Design tip -- Favicons - that small icon in the address bar.

[ATNO/TW]

January 22nd, 2004, 8:53 pm

Admittedly favicons don't work very well with MSIE browsers even though MS$ was the one who created the idea. God only knows when they'll fix their little glitch with it, but they (favicons) do work consistantly with Mozilla-based browsers.

The details of a favicon can be found here: http://favicon.com/

I'm posting this because I wanted to convert an image file to an icon file (.ico) that I wanted to use both for a desktop shortcut and an icon that I'm using for an application I'm writing at work...(Favicons are the same file format [.ico] as the shorcut images on your desktop and the images on the top left corner of virtually every program you use)

The hard part is finding a good proggy that will convert your image files to an ico file. I finally found it because I had an older version on my older computer and finally did a correct search for it. Believe me when I say this...the Icon Forge link posted on the favicon.com website is probably one of the worst written programs you'll ever want to deal with. I uninstalled and deleted it almost two minutes after I installed it. (P.S. the Icon Forge link was dead when I looked ealier today, but I did find several download links through various searches -- I say again -- not worth your time)

Bottom line, I finally "re-discovered" my favorite converter proggy here:
http://www.qtam-computer.com/bmp2ico35.shtml after I looked at my older version and finally figured it out.

As you can see when you download it, the freeware version will only convert bitmaps to icons whereas the paid-for registered version will convert other file formats. I'm perfectly happy with creating bitmaps. They've all turned out very well so far.

Unfortunately, IE just plain doesn't do the best job of displaying them as they intended. However, it is a really great way to customize your desktop icons. If you are creating an icon for a desktop shortut, I'd suggest doing it at 48x48 pixels (or 64x64). It will resize automatically anyway and maintain good resolution.

Well that's my tip of the day.

[digitalMedia]

January 23rd, 2004, 4:37 am

I use a program called Microangelo. I've used it for years. I don't think it's free, but it allows you to embed many icons into one. 16x16, 32x32, 256 color, millions of colors, etc.

It comes with a cursor studio, so you make animated cursors etc. as well as some other stuff. I believe there is a demo version, and if you don't mind forking over a few bucks (I think I paid $25 for it years ago) it's really good stuff.

[ATNO/TW]

January 23rd, 2004, 6:25 am

Thanks. Looks like it's up to $39.95 now with a 21 day trial. I'll give it a look.

[ATNO/TW]

January 23rd, 2004, 6:23 pm

I mentioned in my initial post that IE has a dificult time dealling with Favicons. The biggest problem seems to be they constantly disappear from your Favorites menu and no longer display in the Address bar like they should. I still haven't found the answer to the address bar, but I did discover a solution to the Favorites menu.

The glitch appears to be that the IE "version" of the favicons is not stored "permanently". Apparently when they expire from the Temporary Internet Files folder or you clear your temporary folders they go away.

I discovered this evening a little proggy that finds and restores them and makes them permanent. (I've tried steps one and two, but it might take me a few weeks to confirm they still hang around).

Here is an incredibly good article from PC magazine regarding the issue:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,9883,00.asp FavOrg completely seemed to resolve the Favicon in the Favorites issue, but still didn't find any thing that would explain why the favicon didn't show up in the address bar. I'll keep looking for that.

In the meantime here's the proggy that will fix the favicons on your favorites menu:

http://www.pctip.ch/downloads/dl/18699.asp

I'm sure most of you are like me and don't understand German so here's the Google Translation

*Side note - my first attempt to download this was from the download link at the end of the PC Mag article, but it sorta pissed me off that I couldn't download it from there without subscribing first since it appeared to be freeware. So I went searching and found a half dozen or so downloads that were freely available. The one I posted above was the quickest and easiest. To the best of my knowledge I've done my best to research this and make sure it was truly a freeware proggy. There are no cracks or hacks involved. If any mod or Bigwebmaster feels otherwise feel free to edit my post to remove the download links.

Anyway -- the proggy did what it claimed it could do. I now have all those cool little favicons back on my favorites list.

[ATNO/TW]

January 25th, 2004, 12:09 am

Finally found the answer to the address bar glitch here:

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum21/7024.htm

Quote:

Just a tip, IE caches the favicon so if you change it you'll have a hard time seeing the new one even if you clear your IE cache IIRC. Also, you can't see the favicon when you first visit the site, so a trick is to partially drag the 'e' icon out of the address bar and let go your mouse button, THat'll cause it to refresh and you can see it. Konqueror and Mozilla will show it automatically. Also, I've found photoshop best for creating favicons. The online tools aren't that great cos you dont get dithering etc.

January 26th, 2004, 9:51 pm

Quote:

The hard part is finding a good proggy that will convert your image files to an ico file.

I came across a web page last week that suggested that other graphics formats were supported. Sorry I don't have a link... on dial-up tonight.

January 29th, 2004, 5:56 pm

i use jpg and it works for Opera and Moz. Opera even shows the icon in full size when switching pages.

May 13th, 2005, 8:36 am

Maybe I didn't read all of this thread, I thought I did, but once you have created an icon, how do you actually get it to appear on a Web site? What's the HTML?

Thanks in advance,
Sean

[ATNO/TW]

May 13th, 2005, 10:15 am

Here you go:

Line number On/Off

Code: Select all

<LINK REL="SHORTCUT ICON" HREF="http://www.mydomain.com/myicon.ico">

May 20th, 2005, 1:50 pm

For Mac OS X users, there's an excellent shareware program called Iconographer that can open and save .ico files along with many other formats. It even has some painting/drawing tools to make an icon from scratch, but I prefer to use Photoshop for that.

http://www.mscape.com/products/iconographer.html

June 6th, 2005, 4:13 pm

Quote:

Also, I've found photoshop best for creating favicons

I didn't know it was possible to create icons in Photoshop. How is it done? Or is this just refering to using a jpeg instead of a icon?

June 6th, 2005, 4:28 pm

Captain-Nick wrote:

Quote:

Also, I've found photoshop best for creating favicons

I didn't know it was possible to create icons in Photoshop. How is it done? Or is this just refering to using a jpeg instead of a icon?

From a fresh install, Photoshop does not have the ability to save files as .ico. You can easily find a plug-in that allows you to save files as .ico, though. Search google.

(as for the actual creating of icons... you can do that in any program you choose)

I searched it for you, first results that came up: http://www.telegraphics.com.au/sw/

June 7th, 2005, 8:31 am

Thanks.

July 8th, 2005, 4:30 am

Without doubt the best icon tools out there are:

Any to Icon

Icon to Any

These are usually packaged with

Art Cursors and

ArtIcon Pro

July 8th, 2005, 12:18 pm

Big online favicon maker and favicon editor - Make favicons and desktop icons from any types of images and edit them in

http://favicon.ru/en/