Page 1 of 2
Transparent Icon
Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 9:40 pm
by donSHAYA
Hi Everybody
How can you make the background transparent on your icon, instead of having the backround on white? The icon you use on your top-left of the window, and the icon on the Taskbar, and the icon on your desktop. Just like when you double-click on you PureBasic.exe. The PureBasic.exe has a transparent background. How can I do that?
Thank you.
Re: Transparent Icon
Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 9:43 pm
by Arctic Fox
You can use an icon editor application which replaces the white background with a transparent one. You can try out this one
http://icofx.ro/
Re: Transparent Icon
Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 10:20 pm
by donSHAYA
PureBasic won't load the .ico file?
Re: Transparent Icon
Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 10:21 pm
by Arctic Fox
In Compiler Options?
Re: Transparent Icon
Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 10:22 pm
by donSHAYA
It uploads it, but when I execute the program, windows just shows the default windows-icon.
Re: Transparent Icon
Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 10:34 pm
by Arctic Fox
Are you using the right file path (in case you typed it in the path field)?
Re: Transparent Icon
Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 10:39 pm
by donSHAYA
the file path is .ico. The file name is "icon.ico"
I browsed the icon from "Compiler Options"
Even the windows picture-viewer can't read the image. It's maybe becaue I have saved the icon wrong from the program?
Re: Transparent Icon
Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 10:45 pm
by Arctic Fox
If you used IcoFX you can create multiple icon formats in one single file. Load the original icon/image, click the Insert new image button and choose the new format (32-bit needed for transparent icons).
Re: Transparent Icon
Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 10:51 pm
by donSHAYA
Thank you so much

Re: Transparent Icon
Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 11:21 pm
by Arctic Fox
You are very welcome
Does it work now?
Re: Transparent Icon
Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 11:34 pm
by akj
IcoFX seems to be a very good icon editor. I certainly handles transparency more simply than many similar editors and can import/export some useful image formats.
Re: Transparent Icon
Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2009 12:25 am
by Arctic Fox
It is very good indeed, it has lots of features - I have not had any problems with it so far

Re: Transparent Icon
Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2009 12:30 pm
by Vera
Hello,
though I like IcoFx very much myself, I should let you know about troubles with it reported in the german forum last month:
Windows-Frage: Kompilate und ihre Icons...
As far as I understood, the problem was that, on Vista, an icon made with IcoFx would not show up in fullsize as desktop-link if it's the application-icon. (It appeared ok if it was used as manually chosen icon for a link.)
Someone else then found out that, compared with two other icon-programs (Paint.Net and VariIcons), IcoFx reduces the iconsize by 100kb when saving it and this was the reason for the effect. Unfortunately they didn't mention which version they used or tried to find out if it maybe due to a special IcoFx-setting.
greetings ~ Vera
Re: Transparent Icon
Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2009 3:13 pm
by akj
In private emails to me Attila Kovrig, the author of IcoFX, made these comments about the problem reported by Vera:
The problem is not on the side of IcoFX. The problem is with PureBasic. With Windows Vista, Microsoft introduced a new icon format where the 256x256 image is compressed as a png image (resulting in a smaller size). It seems that PureBasic cannot handle this new format . Make sure that "Preferences/Options/Compress 256x256 images for Windows Vista" check box in not checked and then IcoFX will not compress the image when you save it (old format). This will result in a larger icon, but should work fine with older programs that cannot handle the new icon format.
You can also change the icon of an exe after the build process. You can build your application with a temporary icon using PureBasic. Once you have the exe file you can change the icon with a Vista ready icon using the built in resource editor of IcoFX:
http://icofx.ro/tutorials/tutorial5.html
Re: Transparent Icon
Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2009 3:34 pm
by Vera
Dear akj,
thanks a lot for your successful engagement
and preserving IconFxs reputation
I'll post your answer in the german forum as well to set things right
regards ~ Vera