Windows icon SOLVED + Palette Info

[Scott Rossi]

Recently, "Klaus Major"  wrote:

>> You can create icons of any custom 16 colors and have them display
>> properly
>> if the monitor is set to display greater than 256 colors.  If the
>> monitor is
>> set to display 256 colors or less, the colors of the icon will get
>> remapped
>> to the closest matching colors in the minimal Windows palette.
> 
> Oh, sorry for my misinformation.
> 
> I could have sworn... (Good i didn't.)
> 
> In this case i will now have to convince my 2 icon editors to NOT
> convert
> my icons to that namely palette when saving them...?
> 
> IconStudio lets me import a 4 bit gif (that looks ok) and spits out an
> ICO file
> with exactly the (ugly) palette i was talking about...?
> 
> Same with my IconBuilder Pro Plug-in in Photoshop...?
> 
> Any hints?

My approach has been to use an old, old version of MicroAngelo on Win95, an
icon editing package that created icons suitable for use in MC.  I seem to
recall trying to use an updated version but finding that it messed with the
palette somehow, so I went back to the old version.  Alas, that software
resides on a drive that has died and I'm not sure I can resurrect it, but I
would look for this package and give it a shot.

On a related note, for those interested in the Windows core colors, you can
see here:

  http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/wcedesgn/htm/16colorp.gif

Note that when working in Windows, these colors usually must occupy the
first and last 8 slots of a 256 color palette, in a specific order:

1) Black
2) Dark Red
3) Dark Green
4) Dark Yellow
5) Dark Blue
6) Dark Purple
7) Dark Teal
8) Dark Grey
249) Light Grey
250) Red
251) Green
252) Yellow
253) Blue
254) Purple
255) Teal
256) White

Of course this only applies to monitors set to 256 colors; under higher
color settings, palettes are fairly irrelevant.

The bottom line is, MC would do well to support a wider range of icons
moving forward.  This is especially true for XP systems which support large
256 color icons.

Regards,

Scott Rossi
Creative Director
Tactile Media, Multimedia & Design
-----
E: scott at tactilemedia.com
W: http://www.tactilemedia.com