XYplorer Beta Club

There is bad quality icon resizing for custom toolbar button icons. For example, here you can see the globe icon from shell32.dll and it looks bad in XYplorer's toolbar [looks pixelated and lumpy]. Compare that to the true quality of the original icon in the window. Can this be fixed?

BTW: I'm on Windows 7.



EDIT:

would it be possible to add better image resizing for the icons in XYplorer? such as bicubic which would give high quality resizing. that would also fix the problem...



compare to current low quality...

I know and can't help it.

Don recently mentioned that "Multi-icon resources are not supported. Extract the 24*24 icon as single icon resource".
So, i guess extracting the globe icon from shell32.dll should make the quality better.

serendipity wrote:Don recently mentioned that "Multi-icon resources are not supported. Extract the 24*24 icon as single icon resource".
So, i guess extracting the globe icon from shell32.dll should make the quality better.

Perhaps that's an improvement for the future. Multi-icon resources are not a rarity and 24*24 isn't a standard size that features in them, so one has to recreate an icon instead of simply extracting it.

zer0 wrote:

serendipity wrote:Don recently mentioned that "Multi-icon resources are not supported. Extract the 24*24 icon as single icon resource".
So, i guess extracting the globe icon from shell32.dll should make the quality better.

Perhaps that's an improvement for the future. Multi-icon resources are not a rarity and 24*24 isn't a standard size that features in them, so one has to recreate an icon instead of simply extracting it.

so are you saying that even if i extracted the icons from shell32.dll, it would still be a problem because xyplorer uses non-standard sized icons?

btw: how do i extract icons?

TsunamiZ wrote:

zer0 wrote:

serendipity wrote:Don recently mentioned that "Multi-icon resources are not supported. Extract the 24*24 icon as single icon resource".
So, i guess extracting the globe icon from shell32.dll should make the quality better.

Perhaps that's an improvement for the future. Multi-icon resources are not a rarity and 24*24 isn't a standard size that features in them, so one has to recreate an icon instead of simply extracting it.

so are you saying that even if i extracted the icons from shell32.dll, it would still be a problem because xyplorer uses non-standard sized icons?

btw: how do i extract icons?

Resampling a 32x32 graphic to 24x24 will always reduce the quality. But looking at your globe icon example I would say better results should be possible.

TsunamiZ wrote:so are you saying that even if i extracted the icons from shell32.dll, it would still be a problem because xyplorer uses non-standard sized icons?

btw: how do i extract icons?

If you extract an icon and have it be an ICO file that is 24*24 then you shouldn't encounter icon quality issues. This can only be done with a 3rd-party tool though (I use IcoFX, for example), so the output may depend on how good is the tool that you use.

dont windows icons come in a variety of sizes already? would it be just a matter of targeting the right size in the icon path?

would it be possible to add high quality icon resizing internally to xyplorer? so that we don't have to create extra icon files on our hard drive to workaround this problem?

TsunamiZ wrote:dont windows icons come in a variety of sizes already? would it be just a matter of targeting the right size in the icon path?

That's where a possible improvement can be made --> being able to use an appropriately-sized icon in a multi-icon resource.

TsunamiZ wrote:would it be possible to add high quality icon resizing internally to xyplorer? so that we don't have to create extra icon files on our hard drive to workaround this problem?

Technically, there's no problem. Icons that can be used for CTBs are required to conform to a certain size. One can either use existing icons and make do with imperfect scaling or one can use a free tool to create high-quality icons of the required size. Both of those may be inconveniences, but they are not problems. I believe if XYplorer will use more "standard" icon size and will be able to make use of multi-icon resources then both of those inconveniences will be eradicated.

currently in xyplorer, we have to specify the icon path such as

C:\Windows\System32\shell32.dll /20

but is there some code that can be added to the end to target the 24*24 size version in shell32.dll?

TsunamiZ wrote:currently in xyplorer, we have to specify the icon path such as

C:\Windows\System32\shell32.dll /20

but is there some code that can be added to the end to target the 24*24 size version in shell32.dll?

There's a 24*24 size version in shell32.dll? I never heard of this.

Generally: Sure I could spend some time into improving icon handling for custom toolbar buttons, but you know, I have to set priorities...

TsunamiZ wrote:but is there some code that can be added to the end to target the 24*24 size version in shell32.dll?

No use, there are no 24*24 icons in shell32.dll. Microsoft recommends sizes of 16*16, 32*32 and 48*48 (at minimum). The only place where 24*24 icons are used is the Start menu, that's why such size is not standard.

would this problem be easier to fix if xyplorer adds an option to use the more standard 32*32 or 16*16 icons by default instead of 24*24? that would also allow us to choose between a larger or more compact toolbar.

i use the custom toolbar buttons a lot--mainly for making favorites buttons. and that means a lot of customizing, updating, changing of icons when my folders change. clicking on favorites buttons in the toolbar is what im used to, from using web browsers and also from my previous file manager. its a lot quicker to go to a favorite when we can just 1-click on the toolbar button versus the current "click>movecursor>click" approach of the drop down menu. so if the custom icon system can be improved, it would eliminate a lot of the current inconveniences.

TsunamiZ wrote:would this problem be easier to fix if xyplorer adds an option to use the more standard 32*32 or 16*16 icons by default instead of 24*24? that would also allow us to choose between a larger or more compact toolbar.

Err...yes, that's what I have suggested already Potentially, TB icon size should be configurable, because with resolutions of 1920*1200 and beyond even 32*32 just won't do. But like I said, such functionality would be an improvement that will undoubtedly come

anyone know if this issue is fixed in the 8.80.x beta? i read something about icons changes but not sure if it's this problem...