resave the icon as a bitmap and then you can go into any photo editor and change the background color. I was surprised how many icons can be found both in windows and other applications. Usually you can find something that will work with a little effort. If not, then take an existing bitmap and reduce it in size to 36 x 36 pixels which is the size of a standard toolbar bitmap. Sometimes, the object is still recognizable at that size.

          Jerry

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