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"favicon.ico" creation

Started by Ben, 2011.04.19, 21:37:18

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Ben

One of the big problems that I have with OS/2 graphics software, (most of them are powerful enough), is in reducing an image to the 16x16 file size required for the favicon.ico used in the root of HTTP servers... you know, the little graphic that shows up in the corner of a Firefox tab that is the websites logo?

The problem is in getting an image to reduce to the required size while still being legible.

I have seen many, many, excellent micro-graphics, (my term), that are incredibly clear at that severe a reduction. I suspect that those making them are using Photoshop or equivalent, which will not run under any flavour of OS/2.

The best way that I have found is to make the base image really large... the reduction quality is then maximized within the limitations of OS/2 graphics software that is, but really, even that is crap!

Has any had any better success in this arena?

IBManners

#1
Hi Ben,

A lot of the graphics that are used for favicon.ico are actually a lot bigger, they are reduced
in size by your browser.  I figure they are bigger due to the large number of people that do
not know any better, so all the main browsers automatically resize them, easier that listening
to people complaining that they cant see thier own graphics in a particular web browser.

I just checked spamcop's because that page happened to be open. 32x32 pixels.
http://members.spamcop.net/favicon.ico

This one is 256 x 256 pixels.
http://www.watoday.com.au/favicon.ico

Cheers
I am the computer, it is me.

warpcafe

#2
Hi,

FWIW... back when I did some more website stuff I used to use "MicroAngelo" (win-based freeware IIRC).
I checked tons of tools back then and this was creating impressive scale-downs even from larger originals.

IBManners: Sorry for the watoday and spamcop examples, but these are not on-the-fly "scaled-down" representations of larger pictures.
A standard scale-down would result in a smaller representation of the SAME picture while in your examples, the small pics are whole different from the large pics (i.e. they show a different graphic). with these ICO files instead, the browser picks the 16x16 image from the list of formats contained in the ico file.  (Sorry if that is what you said and I simply got you wrong...)

A lot of people tend to forget that "ico" is not a graphics file format - it's a "container" format to put it that way.
It can contain multiple images which differ by size, resolution and also actual picture. An application using the ICO can decide which one to pick, depending on size and color-depth. This is also true for OS/2's WPS:
Watch for programs that have an icon on the desktop and what is displayed in their titlebars when they're run. Both pictures are contained in the same .ico file.

Basically, my experience is:
You can do a whole lot of good stuff with only 16x16 pixels. But not, if you also only have 16 colors. ;)
Make sure you've got 256 colors (at least) at hand, otherwise you'll not be able to create anything close to pretty.

Hope this helps, cheers,
Thomas
"It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority.
By definition, there are already enough people to do that"
- G.H. Hardy

Ben

Lots of good information there that I did not know and I thank you for it.

I don't know if "MicroAngelo" will run in a WinOS2 session, or maybe ODIN... I'll give both a try. If not I'll try it in VPC; I do not have a copy of Windows installed anywhere.

I always use the maximum colour count that is available on the graphics software that I use, so here that will not affect any graphics.

Still, I would rather use an OS/2 based solution... if any are available that is... and I'm beginning to suspect that in this case, there isn't one.


ivan

Hi Ben,

Just a thought.  Have you tried the Gimp to see if it will do what you want?  I'm not at homw at the moment so I can't try it and I don't remember where I got the OS/2 port of it from.

ivan

Ben

Oh, yes. That old thing.

I installed it a few years back, but never got around to trying it...

When I upgraded to eCS 2.0 HobLink X11 no longer worked... however I have found a work around for that.

So...

I'll give da GIMP a go and see how well that reduces.

Thanks for the tip.


warpcafe

Hi ben,

other than that... there are some favicon editors online:

and of course, there are Java flavors of them (not sure about the JRE version required though - the one below appears to work with 1.4):

HTH, Thomas
"It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority.
By definition, there are already enough people to do that"
- G.H. Hardy

isycoed

Why do you not let the browser do the hard work and use a command such as <link rel="icon" href="artcol.jpg" type="image/jpg" alt="Colleges of Fine Art">

Regards
Derrick

IBManners

#8
Hi,

http://www.watoday.com.au/favicon.ico was a bad example,

look at http://www.comkal.net/ and http://www.os2site.com

I have <link rel="shortcut icon" href="http://www.os2site.com/favicon.ico">
in my index.html file, and all icons were created with PMView. You can as far
as I'm aware also use png and other graphics formats now in the modern
browsers but I'd stick to ico format personally.

Also noticed that Mozilla and IE 7/8 products display 32, 64, 128 pixel square
favicons fine though for speed I wouldn't go past 64 pixels.


Cheers
Ian
I am the computer, it is me.

RobertM

Quote from: isycoed on 2011.04.22, 12:19:55
Why do you not let the browser do the hard work and use a command such as <link rel="icon" href="artcol.jpg" type="image/jpg" alt="Colleges of Fine Art">

Regards
Derrick

Not safe for certain versions of IE... like the version most prominently used by IE users...  :-\


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Ben

I have tried letting the browser do the resizing and that works well enough here on Firefox 4.0.

I haven't tried it with IE under VPC yet, but I will.

I have downloaded MicroAngelo... not freeware, but shareware, but that's going to take sometime to install, (Windows only), and run through, so I'll give it a go this weekend.

I'd like to have the icon sized correctly, (I have other reasons for finding a good resizer as well), rather than have the browser do it, especially if there are browser compatibility problems, so I'll find a way eventually... all need is the time, or a bit of luck in finding what I need to do the job.

I'll give the JAVA program a go too, under the same conditions.

I gave GIMP a try, but that has a bit of a learning curve and crashed a great deal. Also, there are issues with the mouse going off to the left, (or right), if the window is moved. I'll learn a bit more about GIMP over time and it might be a solution for the long term, but not immediately.

I did, however, manage to create a simple image with it and I downsized it... it was OK, (not great), but I didn't do anything special with it, just scaled it down. I'm sure there are lots of configuration options and adjustments to improve that, but like I said, that's will be done slowly over time.

PMView I have been using for years... pre version 1.0 in fact, while it was still in first beta... (it was one of the first OS/2 programs that I ever bought), so I know well what its abilities are... and its limitations. It will downscale most things well enough... to a point, but really-tiny it does not do well.


RobertM

Re: PMView and scaling.

There's a trick I used to (and still occasionally) use. I create the icon in Icon Editor (or resize it with PMView, and then touch it up in Icon Editor), save it, then use PMView to convert it to the proper non-OS/2 icon format.

I did that on the favicon here, if memory serves:
http://www.startreknewvoyages.com/


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Kirk's 5 Year Mission Continues at:
Star Trek New Voyages
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